Rausch der Farben

Don (Michael O'Shea--Virginia Mayo's husband in real life) stars as an obnoxious hockey player who gets himself banned from the sport due to fighting and slugging a ref. He also is a heavy drinker and quite cocky--even following the ban. However, he lands on his feet after this and gets a job with a traveling ice show. Inexplicably, despite having NOTHING any sane woman would want, the star of the show (Sonja Henie) is in love with him and eventually they marry. For a while, he stays off the booze and makes something of himself. However, for some reason, a woman with the show (Marie McDonald) is determined to wreck the marriage and get him back on the bottle. What is poor Sonja to do?

For me, this film was pleasant enough BUT suffered from one serious problem--Don was just too unlikable and selfish. After a while, his wife's insistence on sticking with him felt less noble and more like an episode of "Maury" or "The Jerry Springer Show"! Had they softened Don's jerky personality and behavior a bit more, then it might have worked a lot better. For example, if he was just a drunk but a nice guy underneath it all, you might have understood his wife's defending him....a bit. As it was, it was just too difficult to care about him. Because of this the film loses a few points. Additionally, while Henie's ice skating was very popular in films of the day, today watching her in one musical skating number after another got to be pretty dull. The only thing I particularly liked about the film was watching the hockey game early in the film. Seeing hockey the way they played it in the 1940s was pretty interesting--especially with goalies who wore no face protection!! Not a terrible film but one that is, at best, a time-passer.

By the way, when the stars agree to marry, listen to the weird dialog that makes wife beating sound as healthy and natural as can be! Yikes!

This skating soap opera stars Sonja Henie as a perky skater with a dog-like devotion to a bad-tempered hockey star. Henie's blandly unemotional performance is neither better nor worse than the hockey star's indifferent ruggedness.

The skating is somewhat entertaining, although Henie's main special effect is crazy fast spins, which while impressive, are overused. Henie also acquits herself nicely in a non-skating dance number.

The most interesting performance in the movie is Marie McDonald as a bored, sexy wife obsessed with the hockey player. Her aggressive flirting and strong personality make her fascinating if unlikeable. She makes the rest of the cast seem even blander.

Lent ongoing allure by the extraordinary early Technicolor process, this ice-skating romance also benefits from contributions by several Oscar-winning technicians, all in top form here, including cinematographer Ray Rennahan (Gone With the Wind), interior designer Wiard Ihnen, and set decorator Julia Heron. Additionally, those responsible for the superlative costumes and hair styling should be recognized, with all of these crew strengths nearly making the plot irrelevant, as a viewer is dazzled in one way or another and, of course, often by the skating of Sonja Henie. For precision skating, Henie has never been topped, and here her known acting shortcomings seem less obtrusive than is usual, as she is supported by a solid cast, including Michael O'Shea, Gus Schilling, Iris Adrian, and a startlingly beautiful Marie McDonald, whose agenda to steal O'Shea from Henie comprises the core of a somewhat melodramatic and simplistic screen play. The script turns upon Henie's love for O'Shea, who plays a professional hockey player who is permanently banned for punching an official, and whose fondness for alcohol leads to a variety of thorny situations which turn his life upside down, and which link him with the difficult to ignore McDonald. All involved in this effort are served well by journeyman director William A. Seiter, who takes charge of the action whenever the scenario flags, although the editing and blocking are at times obtrusive. It all comes down in the end to Henie on ice, and there the pirouetting dervish provides as usual, with her at times off-putting Norwegian inflections not an issue, skating as well as ever and benefiting, as throughout the film, including one non-gelid partnered dance scene, from a lovely score composed by Walter Donaldson and Edgar Leslie.

Watching this was a rare treat to see since it was the only time I got to see ice skating star Sonja Henie in Technicolor as opposed to black and white. She's still impressive as an ice dancer this late in her career and also was compellingly good in her one number without skates. The story has her married to a hockey star who's been banned from the sport because of some unruly behavior. So she gets him in the show as another skater but things get complicated when the boss's wife has designs on him. Since this was made during the Production Code, nothing explicit happens or is even implied. And I'm guessing this was very much meant to be a family picture, anyway, as evidenced by the added formula of some kids near the end. In summary, It's a Pleasure was quite enjoyable as fluff so that's a recommendation.

Watching this 1945 made movie in 2002 gave me "warm fuzzys" all over. This was when Hollywood was careful not to offend folks with abusive words and over the top plots. `It's a Pleasure' was a pleasure to watch. It is funny, entertaining, a little suspenseful and had some drama. The scenery and costumes were beautiful. This "Miss Susie Sunshine" of a movie creates a wonderful fantasy world that I think we need more of these days. The coloring and quality of this movie made it hard to believe it was made in 1945. `It's a Pleasure' is a nice, romantic, pleasurable escape.