I've always liked this Abbott & Costello outing, probably ranking it just in their top ten - but I really don't know why! The story is so contrived and abounding with plot leaps and non-sequiteurs I wonder what everyone was thinking about in the making and release of this. I think it must be the fun and inconsequential atmosphere created so effortlessly by Universal studios during the War that brings me back to re-watch Hit The Ice every few years, along with my love of A&C of course.

Basically: 2 photographers are mixed up in bank robbery, the main perp of which is laid up as ill in hospital as an alibi. His doctor is going to Sun Valley to take up a new post, so the gangsters tag along with him taking the suspicious nurse in tow - plus A&C trying to clear their names. Ignoring all the plot inanities along the way, this would be a pleasant but ordinary comedy with ditto songs - which were beautifully produced and evocative of the time, but not very catchy. But A&C's packing and re-packing the grip routine still holds up well even with the overly childish conclusion to it. It's also a film that can be watched credulously at 10 years old, in middle age the link to the Keystone Kops is sadly more apparent - who finds them a Laugh Riot nowadays? On the other hand compared to Blazing Saddles (the personal yardstick that I regularly use to gauge the worth of various films) this is a beautiful work of Art - seriously!

So the bottom line is if like me you can overlook plot and you like A&C then you'll do alright, if not, well, it's definitely not their best anyway!

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.

This is an odd formula for an Abbott and Costello film. Instead of their usual locale, they find themselves going to the ski resort at Sun Valley to track some bank robbers, as the police think Bud and Lou did it. And, once they arrive at the resort, the viewers are treated to lots of song and dance numbers performed by Ginny Simms. The overall effect is a lot like taking a Sonja Henie film and shoving Abbott and Costello and some gangsters into it--a rather surreal experience to say the least!

Like almost all of the teams prior films (aside from WHO DONE IT!), the film follows a typical formula. In addition to Bud and Lou's antics, there is a couple on hand for support (Patric Knowles is back from a previous outing with the boys and Elyse Knox is there a 'the blonde'--something found in all their previous films) and there are too many irrelevant song and dance numbers. People looking for pure Abbott and Costello without all the other rigmarole should either see their later films (which, fortunately lacked this) or WHO DONE IT!.

Unfortunately, because this is set at a snow resort and apparently Bud and Lou apparently knew nothing about skiing or skating (either that or the studio was afraid they'd get hurt), the scenes of them doing these sports seem rather forced. When Lou is skating, it's pretty obviously not him and they tended to use lots of distance shots (the stuntman was actually too fat--and obviously not him). He did actually take a few good, hard falls up close but most of the work was clearly the stuntman. For the skiing scenes, they used a few stuntman shots but a lot of it was done with rear-projection--a common but incredibly unrealistic method of the day. This is a problem, as the film has less laughs and makes up for it by using more stunts--so this is obviously not one of their better films. It is still very watchable but certainly among their lesser efforts of the day.