La féerie de la glace

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. She would do some terrific films over the next five years before Louis B kicked her out of MGM, and she bounced back immediately at Warner's. It's a credit to her that after a dog like this, she was able to show her face at the studio. 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). When they get fired, Mary knows it's because she's not very good, and she's holding Larry back. What Larry wants is to produce and direct his own ice show. When their car is hit by a film casting agent (Lewis Stone), Mary, now Mrs. Hall, goes personally to collect the money he owes them for the car. She pretends to have no interest in films and gets a contract for $75 a week. Mary starts moving up in the film world, and Larry leaves, not wanting her to support him. He says that when they've both made it, they can get back together. That proves a little more difficult than they expected.

There are two HUGE skating segments in this film, and there is some terrific skating. 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. She's too sophisticated for him and, as a strong woman, she was better with a tough type like Gable. Well, they were under contract and made what they were handed. One of the negatives of being with a studio.

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! and I thought Trog was bad. For true Joan fans only. I suggest renting it NOW ON DVD, the transfer is very good and the sound quality is good. This has to be the worst picture Joan was in and it didn't have to be, minor changes to the script would have helped this picture a lot. Minor reworking to the "Joan becomes a star overnight" storyline could have worked out in a believable fashion. The story seems thrown together and I don't think anyone at MGM actually watched it before it was released. This was no cheap budget either, the sets are impressive but everyone seems to know they are in a clunker.

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. So do Crawford and Stewart who are a romantic item.

This was Stewart and Crawford's second film together, the first was The Gorgeous Hussy in which Stewart was only a supporting player. It's too bad that neither of them got anything better.

I also can't put this any better, the three of them look plain ridiculous on skates and they probably felt just as ridiculous.

This film was the brainchild of Louis B. Mayer who looked green with envy over at 20th Century Fox and the money that Darryl F. Zanuck was making with Sonja Henie. I say 'with' and not 'off of' Sonja Henie because Ms. Henie was a star before she signed a contract with Zanuck and Zanuck paid her dearly for her services. Something I'm not sure Mayer was prepared to do.

To gloss over the trite backstage story, MGM did import a whole load of the top ice acts circa 1939 other than Sonja Henie. 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. The future was going to get better for both.

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.

Experts tell us that MGM had high hopes for this strange movie pastiche, but it's hard to believe that from the tired on-screen shenanigans. 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.

I still find it hard to fathom WHY Metro executives could ever have thought that this lumbering, tired film could serve any use in reversing Crawford's diminishing box-office drawing power. 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.