User Reviews

"Frühling auf dem Eis" ("Spring On the Ice") shows an ice revue with wonderful dancing scenes of the past. Recommended to figure-skating historians who want to analyze the skating style of the past on the one hand and to older people who want to look back on the other hand. The scenes that have mostly impressed me are the oriental scene with Eva Pawlik as a slave (the combination of skating and pantomime) and the Viennese Waltz at the end of the film. You can see how much the sport has developed within the last six decades. It is remarkable, however, that Pawlik's pirouettes actually were as fast as they are in the free programs of the present world's elite. The frame story is to some extent a sort of necessary evil of the whole movie. The figure skater Eva Pawlik, however, does her job well not only on the ice but also as an actress. In one of the commentaries on IMDb someone points out that it would have been more difficult for an actor or an actress to skate than it was for a artistically talented skater to act. I agree with that.

"Frühling auf dem Eis" shows a large number of well known Austrian actors and the ensemble of the Vienna Ice Revue, world-famous at a time when I was young. I know well all the skaters from their appearances in the fifties, especially Eva Pawlik, starring in "Frühling auf dem Eis". I can well remember that she was not only a wonderful sportswoman and actress but also a doctor of philosophy. All Europe loved her in the fifties.

I love this movie because it shows Austria´s figure skating queen Eva Pawlik. I remember to have seen her in the programme of the Vienna Ice Revue in Brussels in 1961 when I was 5 years old. I dreamed the dream of being such a great show-star by myself. In "Frühling auf dem Eis" I saw her again when I was about twenty years old in a retrospective on TV. Although her skating style may look a bit old fashioned to us now she is still a strong personality on the ice and also as an actress in the frame story. It is worth mentioning that she is - as an actress - not worse than the "real" actors. It would have been impossible the other way round - for actors cannot learn how to skate within a few weeks. Besides, "Frühling auf dem Eis" is one of the few movies in the history of films in which an internationally successful skater (Pawlik was runner-up at the 1948 Olympics) plays the main role in a movie. I can only remember the legendary Sonja Henie from Norway who did so and the German couple Marika Kilius and Hans-Juergen Bäumler. Even the great Kati Witt only played a main role on the ice and not in the frame story of a movie.

I am 95 years old, so I have seen almost all figure skating stars of the twentieth century. I saw most ice shows in Vienna, especially those with Austrian World Champion Felix Kaspar, Austrian Olympic Champion Herma Szabo, Austrian double Olympic Champion Karl Schäfer and the Olympic runner-ups Ilse and Erik Pausin. After World War II there was again a lot of exhibition skating in Vienna, with double Olympic Champion Dick Button and Austrian Olympic runner-up Eva Pawlik who was entitled the "Pawlowa on the ice". When I watch the movie "Frühling auf dem Eis" with Eva Pawlik (who was also a good actress) all the marvellous figure skating impressions come back to my mind. I love this movie because it is part of Austria´s figure skating history that is unique in the world.

To me "Frühling auf dem Eis" showing the Vienna Ice Revue that was world-famous once is not only a historical figure skating document. As the female main role is played by my mother, Eva Pawlik (who died in 1983), and as my father Rudi Seeliger (who also died in 1983) is also presented as a skater, the movie is from the personal point of view by far more valuable to me than to any other person in the world. For everyone interested in the my parents´ figure skating career (especially in my mother´s) I write the following words:

As the 1948 Olympic Champion Barbara Ann Scott had turned pro Eva Pawlik was celebrated as the world´s highest ranking female amateur skater in the summer of 1948. Pawlik did a lot of exhibition skating in the US, where she was also asked to be the lead actress in a Hollywood movie by Gene Kelley who wanted to combine his dancing with her skating. She said no because turning pro would have exluded her from the following year´s championships. Pawlik was said to have the best chance to win the next European and World titles.

