Rausch der Farben

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.

Hockey star Don Martin (Michael O'Shea) punches a referee and gets banned from professional hockey. Skating star Chris Linden (Sonja Henie) has a crush on him and helps gets him a job in the ice skating show. Buzz runs the show and his bored wife Gail Fletcher (Marie McDonald) wants to play with Don.

O'Shea doesn't feel like a leading man type and Sonja Henie's acting skills have always been questionable. The pairing is better than I expected. They are two flaw pieces which fit well together. It's nothing spectacular but it works. The story has little else going for it. It has barely any drama. They try to throw in Gail, but she is ultimately no threat to the relationship. It would be better if she's just evil rather than in love with Don. Of course, Henie does some of her ice skating. In the end, I just got bored with this movie after thirty minutes or so.

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!

When her contract with 20th Century Fox was finished Sonja Henie went to the newly formed International Pictures for It's A Pleasure. The new company which would shortly merge with Universal Studios was the brain child of J. Arthur Rank and It's A Pleasure was given the same kind of lavish production that characterized Sonja's work with Darryl F. Zanuck at Fox.

Her leading man was Michael O'Shea and I will say this, he never embarrassed himself on the ice as James Stewart, Joan Crawford, and Lew Ayres did in Ice Follies of 1939. In fact while we do have some film of him as a hockey player, there is no footage of him or even a double working in the ice show later on and I suspect for good reason.

Which brings me to the plot, Sonja is a member of an ice show troupe that entertains at half times during hockey matches. O'Shea is a hard drinking, quick tempered hockey player who lights Sonja's fire and a few others as well. When he slugs a referee during a hockey brawl, he's banned from what I presume was the National Hockey League permanently.

But Sonja sells the idea to promoter Bill Johnson to use O'Shea as an attraction for the ice show. I really have to wonder whether someone like Gordie Howe or Andy Bathgate would ever have lent themselves to something like this. A good skater in hockey does not a figure skater make which underlies the essential silliness of the plot.

Johnson's wife Marie McDonald is also interested in O'Shea for her own reasons and therein lies the personal story.

Of course the whole thing is just an excuse to film some of Sonja Henie's elaborate routines on ice. As for Sonja, she was not a great actress by any stretch, but she did project a certain wholesomeness on screen which was the secret of her appeal. I would have to say that she was the greatest female athlete that made the best success transitioning to show business in history.

Although his role as the wronged husband is not really substantial and in fact he's something of a fool here, It's A Pleasure offers moviegoers one of the few filmed performances of Broadway star Bill Johnson. He had a far more substantial stage career and in fact reached his biggest success as a Tony Award nominee for the Rodgers&Hammerstein musical Pipe Dream which was his last role. He died way too young shortly after that musical closed on Broadway. Too bad he wasn't given a song here.

It's A Pleasure is also noted as the film debut of David Janssen who was all of 15 when he made his appearance as the referee of a boys hockey match. Those ears make him recognizable.

It's A Pleasure is an average film that will appeal primarily to figure skating and Sonja Henie fans.

I was channel-surfing one evening and came across this movie on Showtime's Family Showcase channel and my first thoughts were, "Wow! They sure did a good job of recreating the 40's in this picture." Then, I put the cable movie info on the screen to discover this film was MADE in 1945, which really amazed me because the color quality is so modern-looking and the clarity of the picture is unlike any other movie I've ever seen that was produced in that era, just amazing. Obviously, it's been digitally restored to some extent but it must have been shot right the first time for this kind of quality. As for the movie itself, the actors and actresses were excellent and the storyline very entertaining, keeping me watching to the end (I came into the film maybe 20 minutes late or so). Old classic movies aren't really something I've ever been a major fan of with the exception of the classics like Gone With The Wind, Wizard of Oz, etc. but I really enjoyed this film. Again, the quality of the picture makes watching this film seem like modern-day filmmakers were transported back to 1945 and shot it with their present-day cameras & production. Highly recommended from both entertainment value and technical expertise for the period.