The Ice Follies of 1939 ** (1939, Joan Crawford, James Stewart, Lew Ayres, Lewis Stone) – Classic Movie Review 7665

Joan Crawford and James Stewart are on ice in director Reinhold Schunzel 1939 musical Ice Follies of 1939 – and it’s all in a day’s work for the stars at MGM. But not good work – the stars could not skate!

Stewart plays struggling impresario Larry, who aims at a carnival on ice, while his wife Mary (Crawford) aims at the movies, winning a Hollywood contract. Completing the showbiz triangle, Lew Ayres is the third star forced to get his skates on as Eddie Burgess. Lewis Stone plays Douglas Tolliver Jr, who helps out the troubled married couple by giving Larry (Stewart) work in movie production.

This empty-headed musical is made in black and white, unfortunately, but there is a quarter-hour Technicolor Cinderella ice ballet climax, which is more than worth all the rest of the film. ‘Follies’ is right. Even if Ice Follies of 1939 had been a good idea, the script and direction are poor.

‘It stinks,’ Crawford said, and her singing début didn’t happen: ‘It was sabotage,’ she added, as four of her songs were cut and the other remaining two were dubbed. The public stayed away; it was her most resounding failure.

This film was dreamt up by Louis B Mayer to try to cash in on ice skating star Sonja Henie’s success at a rival studio. The screenplay was written to accommodate the idea that the three stars could not skate. But there is proper skating. The International Ice Follies play the Ice Skating Troupe.

Also in the cast are Lionel Stander as Mort Hodges, Bess Ehrhardt as Kitty Sherman, Roy Shipstad (Ice Follies skater), Eddie Shipstad (Ice Follies skater), Oscar Johnson (Ice Follies skater), Truman Bradley, Marie Blake, Charles Williams, Eddy Conrad, Arthur Loft, Charles D Brown, Mary Forbes, James Flavin, Edward Earle, Joe Manz and Hal K Dawson.

Crawford and Stewart previously appeared in The Gorgeous Hussy (1936). Happily, Stewart went on Mr Smith Goes to Washington and Crawford to The Women. 

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7665

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