The Ice Follies of 1939

Plot synopsis:
Larry Hall (James Stewart) and Eddie Burgess (Lew Ayres) have a successful skating act until Larry falls in love with Mary McKay (Joan Crawford), an inept skater whom Larry insists upon including in the act. Fired from job after job because of Mary's ineptitude, Larry keeps up his spirits by dreaming of producing a colossal ice show. Following their latest dismissal, the couple elope, and Mary, feeling guilty for damaging her husband's career, convinces Douglas Tolliver, Jr. (Lewis Stone), the head of Monarch Studios, to offer her a movie contract.
While reading the fine print of the contract, Mary discovers that she is forbidden to marry without the studio's permission, and Larry convinces her to keep their marriage a secret. Meanwhile, Eddie is disappointed with how distracted Larry has become and leaves town. After his wife's first picture catapults her to stardom, Larry finds himself relegated to the position of househusband and leaves for New York in hopes of producing his ice extravaganza.
In New York, Larry is reunited with Eddie in the office of producer Mort Hodges, who raises the money to make Larry's dream a reality. Larry's Ice Follies becomes a smash hit, and with husband and wife now equal in stature, Mary and Larry hope to revive their marriage. When they discover that they are still separated by the demands of their careers, however, Mary publicly announces that she is forsaking her career to return to a life of domesticity. The dilemma of their conflicting careers is finally bridged when Tolliver hires Larry to produce a musical film on ice starring his wife, thus uniting their personal and professional lives.

Tags: melodrama

Review:
With Sonia Henie making millions for 20th Century Fox in her kitschy skating musicals, Metro imported (at no small cost) the famed International Ice Follies and paired them with Crawford, one of their top-ranked, but skidding, stars.
She, James Stewart, and Lew Ayres, seem to be walking through their roles in a most obvious case of movie-making by the numbers, with a plot that is nothing but insulting to its audience.This is not to say that certain pleasures can't be found in the film, if you want to take the time to look.
Joan is as beautiful as ever and the Ice Follies finale (in which Joan does NOT skate) looks great in Technicolor.
Happily and ironically, it was this film's total failure that brought Crawford one of her best screen roles, that of Crystal Allen in George Cukor's THE WOMEN.
Reckless and with a feeling of nothing to lose, Crawford went after that unsympathetic part with a vengeance, AGAINST the advice of LB Mayer, who said it would finish her (but then again, what did HE know.....he LIKED the idea of this one!!)Not nearly as interesting as either THE BRIDE WORE RED (1937) or THE SHINING HOUR (1938), Crawford's other box-office flops of the period, this one is strictly for Crawford or Stewart completists..
This is one of those horrible films that sounds so bizarre it holds the promise of actually being good in a bad way when one finally finds it on television.
The whole notion of Stewart and Crawford as ice skating stars is hilarious.
He tries to create the first Ice Follies and she (quite easily!) becomes a major film star.
(One scene has her in a kooky art deco headdress which makes her look like a parking meter come to life.) This film is of note these days primarily because it's the film "Joan" is being made up for at the beginning of "Mommie Dearest".
Stewart&Crawford&Ayres On Ice. Ice Follies of 1939 involves a trio of professional skaters, Joan Crawford, James Stewart, and Lew Ayres who have some creative differences and the act breaks up temporarily.
Interesting to see them and Sonja and compare them to Nancy Kerrigan or Johnny Weir or the infamous Tonya Harding.Fortunately the next films for Stewart and Crawford were, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The Women.
While Jimmy Stewart was NOT an established star in 1939 and can't be blamed for appearing in such an awful film, you wonder how one of MGM's biggest stars could get hooked into this awful mess!
Even Joan's later super-low budget films like TROG and BERSERK are amazingly competent films compared to THE ICE FOLLIES OF 1939!
Imagine Stewart and Crawford cast as ice follies skaters!
My assumption is that Fox's Sonja Henie movies must have been box office smashes for MGM to try to cash in on this ice skating craze in such a cheap and haphazard fashion.Now if you remove the silly ice follies elements, you still are left with an incredibly terrible film.
