Ice Follies Of 1939 (1939)

A successful ice skater (James Stewart) has dreams of producing an ice skating spectacular. Meanwhile, his wife (Joan Crawford) goes off to Hollywood where she becomes a big star. Directed by Reinhold Schunzel. Ghastly! Long considered one of Crawford's worst films, it's every bit as horrible as its reputation suggests. Did MGM think the public was clamoring for a Joan Crawford movie on ice skates? Crawford herself doesn't really skate but the story is bogged down by lumps of ice show performances and activity that stop the movie cold (no pun intended) every bit as much as those circus sequences that killed THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. The anemic plot gives way to ice numbers that mimic the Busby Berkeley extravaganzas but they lack even the kitsch quality Berkeley sometimes had. The film is in black and white but the last 20 minutes of the film are in three strip Technicolor and we suffer through an interminable Crawford as Cinderella ice number with dancing blackbirds and dancing cows. With Lew Ayres, Lewis Stone and Lionel Stander.