The Ice Follies of 1939

This patched-together pseudo-musical-on-ice isn't even fun as camp; it's just a deadly dull example of MGM assembly-line junk. As always, the production values are excellent: this film is just as well-mounted as any Metro "A" product, with the added bonuses of a lavish Technicolor sequence and pleasing ice performances by the Shipstad-Johnson Ice Follies. But, it's heavy going as the miscast stars are shoved about in a silly plot in an underwritten script, and no amount of MGM gloss can compensate for the audacity of casting three non-skating actors as skating stars! 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. Viewer Alert: watch Sonja Henie on Fox instead!!

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. Simply go with it and happily register its many lapses in taste and logic. 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. At last her artificiality and posturing has a logical explanation. (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. This hardness and the fact that it exposed her age is surely the reason she never gets a color closeup. And though she is a small part of the color portion of the film, she manages to wear no less than three Adrian outfits, the most striking being a brilliant green ensemble with gold and silver embroidery (the 18th Century court outfits the extras wear must have been recycled from MARIE ANTOINETTE).

Assuming Crawford had a choice, why did she do this film? To branch out to a broader family audience than she had before? To cash in on a popular box office fad? Or, at a time when Jeanette Macdonald was still considered Louis B. Mayer's favorite, did Crawford relish getting the Technicolor operetta treatment? 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. Whatever the reason, it must have caused general hilarity in Hollywood -- one can imagine Billy Haines calling up George Cukor to chuckle over the latest bomb Joan had been saddled with. Only Sonja Henie can have been jealous over this turkey.

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. It doesn't deliver on any level, though. The whole notion of Stewart and Crawford as ice skating stars is hilarious. But they are never really shown skating at any point in the film. What's left is a hackneyed, contrived plot about them falling in love and then separating to follow their careers. He tries to create the first Ice Follies and she (quite easily!) becomes a major film star. The actual Ice Follies troupe shows up in the middle of the film to do a few twirls and spins. The whole thing is capped by a 3-strip Technicolor finale featuring massive quantities of skaters and Joan in a humongous ball gown singing a forgettable song. It's so rare to see early Joan in color, yet she is given no close-ups. Joan was supposed to sing three songs in the film, but two of them were cut. She dons a black Hedy Lamarr-style wig for a lot of the film which gives her a distinctive, if not natural for her, look. Even though the film is ludicrous and trite, money WAS spent on it. The banquet scene in which Crawford gives a speech is lavish in it's decor and her clothes, though often bizarre, are also expensive. (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". If not for that plug, it may have fallen into even greater obscurity than it already was. One of her hilarious recollections from the book Conversations with Joan Crawford was, "Christ! We all must have been out of our collective minds!" She describes how she and Stewart "skated around on our ankles". She tried to inject some flair and life into the film, but it was doomed on the page. Fortunately, "The Women" was on the horizon to keep her in good stead.

... and that is about the best thing I can say about it.

This was one of MGMs' biggest bombs of the 1930's, critically and financially. If this was the quality of scripts Joan Crawford was getting, she definitely did the right thing in campaigning for the role of Crystal in The Women (1939). Joan Crawford and James Stewart played married skaters (stop laughing!). We are told that Joan is a terrible skater and that is why they are losing jobs, but we never see it as that would require Stewart and Crawford to skate. Complications ensue, but not terribly interesting or original ones.

The real purpose of "Ice Follies of 1939" was to hype the latest MGM find, "The International Ice Follies" show, and a long sequence at the end of the film features a technicolor ice extravaganza, with Joan and Jimmy sitting in the audience. Crawford was supposed to have at least five songs, and all were cut except a fragment of one; judging by that fragment, MGM was wise to cut them.

It's also rumored that by 1939 MGM was giving these terrible scripts to the Irving Thalberg era actresses, including Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo so Louis B. Could use the poor showings to clean house and bring in fresh faces, and three years later he did do just that. James Stewart's star was rising at the time, and so I have no idea how he ended up in this dog, but he was the best thing in it with his pratfalls, acrobatics, and energy.

This is the film for which, at the beginning of "Mommie Dearest", Joan Crawford was rising before dawn and going through her morning routine in preparation. I can tell lots of money went into this for art and costume design, but it just has no soul.

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? - seems the reasoning of the moment. After all, she had done struggling performers in the past, and so a behind-the-scenes show within a show ought to prove right up her alley. 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. On top of this, it's abbreviated with one shortly-cut scene after another and practically devoid of plausible emotion in the process.

We rarely find Joan and James sharing the same train of thought here; when she is up, he is down. 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. Some of its cinematography during the sequences on ice proves outstanding, affording the film audience with reflections and contrasts. And, of course, Joan Crawford looks radiant throughout in appearance and fashionable wardrobe.