spotted-owl "Second Fiddle" (1939) is a beautiful ice skating musical, starring Sonja Henie, the Norwegian figure skater who won Olympic gold medals in 1928, 1932 and 1936.Sonja Henie is charming and sweet as a schoolteacher who becomes a Hollywood star. Tyrone Power is her clever and energetic studio publicist, who secretly falls in love with her, while promoting her phony public romance with Roger Maxwell (played by Rudy Vallee), another studio star.There are some beautiful figure skating scenes. In one scene, Sonja Henie skates gracefully in an elegant arena, dressed in a glittering skating costume. Later, she skates on a frozen lake, which reflects the shadows of winter tree branches. On the frozen lake, she skates a wonderful routine, with many spins, jumps and point footwork, in a lovely white skating dress.This is an excellent movie, with beautiful figure skating, great music and songs, and a fun storyline. I hope a DVD is released soon.

writers_reign This is a pleasant enough diversion which pokes gentle fun at the search for an 'unknown' to play the eponymous role in a film adaptation of a best selling novel. Someone actually gave this more than the customary ten seconds thought because it was released in 1939, the same year as Gone With The Wind, a film that had hogged headlines around the world via its search for the perfect heroine, Scarlett O'Hara; Scarlett was a Southern belle and in Second Fiddle the fictitious novel is The Girl From The North, the North carries connotations of snow and Sonja Henie came from a Northern country, Norway and was herself associated with both snow and ice and as if that were not enough, in Second Fiddle she is a resident of Bergen, Minnesota and Bergen is also, of course, an island off the coast of Norway. So, was it worth all this care. More or less. Publicist Tyrone Power is sent to bring Henie to Hollywood and naturally he falls in love with her but his job obliges him to engineer a 'romance' between Henie and Rudy Vallee, another studio 'property' in need of publicity; we now have a touch of the Cyrano's as Power is not only buying the flowers and candy that Henie thinks is coming from Vallee but is also writing the billed-doux and even goes so far as to compose a ballad, I Poured My Heart Into A Song, ostensibly written by Vallee. Edna May Oliver is also on hand to lob the odd droll asides into the mix and it all ends happily. A diverting 80 minutes or so.

rc_brazil I'm a musical comedy fan, though God only knows why - the reason I say this is because I'm only 17. My friends and relatives sometimes worry about my weird taste in old movies like, for instance, this one. I found it to be very cute. Tyrone Power is particularly good, he reminds me a bit of Lee Tracy, his newspaper man performance ready to trick everyone into doing what he wants. The story itself is nothing extraordinary, but it's always cool to watch Hollywood making fun of itself - in this case, the whole Scarlet O'Hara research. A new best-seller has its rights sold off to a big studio who now needs to find someone talented enough to play the lead - something that, after a couple of years, seems to become rather impossible until the figure of Sonja Henie appears out of a Middle School and lands right into Hollywood. I won't bother much with the details, anyone with enough brains knows that Power and Henie will end up together anyways... Rudy Valley gets to sing some good Irving Berlin songs (one of my favorite songwriters). In conclusion if you are looking for mindless fun, a movie that will make you enjoy yourself and get to see some old ice-skating hat tricks the way only old Sonja could do, you are in for a treat.

Ron Oliver A publicity agent finds himself playing SECOND FIDDLE when he fabricates a phony romance for a lovely new movie star he secretly adores.Sonja Henie was Norway's ice queen when she won Olympic gold medals in 1928, 1932 & 1936. After going professional, she began a celebrated movie career at 20th Century Fox in 1936 with her American film debut, ONE IN A MILLION. Beautiful & talented, as well as being a natural in front of the cameras, she carved out her own special niche during Hollywood's Golden Age. Although Miss Henie's ice routines may look antiquated by comparison to modern champions, there was nothing antique about her dazzling smile or sparkling personality. In this regard, some of today's snowflake princesses could still learn a great deal from her.As her career progressed, it became increasingly difficult for Fox to find decent stories for Miss Henie and the excuses for the lavish ice dancing numbers were often implausible. No matter. Audiences did not flock to her films to watch Sonja recite Shakespeare. The movies were meant to be pure escapist fantasy, plain & simple.SECOND FIDDLE is no exception and its story is often quite silly. Also, Sonja is not given nearly enough skating time to really satisfy her fans. However, Sonja's costars do offer some compensation.Although the role was certainly not one of his best, Tyrone Power is a lot of fun as the agent who must sublimate his own desires for the good of the Studio. Consequently, he has almost no romantic time with Sonja whatsoever, so instead he makes his somewhat unappealing role as charming as possible. His best moments are with marvelous character actress Edna May Oliver, playing Henie's sharp-tongued aunt, watching rather helplessly as she steals her every scene.Rudy Vallee is onboard mostly to sing a few songs, but he deftly underplays what could have been a boring good guy character and makes him standout well in contrast to the much more manic Power.Lyle Talbot has the small role of Sonja's Minnesota suitor. Movie mavens will recognize the voice of Charles Lane as that of the Studio Chief.Irving Berlin composed the songs, all of which are pleasant, but none of them come close to being counted among his best.Notice the sly script reference to 'Ferdinand.' This would be an allusion to Ferdinand the Bull, the somewhat less than masculine hero of Munro Leaf's 1936 story (and made into an Academy Award winning cartoon by Walt Disney in 1938). Since the line is spoken to Power, it could be that the scriptwriter had more than one inference in mind...Ultimately, though, this is Sonja's show. She glides effortlessly into the viewer's heart, while balancing on a thin edge of silver, suspended over frozen water.