I See Ice **** (1938, George Formby, Kay Walsh, Betty Stockfield, Cyril Ritchard, Garry Marsh) – Classic Movie Review 3819

Writer-director Anthony Kimmins cashes in on the popular of ice-skating in 1938 and casts iconic ukulele player and movie star George Formby as a props man in an ice ballet company, ironically called George Bright. The British public of the day loved the film and Formby.

On 7 June 2016 it was revealed that HM The Queen loves Formby too. She is a fan of his music and can sing all of his songs, with his Leaning on a Lamp-post among her all-time top ten tracks. Written by Noel Gay, it was first performed in Formby’s 1937 film Feather Your Nest.

In Kimmins’s I See Ice story, gormless George invents a bow-tie camera and pictures robbers in the act, which lands him a job as a Fleet Street newspaper photographer. In a packed plot, he also falls for ice skater Judy Gaye (played by Kay Walsh), gets locked up in jail and referees an ice-hockey match.

Formby is on near his very best blundering form in this vintage British comedy that provides a lot of good simple fun, with the bonus of the ice-show scenes, which valuably document a long-lost social phenomenon of a far-ago era.

The songs include the classic ‘In My Little Snapshot Album’, plus ‘Mother What’ll I Do Now?’ and ‘Noughts And Crosses’.

Roddy McDowall, aged 10, pops up in his film debut as a kid. Also in the cast are Betty Stockfield, Cyril Ritchard, Garry Marsh, Frederick Burtwell, Gordon McLeod, Ernest Sefton, Archibald Batty, Frank Leighton, Ernest Joy, Ernest Borrow, Dominick Sterlini, Laura Smithson, Andrea Malandrinos and Esma Cannon.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3819

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