1h 5min | Musical | 6 October 1939
Director: Erle C. Kenton
Stars: Irene Dare, Edgar Kennedy, Roscoe Karns.
Dave Gould ... choreographer: ice numbers
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031286/
Watched online; fuzzy print, 5 min short.
Same producer/company as made the last couple of Bobby Breen movies, which I liked. But Irene Dare (b. 1931) is too young for me not to be distracted by her youth. I'm sure they thought they found Shirley Temple meets Sonja Henie, but she doesn't act much here. Her skating is much better than you'd expect from someone so young, but not so great that I want to see more.
The plot adds typical double gold-diggers trying to woo each other; well actually the uncle who's spending the skater's money is pushing the older sister to pursue someone they believe has money, but he doesn't, and only pursues her because uncle gave the impression she has money.
In the final skating number (penguins), they start doing adagio with her: 2 men swinging her around overhead so they can both do a full rotation. I was worried about her bones before; now add her joints! Each one spun with her in the air, dipping not as low as adults do (there must be a name for this move.) And then they throw her across the rink to a single guy to catch her. The only good news is that she makes a 3rd movie where she skates, but not until '43; so at least she survived this ordeal. (BTW, I rated that 3rd and final film pretty highly on Netflix. I translated it to 7 when I brought those across a year+ ago. I hope I find it to watch when I get there.)
This was difficult to get through the hour. A little unfair to give it 4 given the poor print, but the exploitation was painful, and the penguin number sealed its fate.
Sol Lesser Productions, dir. Kenton; 4
