The Cracked Ice Man

Charley Chase is a very underrated early comic. After all, he not only starred in a bunch of wonderful Hal Roach shorts, he often directed his an other comics' films and was very adept at it. However, despite my being a big fan, I must admit that "The Cracked Ice Man" is a very poor outing. There are two main reasons. First, there's singing and not the good type. Second, the plot seems very vague and disorganized and as a result the comedy really never gets going.

The plot finds Charley hired as a teacher but learning that instead of teaching psychology, he's been assigned a kindergarten class. The problem is that this didn't occur until the film was over halfway complete....and the film really did nothing to make the most of the children (several of which were members of the Little Rascals). Overall, you wonder why the usual formula is missing and the film just isn't funny...nor fun.