The Ice Follies of 1939

Infobox Film
name = The Ice Follies of 1939


image_size =
caption = Original one-sheet poster
director = Reinhold Schünzel
producer = Harry Rapf
writer = Story:
Leonard Praskins
Screenplay:
Florence Ryerson
Edgar Allan Woolf
narrator =
starring = Joan Crawford
James Stewart
Lew Ayres
Lewis Stone
The International Ice Follies
music =
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
released = March 10, 1939
runtime = 82 min.
country = United States
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0031470

"The Ice Follies of 1939" is a 1939 motion picture directed by Reinhold Schünzel, and starring Joan Crawford, James Stewart, Lew Ayres and Lewis Stone. Using a show business backdrop, and featuring The International Ice Follies, Crawford plays Mary, an actress, who marries an ice skater and encounters career and relationship issues.

ynposis

Larry Hall and Eddie Burgess have a successful skating act until Larry falls in love with Mary McKay, an inept skater whom Larry insists upon including in the act. Fired from job after job because of Mary's ineptitude, Larry keeps up his spirits by dreaming of producing a colossal ice show. Following their latest dismissal, the couple elope, and Mary, feeling guilty for damaging her husband's career, convinces Douglas Tolliver, Jr., the head of Monarch Studios, to offer her a movie contract. While reading the fine print of the contract, Mary discovers that she is forbidden to marry without the studio's permission, and Larry convinces her to keep their marriage a secret. After his wife's first picture catapults her to stardom, Larry finds himself relegated to the position of househusband and leaves for New York in hopes of producing his ice extravaganza. In New York, Larry is reunited with Eddie in the office of producer Mort Hodges, who raises the money to make Larry's dream a reality. Larry's Ice Follies becomes a smash hit, and with husband and wife now equal in stature, Mary and Larry hope to revive their marriage. When they discover that they are still separated by the demands of their careers, however, Mary publicly announces that she is foresaking her career to return to a life of domesticity. The dilemma of their conflicting careers is finally bridged when Tolliver hires Larry to produce an ice show starring his wife, thus uniting their personal and professional lives.

Cast

* Joan Crawford.... Mary McKay (a.k.a. Sandra Lee)
* James Stewart.... Larry Hall
* Lew Ayres.... Eddie Burgess
* Lewis Stone.... Douglas 'Doug' Tolliver Jr.
* The International Ice Follies
* Bess Ehrhardt.... Kitty Sherman
* Roy Shipstad.... Himself - Ice Follies Skater
* Eddie Shipstad.... Himself - Ice Follies Skater
* Oscar Johnson.... Himself - Ice Follies Skater
* Lionel Stander.... Mort Hodges
* Charles D. Brown.... Mr. Barney

Reception

R.W.D. in the "New York Herald Tribune" wrote, "Since some kind of story was needed to lead up to the film debut of "The International Ice Follies," and top-flight players to give it the necessary publicity gloss, Joan Crawford, James Stewart, and Lew Ayres were given the unenviable job of trying to make it digestible. Their acting is smart and likable; their material is not....Miss Crawford should avoid this type of film in the future, when she has to buck poor material, a group of specialists and Metro's own lavishness."

Frank S. Nugent in the "New York Times" commented, "Far be it from us to rap one of Mr. Rapf's more glittering productions; what we mildly object to is the fact that the glitter does not extend to the dialogue, the incidents, the characters (for whom "fictitious" is an understatement) or the story, which is the one about the matrimonial clashing of two careers."

External links

*imdb title|0031470