Though suffering from acute appendicitis, Eva Pawlik beat her competitor Alena Vrzanová both in school figures and in free-skating in Milan and became the 1949 European Champion. In Paris where the World Championship was held, she was second after school figures, but the difference in score between her and Vrzanová was rather small, so she still had good chances to win. But then one of her heels broke while she and her competitors were warming up. Sabotage was supposed but it could not be proved. The judges did not allow her to try the skates of a companion, so Pawlik had to give up and Vrzanová was able to win the 1949 World Championship without any dangerous competitor. Some weeks later, my mother decided to turn pro, although double Olympic Champion Karl Schäfer implored her to go on skating for one more year.

I don´t think that my mother´s decision to turn pro in 1949 was right. Being the star of the Vienna Ice Revue she showed a free programme that was compared to that of Vrzanová by European journalists and figure skating experts who said that my mother´s programme was both technically and artistically on a higher level. So Karl Schäfer had been right, of course, that she would have had the best chance to win the 1950 World title. But Pawlik wanted to give financial support to her parents whom she loved above all. That was the psychological reason why she turned pro in 1949.

My mother´s strength had always lain in the free skating, though she had had a solid school-figures training. The later Olympic Champion Jeanette Altwegg was not an excellent free skater but an outstanding school-figures skater. An excellent free skater representing a more modern style was Jacqueline du Bief. But she was still too young to be dangerous to my mother if my mother had taken part in the 1950 or 1951 World´s.

In 1947 when my mother probably already was the best European skater and at least the second best in the world, Austrian skaters were not admitted to the European and the World competitions. This exclusion (for political reasons arising out of World War II) prevented my mother from making a name for herself in 1947. Everyone who deals with figure skating knows that the judges are to some extent influenced by a skater´s international recognition. Therefore it is clear that she must have shown an outstanding program in 1948 to win three silver medals (at the European´s, the Olympics and the World´s) as a no-name skater. Although she was - at the first go - the best European skater, she did not win the European Gold in 1948 because non-Europeans were allowed to participate, again for political reasons.

It is good also to remember the conditions in which Austrian skaters developed their skills and competed in the 1930s and '40s. In the 1930s, Eva Pawlik had been considered a child prodigy, able to jump a single axel and do a large number of spins at the age of four. In her teens she would get up at 4 am daily to run to the Vienna ice rink (Wiener Eislaufverein) to practice her school figures before school -- and this at a time when Austrian skaters could practice only in the cold season as there were no indoor skating halls as there were in the US and Canada.

But Nazi Germany´s absorption of Austria in 1938 destroyed sportsmen´s careers and lives. Pawlik was ultimately unable to carry on the Austrian tradition of being world-famous both as a single and as a pairs skater. She should have participated at age 12 in the Olympic Winter Games scheduled to take place in Tokyo in 1940. My parents Eva Pawlik and Rudi Seeliger could take part only in German domestic competitions; they became German youth champions, each as a single skater and together as a couple (this was before Kekesy/Kiraly who went on to win the Olympic Silver Medal in 1948 and the 1949 World Championship). Drafted into the German army, my father was eventually captured and worked as a slave coal-miner in the Soviet Union, incommunicado, until he was allowed to go back to Austria in 1949.

In the end, my parents were lucky -- although my father was unable to restart an amateur career (my mother was already a professional, starring in the Vienna Ice Revue), as they soon became one of the world´s best professional couples. My mother´s lead role in both the ice skating and the frame story of a film featuring the Revue, „Spring on the Ice` („Frühling auf dem Eis`, 1950), was what inspired the later Olympic double champion, Ludmilla Belousova, to take up skating. Morris Chalfen, the boss of the revue „Holiday On Ice`, considered Pawlik Europe´s best show-star on the ice since Sonja Henie.

Some months before my birth in 1962, my mother ended her skating and became the first female sportscaster of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). In 1973 she began her third profession as a German and English teacher at a Viennese secondary school (pupils from 10 to 18). In 1954, she had earned her doctorate in German and English at the University of Vienna. My father was the manager of a public relations enterprise where he started in 1962.

