"Radio Parade of 1935." At the Regal ONE object of
this British International production is to introduce to the screen public a large number of popular radio stars. Another object is to satirise the " National Broadcasting Group," represented as an organization wholly -out of touch with average taste and controlled by a Director- General who sits in a room full of portraits of himself and receives homage from a staff of personal assistants drawn exclusively from the higher ranks of the Army. The Director- General is played by Mr. Will Hay, and all this part of the film would be unpleasantly vulgar if it were not too crude— and often too feeble—to be taken very seriously.
The story—concerned with the efforts of the Complaints Manager (Clifford Mollison) to improve the programmes, which of course means the introduction of unlimited jazz— is ingeniously contrived to introduce a series of well-known radio turns, and various complications arise from the hostility of the head of a Theatre Trust who wants to suppress broadcast competition. His plans are foiled by the arrival of an inventor with a marvellous scheme for open-air television, and there is an elaborate final sequence in colour, using the new Dufay system, though not with complete success. The colours are good, but outlines are apt to be a little blurred.
The turns and concerted numbers vary considerably in merit, but the best of them are effectively put over ; and the film has enough movement and melody, combined with its wealth of radio talent, to ensure success with a large public. But it is definitely not a picture for sophisticated tastes. "
CIIARLES DAVY. •
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