The movie actually made my entire family cringe at the terrible clichés--especially when the film tried to rip off A STAR IS BORN.
How Crawford was "discovered" and became a star was totally ludicrous--and had the worst "discovery scene" in film history.
It really looked like every rotten cliché about film-making was thrown into a goulash-like mess of a film--including the (uggh) ending where the studio makes Stewart a producer and director--even though his greatest prior success was directing and skating in an ice follies show!
Widely considered the worst film Joan Crawford made at MGM (it must have been a low point for James Stewart too, yet it forms no part of the lore about his long career) this is a real curiosity.
It has the sort of B-movie plot Sonja Henie was getting in her hugely successful skating pictures at Fox, but this one is done with an A-budget.
And because the stars can't skate, it is essentially two pictures in one -- a skating 'spectacular' featuring anonymous athletes which prefigures the ice-skating arena shows we know so well, and a soap opera about a two career couple who can't make their marriage work.Forget trying to figure out how a major film from the most meticulous of studios could be such a hodgepodge.
In the early scenes Crawford is actually more relaxed and likable than in other pictures from this period, though this changes once her character signs a movie contract.
The idea of Crawford playing a star makes perfect sense and one wonders why no one thought of it before.
(But can someone explain why some of Max Steiner's score from GONE WITH THE WIND is played during Joan's drunk scene?) And in gorgeous three-strip Technicolor she looks at once terrifically glamorous and hard as nails.
Joan took singing lessons for years (her thin, unpleasant voice is briefly heard) and Macdonald had already been in one color film and was about to do another at a time when Technicolor carried the prestige of novelty and expense.
Especially jarring is the sight of Joan Crawford in a jet-black Hedy Lamarr "do"; this is one instance where Joan's Madonna-like talent for following trends misfired.(She very nearly achieves a Carolyn Jones-as-Morticia look!) JC fans do get a consolation prize in the color sequence, in which Joan's natural coloring is seen to lovely advantage.
After some exciting ice-skating scenes, the best part of this movie is the charming interplay between and among the characters.
Lew Ayres has what seems to be for him a very different type of role, and his and Jimmy Stewart's characters have some dialogue that is often funny.
Joan Crawford, of the gorgeous legs, was a noted dancer, and it's surprising, at least to me, that she didn't skate -- and, with her legs, it's disappointing, too.
This harmless piece of fluff is moderately interesting for reasons having nothing to do with its intentions, which must have been to tap into the lucrative ice skating fan base that was packing theatres to see Sonia Henie in 20th Century Fox features at the time.
This opus does have a stellar cast (Joan Crawford, James Stewart, Lew Ayres, Lewis Stone) all at their best even though utterly wasted and a vivid Technicolor ice show sequence at the end in which we get to see the above-mentioned personages in color.
Well, it's about nothing much and was a good example of why Joan Crawford's career wasn't a bed of roses, even though she triumphed in THE WOMEN the same year.
I really like the Lew Ayres character in "Ice Follies of 1939." His hapless "Take-it-on-the-Chin" wisecracker adds needed dimension to an abbreviated screen play of the "Rags-to-Riches Coney Island" plot.There are really no great "Lessons to live by" here, as we may find in other films of this ilk and during this period.
Seems as though MGM had decided to film a skating show featuring performers who do not act, and to modify it with a fill-in plot centering around actors who do not skate.Why not star resident beauty Joan Crawford with the up-and-coming James Stewart and young veteran actor Lew Ayres?
Joan could then do at least one customary weeping scene, while James could add his token "Yippie!" routine, which seems mandated of his 1930's appearances."Ice Follies of 1939" may work a little more readily than it seems to do if its plot weren't as overdone as it were during its release decade.
We don't know why these two care for each other, but Lew generally conveys his character's feelings through his bouncing around a room--most of them very small here, at least for him.In at least two regards, "Ice Follies of 1939" seems dramatically incorrect: first in respect to the studio contract handed to Joan's character and response to her announcement one year later.