In 1979 my mother became severely ill and died in 1983, four months after my father who had died from a sudden heart attack.

The 1949 European Champion and 1948 Olympic runner-up Eva Pawlik from Austria is excellent both as the leading lady of the Vienna ice revue ensemble and as an actress. I have seen this movie about ten times and I must say it is worth watching even more often. I can strongly recommend this movie to everyone interested in the history of figure skating and of ice shows. I have seen many a movie with the legendary Sonja Henie from Norway, thrice Olympic Champion, but there was none among these films that was as charming as "Frühling auf dem Eis".

The reason why 10 points are appropriate: Eva Pawlik is starring not only as a figure skater, but also as an actress. I have not known anything about Pawlik but my grand-parents told me about her extraordinarily marvellous appearances in the programmes of the Vienna Ice Revue that played for Berlin six weeks a year in the fifties and that was well-known all over the world at that time. I am a musician. So I saw Pawlik´s dancing in "Frühling auf dem Eis" from a musician´s point of view. Every spin, every slight moving is in perfect harmony with the music. Though I am not even twenty years of age, I can imagine that the audience was thrilled by Pawlik´s skating.

... above is my email address so as to enable you to contact me if you want to - I know a great deal about figure skating history because I have learned so many details during the time my mother was the first female figure skating sportscaster for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF. Besides, I wrote a book about the Vienna Ice Revue.

The quality of the ice-revue depends above all upon Eva Pawlik, who was four times Austrian Champion, European Champion and runner-up both at the World´s and the Olympics. She was not only a world-famous sportswoman, but also an outstanding show star and a good actress as to be seen in "Frühling auf dem Eis". The old-fashioned choreography fits in the early fifties. Pawlik´s spins are faster than those of many a European or World Champion of today. Her most difficult jumps are the double salchow and the double toe. The film earns a maximum of 10 points because it is one of the very few movies in which a European figure skating Champion also plays a main role in the frame story of a revue film. No one interested in ice shows should miss it!

"Frühling auf dem Eis" is a must for everyone interested in the history of figure skating and ice-revues. The skaters open a dream world of colours and dance. Eva Pawlik, in the fifties Austria´s most popular figure skating queen, is shown in a large number of roles on the ice (as a doll as well as a ballerina) and also in the leading role in the movie´s frame story. It goes without saying that the skating style looks old-fashioned from the present point of view, but taking into account that the film is more than half a century old you can imagine that the style was very modern at that time, especially as compared with the Hollywood movies with Sonja Henie. So "Frühling auf dem Eis" with the ensemble of the legedary Vienna Ice Revue is from a certain point of view a historical cultural document. That is why it seems more valuable to me than other movies produced in 1950.

You can forget about most old movies, but you should not forget about "Frühling auf dem Eis". The special emphasis on the elements of art and entertainment in Eva Pawlik´s figure skating is what makes this document of European show business history that outstanding.

The frame-story is the necessary evil of the movie. The only thing about the frame-story worth mentioning is that Eva Pawlik is also an excellent actress. The outstanding value of the film lies in the presentation of the ensemble of the Vienna Ice Revue with European Champion Eva Pawlik on top. Everyone interested in the history of figure skating has to have seen this document of art on the ice.

There are some similarities between the story of "Frühling auf dem Eis" and that of "Das Kind der Donau". But the ice dancing in "Frühling auf dem Eis", especially that of top star Eva Pawlik, is beyond all doubt more interesting that Marika Rökk´s dancing. Besides, Pawlik who was world-famous at that time, is a better actress.

I love the old movies. Although the frame story is - beyond all doubt - not excellent, the movie is worth 10 points in my opinion because it shows the wonderful skaters of the legendary Vienna Ice Revue.

Austrian and European Champion Eva Pawlik who lost her Olympic Gold Medal only against Canada´s sweetheart Barbara Ann Scott is brilliant not only as a skater but also as an actress.

There is no doubt that the other actors having learned how to act on stage and in a movie are not really better. It would have been more difficult for them to skate...