Second Fiddle

This is the first Sonja Henie movie that I've seen in my entire life and I love her ever since. This excellent movie portraits the 1930's Hollywood film-making system having Tyrone Power as a "Consolidated Pictures" agent who discovers skating teacher Henie and makes her a "Hollywood Star". Excellent musical and well-acted movie. Lots of musicals and skating numbers performed by Rudy Vallee, Mary Healy and Sonja Henie.

Fox certainly knew what kind of material to give their skating star, SONJA HENIE--a light but diverting plot, lots of musical interludes, a few skating sequences, a handsome co-star, some comedy relief and as many Sonja close-ups as possible.

They scored on every point with SECOND FIDDLE. It's light entertainment for the masses who came to see Sonja skate with everyone else playing second fiddle to her in importance. But TYRONE POWER manages to be impressive as her leading man, more charismatic than usual and spirited, suggesting that there was a lot more to him than the kind of roles he was getting at the time. It doesn't hurt that he's at his handsomest in this early film. And EDNA MAY OLIVER had no peer when it came to stealing the spotlight on an almost regular basis whenever she could.

Furthermore, RUDY VALLEE gets a chance to warble a couple of Irving Berlin tunes. He's part of a scheme by Power, a publicity agent for a Hollywood studio, to revive Vallee's fading career by getting a phony romantic buildup pairing him with Henie. Henie, of course, knows nothing of the scheme and therefore she and Power have romantic misunderstanding until the final reel.

It's a diverting piece of entertainment, one of the better Sonja Henie films produced by Fox and well worth seeing for the skating sequences alone, if you're a Henie fan. Her graceful routines are well choreographed for the camera.

Surprisingly good teaming of the two fox stars in tale of Hollywood publicity man bringing Minnesota school teacher to test for role in epic "Girl of the North Country." the film is a satire of the "gone With the wind" search that had plagued the country a year before.Sonja is very appealing as a real type person instead of a potential Olympic star waiting to be discovered.Tyrone Power surprises as a lovesick publicist after Sonja.it was nice change of pace from the he=man hero roles he had been doing.Rudy Vallee,Mary Healy are fun as other couple. Edna Mae Oliver steals scenes as Sonja's aunt Phoebe.Mary Healy socks across a couple of Irving Berlin songs with gusto,proving she should have had bigger career.Rudy Valle has a couple of nice songs,too.It's niether prime Power or Sonja but it's fun and lively with its inside look at Hollywood publicity schemes and the like.

When seen today, Sonja Henie films are incredibly strange and the notion that this Norwegian skating champion could be one of the biggest stars at Twentieth Century-Fox is just baffling. After all, Henie was cute--but not exactly a big star due to her looks. And, in each of her films, they SOMEHOW contrived to get her onto the ice SOMEWHERE!! The films really make no sense...though I must admit that most are still entertaining if you see them today. You just need to be sure to suspend all disbelief, otherwise your brain will nag you with 1001 questions!

The film revolves around a slick publicity agent, Jimmy (Tyrone Power). He's an amazingly good liar--even for a P.R. man and his routine is pretty funny. However, when he gets the smart idea of creating a fake romance between two new studio stars, Roger (Rudy Vallee) and Trudi (Henie), things get complicated. Roger is already in love with another woman and he's apprehensive to play like he's in love with Trudi. Worse, however, is that slowly Jimmy is falling for Trudi himself...but when the plan backfires and Trudi learns that Roger is only PRETENDING to love her, she is furious as well as hurt and leaves Hollywood. What is that weasel, Jimmy, to do?!

In addition to the strange plot, the studio cast Edna May Oliver as Trudi's aunt. This is ridiculous, as Oliver seems about as Norwegian as pizza! And, there are LOTS of ridiculous songs and skating numbers that make the whole thing a bit on the silly side. BUT, the leads try there best and despite all the silliness, it IS enjoyable.

By the way, the studio head who you hear but never see is played by Charles Lane--the old familiar character actor.

Previous Sonja Henie pictures tended to have some songs meant to possibly be on the Hit Parade, some comedians doing their shtick, with a ridiculous story meant to emphasize the over-the-top-ness of it all. This one has a score by Irving Berlin of which one of his songs mentions not caring if it's a hit or not, humor coming from characterization, with a satiric story that believably turns a bit dramatic. Based on the publicity surrounding the search for the leading lady of Gone with the Wind, Tyrone Power plays a studio executive who finds Ms. Henie in Minnesota and whisks her off to Hollywood for her film debut. Along for the ride is Edna May Oliver as Ms. Henie's aunt. She's quite a hoot here. There's also Rudy Vallee as the studio's musical star who's given a publicity stunt of dating Sonja to the consternation of Mary Healy. I'll stop there and just say that I quite enjoyed this second teaming of Henie and Power and the Irving Berlin songs provided. Also enjoyed, as usual, Ms. Henie's skating numbers. So that's a recommendation of Second Fiddle. P.S. Since I like to cite when someone from my favorite movie-It's a Wonderful Life-is in something else, here it's Charles Lane-that guy in IAWL who told Mr. Potter that he may someday work for George Bailey-using only his voice as the studio head. And it was a nice surprise to find out that Mary Healy was from New Orleans which is only a two-hour drive from my current residence in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.