I love this movie so much

Too much of everything

The Age of Commercialism

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

About half the action in this musical comedy supposedly takes place at the Sun Valley ski resort in Idaho. However, all of the action actually takes place in various California locations. Two years earlier, Fox had released the very popular musical comedy "Sun Valley Serenade", much of which was filmed at Sun Valley. The theme song was "It Happened in Sun Valley", which I chose as my review title.As in nearly all of the early Abbott and Costello(A&C) films(excepting "Who Done It) there are a number of songs, probably too many, all concentrated in the latter half, supposedly in Sun Valley. Willowy, and beautifully elegant, Ginny Simms is the primary soloist, often abetted by The Four Teens(who looked to be older than teens) and/or a larger chorus, and with Johnny Long's Orchestra supplying the melody. All the songs are well suited to Ginny's style, and all were composed by the team of Harry Revel and Paul Francis Webster. This duo also composed the songs for the previous A&C film "It Ain't Hay". If you would like to see and hear Ginny in Technicolor, I can recommend "Night and Day" or "Broadway Rhythm". For Ginny's character, 'It happened in Sun Valley', as she became engaged to orchestra leader Johnny Long by film's end, disappointing Costello who thought he was going to be the groom. I thought the verbal comedy was especially strong here. I take notes for my reviews, and my notes for this film were especially copious, which usually means I found it interesting.The screen play begins with gangster Silky Fellowsly in the hospital, with his only apparent symptom a vacillating fever(induced by a pill he takes). He's hoping to slip out of the hospital unnoticed, rob a nearby bank, and slip back into his bed without anyone noticing(quite an achievement!) That way, he has an apparent alibi for not being at the scene of the robbery. Unfortunately for him, his nurse noticed his absence, but by the time she got the doctor to confirm it, Silky was back in his bed, so the doctor didn't believe he disappeared. Before the robbery, A&C entered his room(why?)with their cameras. They talk about shooting(photographing) people, so Silky assumes that they are the 2 hit men from Detroit that are supposed to show up for the robbery(Apparently, the real hit men never showed up). The miscommunication between Silky and the boys is hilarious. Examples: Silky:" What do you do for a living?" Lou: "We shoot people". Silky: How do you shoot them?" Lou: "We stand them up against a wall". Lou: "That gives me time to shoot a couple other people first". A&C still think their role in the robbery is to take pictures of the gangsters when they emerge from the bank, which they do. However, A&C become the prime suspects, as they enter the bank(why?) and find everyone gaged and tied up in the vault. "They're all tied up in the back" explains Abbott to the policeman when he inquires where everyone is. Accidentally, Costello hits the burglar alarm button, and police swarm. But, both the robbers and A&C manage to get on the train for Sun Valley. The boys don't even attempt to disguise themselves, despite good drawings of them having appeared in the paper! Silky's doctor and nurse also get on the train, as do Ginny and Johnny Long's band. The nurse tries to make a play for the doctor, but he doesn't respond, so she is mad. A&C are hired as waiters and Costello has quite a time trying to deliver orders on skates. He 'hits the ice' many times. Abbott does much better. Meanwhile, they attempt to recover at least some of the stolen money by blackmailing the gangsters with said photos of them exiting from the bank. They refuse to show the photo, but the gangsters reluctantly take their word for it, until Lou is knocked out and they find the worthless photo on his body. A&C find the satchel with the money in it in a ski cabin. They try to make a getaway on their dog sled, but only Ginny gets away(At the cabin, she seemingly changed from being the gangsters' moll into aiding A&C). The boys then don skis they find in a shed and get a head start on the gangsters, who are not far behind them on skis. Of course, Costello, especially, has a perilous journey on his skis. At one point, he lands on top of Abbott. Then, a bear is on the back of his skis for a while. He ends up inside a giant snowball, with Silky, the other 2 gangsters having been knocked out by hitting a tree. Yes, it's all silliness, often disjointed, and unbelievable, but that's what A&C films are all about. If you can't accept that, better not watch them. For that reason, they are best suited for kids.

