Silver Skates

Monogram offers us Belita, Monogram's answer to Sonia Henjie. Not that anyone was asking, considering that Miss Henjie was given Lucky Humberstone as a director by this time. As others have noted, Belita seems more the girl who would get what a man was driving at, and RKO's Leslie Goodwins was hired to direct this movie, so it doesn't stink on ice. However, there's not much in the way of script or good songs, and they got Kenny Baker as the young singer. He was okay in the movie version of THE MIKADO, but W.S. Gilbert never had much respect for tenors. Mr. Baker justifies his faith here as he doesn't always bother to match his lips to the words he is singing.

That leaves Frick and Frack. These skating clowns have lingered in my mind, even though, so far as I know, I had never heard of them -- it seemed like the sort of name two tummelers, slapstick comedians from the Catskills would have. It turns out that's what they were, and I don't know where I know them from. Perhaps they played the Neverle one summer when I was four and I remember nothing but the funny names. They're actually pretty good.

That's the best that can be said for this movie. Like most Monograms, it's fast, it doesn't strain the brain and it's over soon enough. I assume that's how the director felt, because for his next movie, he was back at the comparative luxury of RKO directing Leon Errol in "The Mexican Spitfire's Elephant".