ICE FOLLIES OF 1939: frozen in horror

Good God! What were they thinking?
And, more pertinently, was anybody actually thinking?
It's almost beyond belief that the Hollywood studio renowned for its taste and style and lustrous reputation could countenance the creation of such of cinematic monstrosity. 
But that is exactly what MGM did in 1939 and, more than 70 years later ICE FOLLIES OF 1939 still stinks worse than a cow that's been lying dead in the African sun for three days.
The film is so bad my first thought was that its stars, Joan Crawford and James Stewart, had been forced to appear in it as punishment for some offence they must have caused to MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer. The story is so stupid, so cliche-riddled and generally implausible that it seems equally implausible that a huge star like Crawford would voluntarily agree to demean herself by appearing in such tripe. Stewart was still on his way up so I can understand he probably had little choice but to do what he was told, and co-star Lew Ayres was on the slide so he too had little choice in the matter. A job is a job and "we all like to work" as Timothy Dalton once snippily told me after I had the effrontery to asked him what had induced him to play the love interest to an 87 year-old Mae West in 'Sextette.'
The plot for ICE FOLLIES could have been constructed by a 10 year-old who'd overdosed on Norma Shearer movies. Stewart and Crawford are Larry and Mary, an ice-skating couple performing dance-routines on ice-rinks during intermissions in shows. What kind of shows is never indicated, but since an ice rink is not the kind of thing you can set up and tear down in 5 minutes, presumably these are ice skating shows, which begs the question why aren't Larry and Mary appearing in the main show especially since he is described at one point as 'Gable on ice' ?
Anyway business ain't so good and by a contrived set of circumstances and the most ridiculously unlikely audition ever Mary becomes a film star in the space of a month leaving Larry at home to fret and feel emasculated. Unable to cope with the notion of his wife as the breadwinner he vows not to see her again until he's made a success of himself which - surprise surprise - he succeeds in doing within the space of a couple of months with his own Ice Follies spectacular.
At this point the hackneyed plot grinds to a halt to allow director Reinhold Schunzel to present several lengthy ice-dancing routines shot in an impressively unimaginative style and completely devoid of audience reaction even though it's a live show. The absence of gasps of admiration or even a ripple of light applause makes more sense once you realise that the bulk of the audience have actually been very inexpertly painted onto the scenery in an effort to save money on live extras.
But all this is only the half of the awfulness.
The real kicker is that neither Stewart, Ayres nor Crawford actually skate at any point in the film.

This is a story about three professional ice-skaters - one of whom, don't forget, is acclaimed as 'Gable on ice' - yet none of them ever sets a skate on the ice! For all the talk about Stewart and Ayres' brilliance as a team (before Stewart was sidetracked by Crawford) they never once perform in the Follies, even though the show is founded on their reputation. Stewart spends all his time barking directions from the control box, while Ayres is perpetually in the process of getting into his costume without ever quite finishing getting dressed.
It's just rubbish.
The one small glimmer of light is the final 10 - 15 minutes of the film which is shot in sumptuous Technicolor and gave audiences the first chance to see Crawford in colour. However the novelty is not enough to sustain interest in the sequence which features yet more ice-skating routines, this time in a film directed by Larry and starring his wife.
MGM may have displayed stunningly poor judgment in greenlighting ICE FOLLIES OF 1939 but at they were consistent. They maintained the same high level of implausibility all the way through to the bitter, boring end.