Hit The Ice was Universal Studio's attempt to cash in on the popularity of 20th Century Fox's Sun Valley Serenade which mixed swing music with Sonja Henie's ice skating. Universal didn't have an ice skater of the caliber of Sonja Henie, but they did have Abbott&Costello and Costello on the ice was a sight to see.As for the swing music, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra were in Sun Valley Serenade and Universal didn't have them either. By this time Glenn Miller had gone to war. So they hired one of the good second line swing orchestras of the period led by violinist Johnny Long. And they also acquired Ginny Simms one of the best female singers from the Forties to appear with Long.However first and foremost the film is an Abbott&Costello effort and the boys do come through. They're first free lance photographers who take a picture of gangsters Sheldon Leonard, Marc Lawrence, and Joe Sawyer robbing a bank while Leonard is supposed to be in a hospital. Leonard's set up careful alibi about that even with doctor Patric Knowles and nurse Elyse Knox suspicious. Costello's camera work threatens to blow up some best laid plans.The whole cast winds up at Sun Valley during the ski season, setting up a most excellent chase sequence with the boys and the crooks going down slope. We're not quite sure who's chasing who, but the loot from the robbery is involved.Bud and Lou do some very good work. Sad to say that the film was badly edited and there are some plot problems because of it. Towards the end you see the boys in tuxedos waiting for Ginny Simms at a train station with no real explanation as to why they're in the formal wear. Simms also gets to play straight girl for the boys, part of her role is to vamp Costello and she does a good job. All that beauty and an incredible set of pipes.Hit The Ice is not one of their best efforts, but still better than some of what they did in the Fifties and should please Bud and Lou's strong legion of fans the world over.

I would like these sorts of movies a lot better if they didn't have the musical scenes. I watch these movies strictly to laugh. Certainly plenty of scenes made me laugh (namely the snowball scene). One can imagine being a fairly intelligent guy like Abbott's character always having to deal with a brainless sap like Costello's character and how annoying it would be.So, even though the singing drags the movie down, I recommend it overall. Pretty entertaining.Tied up for a while indeed...PS: Sheldon Leonard, who played Silky, later produced "The Danny Thomas Show" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show". He also provided his voice to Robert McKimson's cartoons "Kiddin' the Kitten" and "A Peck o' Trouble" as a lazy cat who tries to make a kitten do his work.

Almost lost in Abbott & Costello's prodigious output of the early forties is a funny little movie called 'Hit The Ice.' It's easy to see why it's been overlooked; in one two-year period, 1941-42, the team came out with EIGHT new films. After that, they slowed down to a more reasonable pace of two to three movies a year. And while 'Hit The Ice' isn't as well-known as the earlier 'Buck Privates' or the later classic, 'Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein,' it shows the duo still at a peak of humor and popularity, operating like a well-oiled machine, turning out hit comedy after hit comedy. If there was a problem, it was the obvious strain on the comedians and their writers to come up with enough new funny material to sustain such a production schedule. This is why A&C films almost inevitably feel 'padded,' with too much attention paid to either a pair of young lovers or musical numbers. In 'Hit The Ice,' it's definitely the latter. The big band singer Ginny Simms has way too much screen time, singing five songs (or maybe six; forgive me for not counting), which is all the more unforgivable as none of them are memorable and a couple are stupid beyond belief. There is one sung at an ice-skating rink called 'The Slap-Happy Polka,' during which the women skating periodically slap their partners. And no, unfortunately it does not evoke a Monty Pythonesque sense of humor. Abbott & Costello though have a number of funny scenes and the film starts off with a couple of the best. Playing photographers who hope to prove their worth to the local newspaper, they stumble upon a crook playing sick in a hospital (Sheldon Leonard) and his two thugs, who mistake them for a pair of hit men from Detroit. There is a hilarious exchange of dialogue between the bad guys and A&C, built entirely around double entendres. A short time later, Bud and Lou are accused of robbing a bank and so consider leaving town. While Abbott delivers a long monologue where he agonizes between leaving and staying, so Costello alternately packs and unpacks a suitcase, another great example of the team's expertise at physical comedy and timing. The rest of the film takes place at a ski resort; A&C's hopes of clearing themselves depend on them proving the crooks from the hospital guilty. This leads to another funny scene in a log cabin where Bud and Lou try to bluff the bad guys (as only they can). A climactic ski chase down the slopes suffers from too much rear-screen projection and obvious stunt work and is typical of comedies at the time, not just Abbott & Costello's. Then we get yet ANOTHER song from Ms. Simms before the not-so-happy (for Lou anyway) ending. 'Hit The Ice' is very much worth seeing, and one of the nice things about it is that the boys' routines are not as familiar as from some of their better-known pictures. I know for me, it was almost like watching a 'new' Abbott & Costello film. And you can always fast-forward through those godawful songs.