“HIT THE ICE”

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 199, 20 May 1944, Page 8

“HIT THE ICE”

(Second week).—Sonja Henie showed a film-going world the meantag of grace and poetry on ice. Abbott and Costello have gone a step—or several mis steps—further, and demonstrated the amazing number of things that should not be done on skates. The two amiable comedians, back in town with “Hit the Ice” (St. James), have explored almost every comedy avenue in the past three years—the Army, the Navy, flying, broncho-busting, ghostbreaking. musical comedy, detective work, horse racing, and now the ice rink. Some of their shows have been hectic and funny (the latest falls into this class); others have been a trifle off the boil. Messrs. A- & C., who have lately transferred themselves to the M.G.M. studios, are this time the life and despair of a mountain resort where their hopeless autics on the ice are part of a featherweight plot which also concerns itself with bank robberies. Press photographers, swing batids and brides. . (Anyone who couldn’t make a comedy out of these ingredients would be quite impossible—even in Hollywood.) By the merest accident, as is always the case. Bud Abbott catches the crook and rolls down a mountain side gathering himself into a snowball—a mighty frig snowball with that « kernel —as he goes. It is nonsense, nonsense all the way, bnt a great idea for an evening away from any worries yon might have on hand. Ginny Simms, the South Pacific’s favourite radio girl, can be seen at first hand in the film.

“Panama Hattie” (Tivoli). —Red Skelton’s tunny antics and Ann Sotbern’s beauty and talent combined in a Latin American setting.- The associate feature is "North-West Rangers,” starring James Craig and William Lundigan. “The Falcon Takes Over” (Tudor).— George Sanders, Lynn Bari. Janies Gleason and Allen Jenkins in another of'the Falcon series. The associate feature !s “Syn copation." with Adolph Menjpu and Jackie Cooper at the head of a east that Includes a large number of musical and comedy artists. " ~ . Her’s To Hold” (State, I’etoneL—■ Deanna Durbin sings “Begin the Beguine, “Say a Praver for the Boys Over There,’ “Kashmiri Song,” and other famous songs, and has as her leading man Joseph Cotten, who has become well known in Orson Welles’s productions.