Breaking the Ice

Breaking The Ice was a film designed to showcase the singing talents of young Bobby Breen. The boy soprano whose career ended when he hit puberty is a Mennonite kid who is living with his mother Dolores Costello as a guest of Uncle Robert Barrat and Aunt Dorothy Peterson. And Breen and Costello never are allowed to forget they're guests.

This is a weird film because the Mennonites are hardly shown in the best light in the person of Barrat. He is one harsh, unforgiving man who blames young Breen when $20.00 goes missing. Breen and Costello want to get out from under and Breen runs away and joins up with Charlie Ruggles who is always in the area looking for antiques from the Mennonites. They've got all kinds of furniture they don't know how valuable it is.

Quite frankly Ruggles creeped me out. He's a ruthless con man despite his bumbling manner and he takes advantage of Breen when the young man's singing talents are noticed by the owners of an ice show. Young ice dancer Irene Dare is featured as well. Ruggles takes an 80/20 split with Breen with him getting the 80.

Bobby does some pleasant songs and that in itself did not compute. His singing of other than hymns would have been frowned on by his people. When he grows up, Breen would probably have lit out of the Pennsylvania Dutch country pronto.

Still the singing and skating is nice, but this was not Bobby Breen's best.

Bobby Breen and his mother, Dolores Costello, are Mennonites living in Pennsylvania, a land of farms and covered bridges. They want to go to Kansas, where Miss Costello can take over a farm, but her protector, Robert Barratt thinks that women can't do that, and will not lend her the $92 they need for railroad fare. Bobby tries to raise the money by selling a stack of old newspaper to antiques dealer Charles Ruggles, who's on a buying trip, but all he gets is a dollar and a harmonica. So he decides to go with Ruggles to Philadelphia, where he is told he can make that money. Meanwhile, $10 turns up missing and Barrat nerates Miss Costello because her son stole it.

Ruggles offers his usual mild comedy persona to excellent effect and he swindles customers and even Bobby, but turns out to have a soft spot. Master Breen sings four pieces in his child soprano, and there is also skater Irene Dare doing the movie's big production numbers like a 7-year-old Sonja Henie. Other interesting talent on view includes Billy Gilbert and Margaret Hamilton as a married couple, Jonathan Hale, and even Sennett comic Charles Murray.

It's sweet and mildly ridiculous by modern standards, but will be of interest to anyone fond of old talent and sentimentality.

This is a bizarre and rather creepy little film from 1938. It stars Bobby Breen--a 11 year-old singing sensation with a voice that sounds like a woman's! The effect is rather strange--hearing such a high-pitched and feminine voice coming from the boy. The effect is a tad creepy. And, speaking of creepy, the film also features a freaky little girl (Irene Dare) who appears to be at most 5 years-old (though IMDb indicates she's 7--she clearly does not look to be that age). Miss Dare is the combination of two odd sensations of the day--Shirley Temple and the ice skating actress Sonja Hennie. The effect of seeing such a tiny girl exploited (yes, I do mean exploited) is amazingly creepy--and even worse than people getting rich off Breen. And, in an odd twist, the plot is about Breen's character being exploited! The film begins in a Mennonite community in Pennsylvania. Breen and his mother (silent star Delores Costello) are living with Breen's incredibly rigid and moralistic uncle (Robert Barrat). Barrat is very religious but also seems to completely miss the meaning of his faith---and is very cold and unforgiving. Eventually, his rigidity forces young Bobby to run away to Philadelphia to make his fortune. In this pursuit, he's accompanied by a real ne'er-do-well (Charlie Ruggles) who again and again exploits the boy's singing talents. When the boy is offered $25 a week to sing, Ruggles tells the kid he's earning $5--and pockets the rest. Nice guy, huh?! Eventually Breen makes good and returns home--only to be given the cold shoulder by his Hitler-iffic uncle. It seems that $20 accidentally disappeared and the uncle insists that Breen stole it. To get back in his family's good graces, he sets out to prove his innocence--which makes it all seem so very, very abusive and cruel. At no point does the boy's 'loving mother' intercede and the whole film comes off as bizarre and exploitational.

While I did not like the plot nor all the singing and skating (mostly because, as I said, it all seemed to exploit these tykes), I must admit that the acting was generally very good. Breen came off as a very sweet kid--natural and easy to like. And, Ruggles' character, while a bit despicable, was also fun to watch--much like Frank Morgan in "The Wizard of Oz" or W.C. Fields in pretty much all his films! The overall effect is quite watchable but weird--and probably something best seen only by insane cinephiles like myself!

So Rick Prelinger's been down the chimney again with that big sack of his - and the third of the Bobby Breen movies. Quite apart from the fairly revolutionary - for its time - Amish background,familiar faces such as Charlie Ruggles or Dolores Costello can only be plusses in what is a fairly typical typical Breen opus. Where it verges off to the left, in a major way, is the addition of child skating prodigy Irene Dare. If you were tight lipped over the lubricous exploitation of the infant Shirley Temple, well, you ain't seen nothing. I first watched the movie two years ago and spent the intervening period wondering how it ever snuk past the Mothers Of America - seeing it again has me wondering anew. Some nice little songs, Bobby's always professional and cheery disposition when under fire - keep them coming Rick and more power to your projector.

These are Mennonites not Amish. There's a difference. Unfortunately this is the typically painful Hollywood view that depicts every conservative sect the same way, with stilted language and oddness, neither of which bears any relation to reality. It would be offensive if it weren't so ridiculous and ignorant. Interesting that the more liberal sister is wearing obvious makeup. Charles Ruggles is the only actor who seems even slightly believable in this mess. There's also an outstandingly trained mule. Breen sang well and Dare skated well with challenging choreography. The part where the four are taking a stroll behind the plow is particularly weird and not something we are likely to ever see again unless someone makes a parody of the genre, if indeed one could parody this genre.