Originally released in 1945, It’s a Pleasure is the first Sonja Henie film to ever be released on DVD. One of the latter works of this Norwegian triple Olympic Gold Medalist and figure skater, the film also stars Michael O’Shea and is done in, the very advanced for the time, Technicolor. I have read that this is Henie’s only film to have been done in Technicolor.
The plot here is fairly classic and very romantic. Chris Linden (Henie) is a star figure skater who meets up with the crass, often drunk, hockey player named Don. The two fall in love and Don is given life anew through both his newfound romance and the opportunity to resurrect his career through figure skating. Of course, the “wicked witch” character, in this case a self-centered and beautiful woman (Marie McDonald) bent on bringing Don back to the bottle for no apparent reason aside from jealousy.
I didn’t really care for the story here. It’s the music and the skating that make this so wonderful. Watching a Triple Olympic Gold Medalist perform is awe-inspiring no matter what you want to believe. Henie was amazing as a performer and could there be a more awesome document of it than to have it actually worked into a major film? I loved the music as well (much better than the flat dialogue really) but when you couple the music and the skating you have something that stands out from the pack even today, over six decades later! If you enjoy musicals or figure skating then this is definitely worth checking out for yourself and the low price is icing on the cake!
Reviewed by Mark Fisher