The film proceeds from there, launching from black & white into Technicolor, which signifies that 1939 may have lasted longer than 12 months, according to this.On a couple of additional positive notes, this film contains interesting figure skating routines by "The International Ice Follies" and, especially, its male solo skaters.
He puts on his own ice show.Joan Crawford was 34 (according to her) when she made this film with 31-year-old James Stewart.
This is the film that she was making at the beginning of "Mommie Dearest," by the way."Ice Follies of 1939" was an attempt, I think, to cash in on the interest in figure skating and ice shows, thanks to that little Norwegian, Sonja Henie, who was making skating films over at 20th Century Fox.The story concerns a young couple, Larry McCall and Mary McKay (Stewart and Crawford) who work in a show as ice skaters along with Stewart's old partner Eddie (Lew Ayres).
The thing is, after watching the film for a while, where there has been just a bit of skating, it's a surprise that these scenes go on and on.
The script itself is completely formulaic and predictable and not worthy of any of the stars.Stewart and Crawford don't make the best couple.
I liked much of this obscure movie, The Ice Follies of 1939.
He plays an ice skating producer who gets fired from his latest show along with his star, Joan Crawford, and his partner, Lew Ayres.
They're bumped by a big-time movie producer, Lewis Stone, from whom Ms. Crawford manages to get a contract with.
There's some funny scenes like that of Stewart, Ayres, and Crawford reading her script or when a couple of them encounters Lionel Stander-who I know best from "Hart to Hart" as their butler, Max-as a promoter who's broke.
I can only imagine that when Joan Crawford,then a reigning star at MGM was handed this script, she asked,"Seriously,LB?" Let's face it, the only reason this awful mess was made was GREED.
Joan Crawford and Jimmy Stewart as a couple (no way) of skaters(no way) that get married and end up temporarily separating because she becomes a BIG MOVIE STAR within moments of meeting a movie mogul!
Fortunately, Jimmy Stewart also survived this horror.The color sequence at the end is interesting because it was the first time Crawford was seen in color, and the actual Shipstad-Johnson skaters are good,but the God-awful blue gown she was in almost ruined that.Maybe,I'll try to dig up some actual critic reviews from 1939 of this film.
For a movie that takes place mostly in Hollywood and deals in show business, "Ice Follies" seems to know nothing about the film world, nor very much about the business-end of being show people.
James Stewart and Joan Crawford are a semi-professional ice-skating twosome on and off the ice--but when she walks herself into a contract as an actress with a movie studio, it puts a chill on their romance.
Crawford gets one of her all-time lousiest roles, the nadir of her years with MGM.
Her (unintended) comeuppance for being so soft arrives in the Technicolor finale, in which Crawford plays Cinderella in a poofy ballgown; with about two-hundred feet of cumbersome train, Joan is alley-ooped unceremoniously into a pumpkin-carriage, whisked off to a Mother Goose-On-Ice shindig, and is forced to sit on her throne and watch while everyone else hogs the spotlight.
It's an unintended riot, made even more hilarious by the studied reactions of Joan and Jimmy in character, watching the finished product with an enraptured audience (Crawford looks ready to kill).
Obviously it's a fantasy from beginning to end (judging from the cursory way in which Joan is handed a movie career), but even on that level it's a fraudulent piece of goods, with no backstage detail nor personalities for the talent on display.
Ice Follies of 1939 is a Joan Crawford vehicle from MGM which has a Warners feel with a supporting cast from Columbia and shot at Republic.This is the film that Joan is prepping for at the beginning of Mommie Dearest.Jimmy Stewart is Joan's male lead in this picture.
He looks like he has just turned 18.Joan looks old enough to be his mother in some shots.The plot is secondary to what they put poor Joan through.30 some minutes into the movie she isn't even in it for a long stretch where to is totally focused on the Jimmy Stewart character and his ice follies.
Cramped and shot cheaply.The whole movie feels cramped until the end where there is an insane Technicolor nightmare of mediocre skating in garish costumes in an ill conceived Cinderella plot involving dear Joan.
