In 1943, with 20th/Fox pulling the plug on ice-skating phenom Sonja Henie, Poverty Row outfit Monogram Pictures quickly moved in, making SILVER SKATES with ‘Belita’ (née Maria Belita Jepson-Turner), a British-born polyglot fluent in ballroom dance, ballet & ice skating to fill the gap.* Presumably doing well enough for this second helping, after which no more full blown musicals, though fast-fading Belita did make a few more films in her on-and-off career. An earnest attempt on the cheap at this hardest of all genres, this tuner is more 20th/Fox celebrity showcase than M-G-M integrated musical narrative. Our storyline: Belita loses touch with hard-nosed agent/manager/discoverer James Ellison who enlists as she climbs toward stardom. A move that effectively drops everything but musical turns for acts two & three, leaving nothing but a series of showcase ‘Numbos’ for our fair-weather/fair-haired star to dance & skate her way to B’way stardom. And if most of her routines come off as pretty routine in content & presentation, we do get a couple of chances to see comic skating legends Frick & Frack and, finally, a legit ‘11 o’clock Number’ for our star. (It’s the title track with Belita consecutively and concurrently wooed by tuxedoed corps of dancers & skaters.) Then, post-lovers’ reunion, a kitsch patriotic solo for Belita, skating her way thru a truncated arrangement of Beethoven’s Fifth, the one that opens with that ‘V for Victory’ musical tattoo. We laugh at it now; heck, they laughed at it then. Hence, no more Belita Musicals.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Belita followed with THE HUNTED/’48, a film noir with a professional ice skating background to set up her specialty number. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-hunted-1948.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Belita a somewhat full-figured beauty for ballet, but, man!, could she skate!
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