EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

HeadlinesExotic Boring

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

sbasu-47-608737 A struggling actor, badly needing publicity, a publicity man, ready to anything for his studio and its stars, a naive girl, catapulted in limelight as the fresh new face, and the system, for which humans don't matter, the money they bring it does, and there can be no wrong methods,if it can spin in money. That in brief is what the movie was about. Did I like it? Frankly no, since the plot was too near reality, and who likes reality ? When one watches off beat movies, one is mentally prepared for that, but not in these type of movies. This dislike of course shows,to me, that the movie was well made and there were not many irritants, which would have brought it into the fantasy zone, and I would have dismissed it. Of course it was all well, till the ending. naturally I won't like the black-guard to go with the reward. There was that steady Lyle Talbot, who unfortunately almost always got the role of the sacrificial lamb, this was no exception. In this case, he could as well had been the winner, since the change of heart of the heroine wasn't called for since (a) there is the steady man (b) She at least considers herself to be in love with some one (c) there is a third person, who might be in love with her, but for her, he didn't exist, till the director told her he did, on rebound, she would have rather hated him, than being in love.The ending was rather forced and unnatural. It was made to make a hero of hero. Probably the hero could have been the one who stayed home, like in say Bucking Broadway (1917). I don't think a girl would reverse the affection. That is the other factor of my not being high on the movie.

MartinHafer When seen today, Sonja Henie films are incredibly strange and the notion that this Norwegian skating champion could be one of the biggest stars at Twentieth Century-Fox is just baffling. After all, Henie was cute--but not exactly a big star due to her looks. And, in each of her films, they SOMEHOW contrived to get her onto the ice SOMEWHERE!! The films really make no sense...though I must admit that most are still entertaining if you see them today. You just need to be sure to suspend all disbelief, otherwise your brain will nag you with 1001 questions!The film revolves around a slick publicity agent, Jimmy (Tyrone Power). He's an amazingly good liar--even for a P.R. man and his routine is pretty funny. However, when he gets the smart idea of creating a fake romance between two new studio stars, Roger (Rudy Vallee) and Trudi (Henie), things get complicated. Roger is already in love with another woman and he's apprehensive to play like he's in love with Trudi. Worse, however, is that slowly Jimmy is falling for Trudi himself...but when the plan backfires and Trudi learns that Roger is only PRETENDING to love her, she is furious as well as hurt and leaves Hollywood. What is that weasel, Jimmy, to do?!In addition to the strange plot, the studio cast Edna May Oliver as Trudi's aunt. This is ridiculous, as Oliver seems about as Norwegian as pizza! And, there are LOTS of ridiculous songs and skating numbers that make the whole thing a bit on the silly side. BUT, the leads try there best and despite all the silliness, it IS enjoyable.By the way, the studio head who you hear but never see is played by Charles Lane--the old familiar character actor.

Neil Doyle Fox certainly knew what kind of material to give their skating star, SONJA HENIE--a light but diverting plot, lots of musical interludes, a few skating sequences, a handsome co-star, some comedy relief and as many Sonja close-ups as possible.They scored on every point with SECOND FIDDLE. It's light entertainment for the masses who came to see Sonja skate with everyone else playing second fiddle to her in importance. But TYRONE POWER manages to be impressive as her leading man, more charismatic than usual and spirited, suggesting that there was a lot more to him than the kind of roles he was getting at the time. It doesn't hurt that he's at his handsomest in this early film. And EDNA MAY OLIVER had no peer when it came to stealing the spotlight on an almost regular basis whenever she could.Furthermore, RUDY VALLEE gets a chance to warble a couple of Irving Berlin tunes. He's part of a scheme by Power, a publicity agent for a Hollywood studio, to revive Vallee's fading career by getting a phony romantic buildup pairing him with Henie. Henie, of course, knows nothing of the scheme and therefore she and Power have romantic misunderstanding until the final reel.It's a diverting piece of entertainment, one of the better Sonja Henie films produced by Fox and well worth seeing for the skating sequences alone, if you're a Henie fan. Her graceful routines are well choreographed for the camera.

writers_reign This is a pleasant enough diversion which pokes gentle fun at the search for an 'unknown' to play the eponymous role in a film adaptation of a best selling novel. Someone actually gave this more than the customary ten seconds thought because it was released in 1939, the same year as Gone With The Wind, a film that had hogged headlines around the world via its search for the perfect heroine, Scarlett O'Hara; Scarlett was a Southern belle and in Second Fiddle the fictitious novel is The Girl From The North, the North carries connotations of snow and Sonja Henie came from a Northern country, Norway and was herself associated with both snow and ice and as if that were not enough, in Second Fiddle she is a resident of Bergen, Minnesota and Bergen is also, of course, an island off the coast of Norway. So, was it worth all this care. More or less. Publicist Tyrone Power is sent to bring Henie to Hollywood and naturally he falls in love with her but his job obliges him to engineer a 'romance' between Henie and Rudy Vallee, another studio 'property' in need of publicity; we now have a touch of the Cyrano's as Power is not only buying the flowers and candy that Henie thinks is coming from Vallee but is also writing the billed-doux and even goes so far as to compose a ballad, I Poured My Heart Into A Song, ostensibly written by Vallee. Edna May Oliver is also on hand to lob the odd droll asides into the mix and it all ends happily. A diverting 80 minutes or so.