Some make her look downright hard bitten and hawkish.There is one scene early on where Joan is sitting at a table in yet another cramped room with Jimmy and Lew Ayres.
then it is all downhill until the final Technicolor shots of her in the audience at the end.Somebody wanted to make her look bad.You can tell by where they spent the money.One of the black and white skate bits is wonderful.
Then there is the color skate film in a film sequence at the end.This film is designed to make the star look bad on the screen and on paper.Joan does have one great bit where she plays drunk.
Poor Joan, I can see why she worked so hard for the role of Crystal Allen in "The Women" her next picture after this dreg.Bad script bad director just bad everything, the only part worth watching is the Technicolor ending which is quite interesting and it is Joan's first color picture.
Joan's drunken scene is also good and Lew Ayres was such a cu-tie when he was young but the rest of it is pure yuck!
With great actors like Joan Crawford and James Stewart, how could 'The Ice Follies of 1939' possibly go wrong?
Also like musicals and ice skating (seen especially with Sonja Henie) has dazzled on film.
It is among the worst films for both Crawford and Stewart and career-worsts for them in terms of performances.
Very little of 'The Ice Follies of 1939' works, but it is not irredeemable by all means, then again this is coming from somebody who always tries to see good in bad films.
The best thing about the film is the ice skating sequences, in both choreography and dancing they are dazzling and where 'The Ice Follies of 1939' sparkles the most.The production values are another redeeming quality.
Riding on certain movie trends of the late 1930s, they turned out The Ice Follies of 1939 (1939), dragging poor James Stewart down with it for good measure.What can I say that has not already been said?
This movie is a desperate cash grab, complete with flat characters, even flatter direction, and a plot that starts and stops to include kitschy ice skating numbers that range from impressive to offensive and cringe-inducing.
Released in 1939--that golden year of Hollywood cinema--"The Ice Follies of 1939" was up against some really great films.
What a shame it turned out to be a clunker.Take Joan Crawford and Jimmy Stewart as a married couple who spend little time together due to separate careers.
Add some ice skating scenes that lack a star like Sonja Henie to draw the viewer into the action.
(By the way, the skating is proficient for its time, but very dated by today's standards.)At the end of the film is a transition from B&W to Technicolor.
The ending also features a cringe-worthy "no place like home" sellout by the Joan Crawford character, who abandons her career with nary a second thought..
The Ice Follies of 1939 (1939) ** (out of 4) There's really no way around it but this is a very, very bad and stupid movie.
You might wonder why I can say that and still award the film two stars but it's simply because no matter how bad this things get, you still can't help but be slightly entertained by the train wreck and especially when you consider it has Joan Crawford and James Stewart.
You'll notice that 1939 was the only year for ICE FOLLIES and it's easy to see why because this thing is pretty darn bad.
What's so shocking is that someone like Crawford would appear in a film like this because the material is clearly "B" movie material and you also have to consider that the same year she would appear in THE WOMEN.
THE ICE FOLLIES OF 1939 is a real dud of a picture but those who enjoy bad movies will want to check it out..
Actually this may be one of the few Joan Crawford movies from the '30s where there is no love triangle and nobody is unfaithful to anybody else.
Instead, it's a story about a couple (Jimmy Stewart and Joan Crawford) who have problems because the wife becomes a big movie star while the husband is a nobody.
Except he really isn't a nobody, he's the "brilliant" creator of the Ice Follies.Earnest performances from Stewart and Crawford but it just won't go.
Apparently this whole film is just a big promotion for the International Ice Follies.
This MGM musical was one of the reasons Joan Crawford was labeled box-office poison in the late 30s.
It is not a great film with great script and great performances but mainly a skating show with a variety of skating numbers performed by the ice skating stars of the International Ice Follies to compete with Sonja Henie's skating musicals from rival studios.
And because of that and despite of, the film contains a poor plot but beautiful and creative skating numbers; among the bests of them is the indian one (containing beautiful ice skating angel figure in its beginning) and the spicy red riding hood one in the technicolor sequence at the end of the film.
It is a pity that the studio did not include some skating routines for the three main characters, specially considering that all of them play professional skaters and that James Stewart & Lew Ayres appear in skating suits in a promocional still that can be seen in the movie as a poster in their room.