taoyue.com: Film Reviews - One in a Million (1936)

One in a Million (1936)

directed by Sidney Lanfield
Frames in this review are taken from the 1993 Fox Video VHS tape.

When you see a Hollywood studio film from the Golden Era, you know pretty much what you'll get. However the plot twists and turns, Judy and Mickey will put on a show, Fred and Ginger will dance round and round, and Esther Williams will find some way of getting very wet. And if the film happened to star Sonja Henie and came from Twentieth Century-Fox, there'll be a skating exhibition. It's a familiar career move today, but though film has given way to television advertisements and cereal box pictures, the Norwegian figure skater Henie was one of the first to cash in on her athletic prowess on a grand scale, and is often regarded as the prototype.

One in a Million is the first of the Fox skating pictures, produced in 1936 shortly after Henie won her third Olympic gold and turned professional. Henie plays (what else?) an amateur skater named Greta Muller, living in Switzerland with her innkeeper father Heinrich (Jean Hersholt). Heinrich knows a little bit about skating himself, having won the 1908 Olympics and had the medal taken away on charges of professionalism. Of course, those charges are false, and Heinrich has been cultivating his talented daughter ever since, dreaming of recapturing that medal.

But that's not enough to fill a 94-minute movie, so we get to bring in the Americans. First, there's Thaddeus Spencer (Adolphe Menjou), a down-on-his luck bandleader touring Europe on a shoestring budget with his wisecracking wife Billie (Arline Judge) and girl band. They're so unlucky that their hotel burns down just before they arrive, leaving them freezing under their overcoats with their summer costumes on. But not to worry, Muller's inn is just down the street, and there are just enough rooms to accommodate them and the other people who show up in the film.

Among these are Bob Harris (Don Ameche), a reporter for the Paris Herald, and his growling, grumpy photographer Danny Simpson (Ned Sparks). Danny isn't too impressed by the innkeeper's daughter, but Bob is smitten and spend the rest of the film talking to her in soft tones with a big smile on his face. While Danny tails Ratoffsky (Montagu Love), a cultured guest at the inn who's been behaving in a rather hush-hush manner, Bob pursues Greta and tells his editor about the great human interest story.

But Spencer is dazzled watching Greta skate at the local frozen pond, and dreaming of "A hundred Fred Astaires! A hundred Pavlovas on ice!" takes her along on an exhibition tryout for a prospective engagement. He is paid for the show, and Bob arrives after Greta has skated one number, warning that the payment would jeopardize her amateur eligibility for the Olympics. What will happen, especially with an honor-bound father who would rather his daughter be disqualified than have her medal taken away later, as his was?

The film is one of those light comedies where nothing can really go wrong, so the outcome is never in doubt. Will she win the Olympic championship? How can she lose, with her father pronouncing her the best figure skater in the world and Bob telling her, "Why, you can't help winning." And besides, Spencer is counting on her victory so he'd have a star with whom to headline his show. Not even a tabulation error by the judges can stop her, so that after the tricolor is raised to the Marseillaise being played, the announcer declares that Switzerland actually won. And when the medal is in jeopardy due to the professionalism, why, the whole gang can just barge into the Olympic Secretary's office to explain the mistake (you'll never guess who the Olympic Secretary is, being a cultured British knight). All these plots are turns are accompanied by fast dialog typical of screwball comedies, liberally dosed with the "Gee," "Say," "Well," and "Why"s of the day.

And, of course, if you're competing with MGM for the box office dollars of America, you've got to load your film with music. We have the girl band, their instruments getting fewer in number every day, singing forgettable tunes on sleigh rides. Borrah Minevitch's Rascals make an appearance playing their harmonicas, and Borrah Minevitch himself joins the gang early on as Adolphe, a German who misinterprets Spencer's pleas to "Shut up" as the name of a song. And the three Ritz Brothers add in a dash of madcap comedy, performing a scene on ice as movie monsters Peter Lorre (M), Charles Laughton (Mutiny on the Bounty), and Boris Karloff (any of the Frankensteins).

Add in Sonja Henie's skating routines, and you end up with a screwball comedy, a madcap comedy, a mild musical, and a dance spectacular all in one film. And while they're all done respectably well, the film never feels very cohesive. It's as though Fox, without a Marx Brothers, a Busby Berkeley, or a Howard Hawks, threw in the kitchen sink so their skating film could have a little bit of everything. Well, that's why the studio system has often been compared to a film-making factory.

But as entertaining as it all is, it's the skating numbers that we're waiting for. And while the art direction, choreography, and camera moves lack the polish and imagination of an MGM musical spectacular, it's exhilarating and informative to watch Henie at ease in her element. Now, this is the dawn of figure skating; indeed, Henie invented much of the aesthetic with carefully choreographed dance moves and shorter, less restrictive skirts. So don't expect a program filled with double jumps, or even dream of the triples and quadruples of today. (Interesting tidbit: the 1908 Olympics, which Muller's father won, was in real life won by Ulrich Salchow, the one for whom the jump was named.) But do expect to see precision movements and to sense an exuberant energy in Henie's skating, one that comes through more clearly in a routine designed around a movie camera than in actual competition from a distance with television cameras. Compare her skating with that of the French skater at the onscreen Olympics, and you realize why Henie dominated the field in international competition for over a decade. In some sports, Olympic gold medalists of yesteryear wouldn't even make it past the heats today.

The burning down of the hotel? Forgotten amidst the singing and skating. The possible attempt on the life of the premier who was scheduled to stay at the hotel? Well, as the characters said, what's one more premier around these parts? And the charges of professionalism which threaten her gold medal? That wouldn't be a happy ending. Can anything interrupt the gang's triumphant ice revue in Madison Square Garden, complete with a bullfight on ice acted out by the Ritz Brothers? Well, they do try to book Transatlantic passage on the zeppelin Hindenburg, but the film was released in 1936 so it's nothing more than a luxury alternative to the steamship lines. And so, like Lassie coming home, Henie as Greta Muller reaps the rewards of her Olympic victory in front of a rapturous American audience.

One in a Million was her first, and Sun Valley Serenade was her most successful, featuring Glenn Miller and his orchestra. Fox released all its Henie skating pictures in the 1990s, but none are currently available on DVD.