Overrated

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Plot descriptions for this film online seem to vary wildly. This is not a drama about two partners breaking up over a woman nor does Lew Ayres' character at any time fall for Joan. Actually this may be one of the few Joan Crawford movies from the '30s where there is no love triangle and nobody is unfaithful to anybody else. Instead, it's a story about a couple (Jimmy Stewart and Joan Crawford) who have problems because the wife becomes a big movie star while the husband is a nobody. Except he really isn't a nobody, he's the "brilliant" creator of the Ice Follies.Earnest performances from Stewart and Crawford but it just won't go. Jimmy in particular gets some painful lines of dialogue. One speech he gives comparing his relationship with Joan to the stars in the heavens is supposed to be profound, with weepy violins playing over the scene, but it's just cringeworthy. Joan gets her clunkers, too. Her Cinderella speech is a rambling mess. Ayres was spared any awful speeches. Of course, he was spared because he has a thankless part with nothing to say or do.Technicolor finale is worth seeing for rare color footage of Joan when she was still young and attractive. Apparently this whole film is just a big promotion for the International Ice Follies. I can't imagine it did much to help with that. It's not a very good movie but not the complete disaster some have claimed. It's mostly just dull and a waste of star power. Still it has a strong curiosity factor going for it. Give it a shot and judge for yourself but keep expectations low.

Poor Joan, I can see why she worked so hard for the role of Crystal Allen in "The Women" her next picture after this dreg.Bad script bad director just bad everything, the only part worth watching is the Technicolor ending which is quite interesting and it is Joan's first color picture. Joan's drunken scene is also good and Lew Ayres was such a cu-tie when he was young but the rest of it is pure yuck! and I thought Trog was bad. For true Joan fans only. I suggest renting it NOW ON DVD, the transfer is very good and the sound quality is good. This has to be the worst picture Joan was in and it didn't have to be, minor changes to the script would have helped this picture a lot. Minor reworking to the "Joan becomes a star overnight" storyline could have worked out in a believable fashion. The story seems thrown together and I don't think anyone at MGM actually watched it before it was released. This was no cheap budget either, the sets are impressive but everyone seems to know they are in a clunker.

Ice Follies of 1939 involves a trio of professional skaters, Joan Crawford, James Stewart, and Lew Ayres who have some creative differences and the act breaks up temporarily. So do Crawford and Stewart who are a romantic item.This was Stewart and Crawford's second film together, the first was The Gorgeous Hussy in which Stewart was only a supporting player. It's too bad that neither of them got anything better. I also can't put this any better, the three of them look plain ridiculous on skates and they probably felt just as ridiculous.This film was the brainchild of Louis B. Mayer who looked green with envy over at 20th Century Fox and the money that Darryl F. Zanuck was making with Sonja Henie. I say 'with' and not 'off of' Sonja Henie because Ms. Henie was a star before she signed a contract with Zanuck and Zanuck paid her dearly for her services. Something I'm not sure Mayer was prepared to do.To gloss over the trite backstage story, MGM did import a whole load of the top ice acts circa 1939 other than Sonja Henie. Interesting to see them and Sonja and compare them to Nancy Kerrigan or Johnny Weir or the infamous Tonya Harding.Fortunately the next films for Stewart and Crawford were, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The Women. The future was going to get better for both.

This patched-together pseudo-musical-on-ice isn't even fun as camp; it's just a deadly dull example of MGM assembly-line junk. As always, the production values are excellent: this film is just as well-mounted as any Metro "A" product, with the added bonuses of a lavish Technicolor sequence and pleasing ice performances by the Shipstad-Johnson Ice Follies. But, it's heavy going as the miscast stars are shoved about in a silly plot in an underwritten script, and no amount of MGM gloss can compensate for the audacity of casting three non-skating actors as skating stars! Especially jarring is the sight of Joan Crawford in a jet-black Hedy Lamarr "do"; this is one instance where Joan's Madonna-like talent for following trends misfired.(She very nearly achieves a Carolyn Jones-as-Morticia look!) JC fans do get a consolation prize in the color sequence, in which Joan's natural coloring is seen to lovely advantage. Viewer Alert: watch Sonja Henie on Fox instead!!