Old Time Movies

I watched a couple more "old" movies.

In the past few days I've watched a few more old time movies.

The first one was a Laurel and Hardy movie called "The Flying Deuces."

Here you can read about it:

Laurel and Hardy

I thought it was pretty funny. Especially the jail house chase scene! LOL!

Then I watched another classic film called "It's a Pleasure."

Here you can read about it:

It's a Pleasure

This was a great movie and moving love story.

Sonja Henie was one of the founding ladies of figure skating.

Here is some information I found about her:

Three times the Olympic figure-skating champion, Miss Henie won most of the major world skating titles from 1927 to 1936, when she turned professional.

A petite, glamorous woman with a taste for luxury and a shrewd business sense, she was immensely successful next with a series of her own ice revues, and prospered as a motion picture star.

Born in Oslo on April 8, 1912, Miss Henie received her first skates from her father, a Norwegian fur wholesaler, on the Christmas after her sixth birthday.

While improving her skating, in the next few years, she also studied ballet with a former teacher of Anna Pavlova, and eventually she combined the two forms on ice.

She won the children's figure skating championship of Oslo when she was 8, and two years later, in 1923, she won the figure skating championship of Norway.

She entered her first Olympic Winter Games the next year, primarily for experience, and took third place in the free skating competition.

(She accomplished all of this before the age of 12)

She won the first of 10 consecutive world skating titles at Oslo in 1927, captivating the crowd with her ballet style, a white silk and ermine costume and short skirt and a dimpled smile.

Over the next decade Miss Henie won Olympic titles at St. Moritz, Switzerland (1928), at Lake Placid (1932), and at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria (1936).

She signed with Darrly F. Zanuck and 20th Century-Fox, and her first skating film, "One in a Million," was released at the end of 1936.

It was a box-office smash, as were others she made in the following dozen years. 

The pictures were reported to have grossed $25-million.

She was once quoted as saying

"I want to do with skates (in the movies) what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing."

She also began staging and appearing in ice shows, in association with Arthur Wirtz, her business manager, and these, too, were very successful -- with lavish costumes and spectacular routines.

These shows, the "Hollywood Ice Revues" were major attractions at Madison Square Garden for many years, up to 1952.

Sadly she died October 12, 1969.

Here are some little known facts about her:

She was the first skater to parlay her athletic success into a lucrative career.

10 time World Champion Women's Figure Skating.

She was the youngest Olympic skating champion - 15 years and 10 months of age when she won the 1928 gold medal. This record was beaten only in 1998 by a two-month younger American 'Tara Lipinski'.

She began a modern art museum with her third husband, Henie-Onstad Art Centre in the city of Tampere, about 200 km from Oslo. The couple is buried on the hilltop overlooking the museum.

Inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1976 & the International Women's Sport Hall of Fame 1982.

The signature of her ice skate blades adorns the cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Here is a list of the American movies she was in:

Holiday On Ice   1956

The Countess of Monte Cristo  1948

It's a Pleasure  1945

Wintertime  1943

Iceland  1942

Sun Valley Serenade  1941

Everything Happens at Night  1939

Second Fiddle  1939

My Lucky Star  1938

Happy Landing  1938

Ali Baba Goes to Town  1937

Thin Ice  1937

One in a Million  1936

What an amazing Ice Skater!

I just thought I would highlight this very talented lady.

Well in the words of Porky Pig..."Th-th-th-th-that's all folks!"