Review of Iceland (1942)

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Sonja Henie was one of those rare occurences in Hollywood history where a performer became well known for one type of performance, in this case movies that always had a skating theme. Much the same thing occured to Esther Williams in the 1950's where she was always associated and starred in swimming spectacles with underwater sequences. "Iceland" was made when Sonja Henie was still one of the biggest stars at Twentieth Century Fox Studios where her films made a huge profit and always included lavish skating sequences for Sonja to display her Olympic standard skating skills often with a handsome leading man like Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, Richard Greene or in this case John Payne to admire her from the sidelines.

"Iceland" was a major production for 1942 but like all Sonja Henie films was light on in the dramatics department to compensate for its leading ladies limited acting ability while still being very entertaining and pleasing to the eye. Indeed the skating sequences in "Iceland", are incredibly lavish both in composition and in appearance and a real joy to watch. And despite Sonja's skating now appearing subdued compared to the standards achieved in present day Olympic standards she is captivating on the ice. The storyline of "Iceland", is a thin one but fits in well with the lengthy skating scenes and icy northern setting. It tells the story of Katina Jonsdottir (Henie), a sweet Icelandic girl who encounters American Marine Capt. James Murfin (John Payne) while he is stationed in Iceland in the opening period of World War 2. Being naive with the ways of the world she promptly falls in love with the handsome sweet talking American unaware that he is a free sole who has girls in most ports and is not one to settle down. Unfortunately his sweet talking of Katina is mistaken for a proposal for marriage and it's definately a clash of customs as one misunderstanding after another complicates the situation and Capt Murfin not only finds himself being pushed towards the altar but for the first time in his life really falling deeply in love with Katina. All ends happily after they first pretend, in a very funny scene set in a wedding chamber, that they are married to aid true lovers Helga Katina's sister and her sweetheart who must wait for her older sister to marry before being allowed to tie the knot themselves to wed. Out of such vintage froth comes a pleasing story offset well by good performances allround. Sonja Henie has a pleasing screen presence despite her limited acting skills and John Payne, always considered a sort of second string Tyrone Power at the studio, delivers a great performance as the love 'em and leave 'em American marine who gets finally caught by Icelandic matrimonial customs and finds himself married and actually liking it! Veteran commedianne Jackie Oakie as Payne's comical sidekick in the highjinks, Slip Riggs has some great one liners and reactions to the often implausible goings on. Felix Bressart, a veteran of so many fine performances most notably as Garbo's communist offsider in the classic "Ninotchka" scores well as Katina's befuddled father who is seeking an advantageous marriage for his daughter to improve the family finances. His constant encouraging and then rejection of poor Sterling Holloway in the role of Katina's hapless suitor Sverrup Svenssen is one of the comic highlights in the screenplay.

As befitting an "A" grade Sonja Henie vehicle of this period no expense was spared on the production. It benefits greatly from the appearance of Sammy Kaye and his orchestra in a number of scenes and the skating sequences are lavish to the extreme. The magnificent main number of the film where the settings change from China to Panama to Hawaii is a real show stopper with top class choreography, incredibly lavish costumes and great tunes.

Twentieth Century Fox was very skilled at producing crowd pleasing films like this with frothy storylines and pleasing musical interludes. I enjoy all the Sonja Henie films and "Iceland", is one of the best from the later part of her incredible run of successes at Fox in the late 1930's and early 1940's. Sit back and enjoy handsome John Payne romancing sweet Sonja Henie in the snowy landscape of "Iceland".

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In the wake of the brilliant Sun Valley Serenade, Fox again cast Sonja with John Payne under the helm of H. Bruce Humberstone. Iceland is not as good as Sun Valley, but her skating is her best. The music is first rate, though the words hilarious(promoting the girls to let soldiers have fun with them, they might not come back hehehe). Sonja proves once again that she was a comic talent, but the stagefarce-plot is much too much at times... However; the musicalnumbers are a treat and u should always watch it for that reason alone.

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I expected a skating movie and instead received a documentary on Iceland. The descriptin of this movie was all wrong.

Honest reviews on Iceland (1942)

This is one of my 2 favorite Sonja Henie films (the other being Sun Valley Serenade) but I have to stand by my convictions Sonja Henie is not a good actress but, wow are her leading men are sure good looking! Fox made every effort to pair this non-acting star with all of their handsomest leading men, perhaps to make her acting to appear better or perhaps to give her audiences a wider appeal. Regardless, if this VHS is selling for over $35, wouldn't you think that someone a Fox Home Video would smarten up and release it on DVD?

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This is a good introduction to Iceland, but it is not really intended for the adventure traveller. It is heavy with info and pictures for the traveller interested in birding. Still in a world light in videos on Iceland, this is better than nothing. Trailside is rereleasing their Trekking Iceland for the more adventurous.