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             Curated classic films

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       Hollywood has long used college as a setting for all manner of plots, few of which have anything to do with teaching or learning or being a student. For a while in the 1930s, the public's seeming fascination with collegiate life was fed frequently with a virtual genre "the college musical" or the sub-genre, "the college football story, musical or non-musical".  Perhaps this was just another manifestation of Depression-era audiences wanting to watch the rich or the children of the rich as an escape from their troubles. Even after the Depression, the college setting turned up pretty regularly, very often including a critical football game. The following group includes some films that are not too well known and some you might want to look at again.

Romantic Dramas

A Yank at Oxford 1938 (Directed by Jack Conway) Robert Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Maureen O’Sullivan, Lionel Barrymore.

Robert is an American athlete trying to fit in while romancing O’Sullivan and getting involved with Leigh. He looks fit in his rowing togs.  F. Scott Fitzgerald contributed to the project which gives it a little polish.

These Glamour Girls 1939 (Directed by S. Sylvan Simon) Lana Turner, Lew Ayres, Richard Carlson.

Hard-working Lana is a dance hall girl who is invited by drunken Lew Ayres to the college dance where she is humiliated in front of his snooty friends when he doesn’t remember inviting her. What passes for social commentary in a Lana Turner vehicle.

Goodbye Mr Chips 1939 (Directed by Sam Wood) Robert Donat, Greer Garson.

OK, not actually a college story, but I couldn't resist including this classic. An Academy Award for Donat as he portrays the beloved teacher, Mr. Chipping, who recalls his long career at a British boarding school, his unlikely, but happy, marriage to Katherine (Greer Garson), and the impact he has had on the lives of the school and its students.

The Male Animal 1942 (Directed by Elliot Nugent) Henry Fonda, Olivia DeHavilland, Jack Carson, Joan Leslie.

Idealistic professor Fonda is at odds with the administration over his political views and with his wife over the return to campus of her former football player boyfriend.  There is even a subplot love triangle if brain versus brawn, liberal versus conservative wasn’t enough conflict.

A Woman of Distinction 1950 (Directed by Edward Buzzell) Rosalind Russell, Ray Milland, Edmund Gwenn.

Roz is the business-suited headmistress of an exclusive women’s college who has no time for romance and Ray Milland is a visiting lecturer from England.  Their instant antipathy, of course, results in love, helped by her father, Edmund Gwenn.

Goodbye My Fancy 1951 (Directed by Vincent Sherman) Joan Crawford, Robert Young, Frank Lovejoy.

Joan is a respected journalist who returns to her alma mater and old flame, Young, and gets involved in administration politics.  Lovejoy completes the love triangle.

Musicals

Pigskin Parade 1936 (Directed by David Butler)  Stuart Erwin, Tony Martin, Betty Grable, Patsy Kelly, Jack Haley, Judy Garland (in her film debut).

The college football musical genre so popular in the thirties, in this instance, with a great cast.  The invitation from Yale to the U. of Texas to play a charity football game mistakenly arrives at a small Texas college.

College Swing (Directed by Raoul Walsh) 1938 

Bob Hope, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Betty Grable, John Payne, Martha Raye, Jackie Coogan.

After nine years at the college, Gracie needs to graduate in order to inherit a fortune, in the last of Paramount’s college musicals of the 30s.  The reason that this one made it to DVD was because of Bob Hope’s part in the film as Gracie’s tutor.  An all-star cast in the early days of their careers make this more like an entertaining evening of vaudeville.

Too Many Girls 1940 (Directed by George Abbott) Lucille Ball, Richard Carlson, Van Johnson, Desi Arnaz, Ann Miller.

Lucy is the daughter of a tycoon who sends four bodyguards with her to college, mainly to keep her from her latest flame. They get distracted.  From the successful Broadway show with a Rodgers and Hart score.

Girl Crazy 1943 (Directed by Norman Taurog)

Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney.

Tommy Dorsey and orchestra back Judy singing Gershwin score.  Oh, there is a college in the story, attended by Mickey, but this is mostly a wonderful musical, the best of the Garland/ Rooney films.

She’s Working Her Way Through College 1952 (Directed by Bruce Humberstone) Virginia Mayo, Ronald Reagan, Gene Nelson.

This is a remake of The Male Animal, with Ronald Reagan as the professor and Virginia Mayo as a showgirl/college student. Good music and great dancing by Gene Nelson, all in vivid Technicolor.

Daddy Long Legs 1955 (Directed by Jean Negulesco) Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, Thelma Ritter, Fred Clark.

Wealthy American, Astaire, is enchanted by 18-year old orphan, Caron, he discovers in France and becomes her secret benefactor, sending her to college in America. Fred Clark and Thelma Ritter add humor to the Cinderella story.

Goodbye Mr Chips 1969 (Directed by Herbert Ross) Peter O’Toole, Petula Clark.

Surprisingly, even though Peter O’Toole admitted he couldn’t sing a note, and the fact that the original is so beloved, this musical remake isn’t bad.  I mean, has O’Toole ever not been good?

Comedy

Horse Feathers 1932 (Directed by Norman Mcleod) Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd.

Groucho is hired as the president of Huxley College and employs Chico and Harpo, thinking they are semi-professional football players. This is because the college’s major problem is its losing football team. Many memorable laughs – at the speakeasy, romancing Thelma Todd – but the football game at the end is fall-off-your-chair hilarity.

A Chump at Oxford 1940 (Directed by Alfred Goulding) Laurel and Hardy.

After foiling a bank robbery, Stan and Ollie are rewarded with an education at Oxford. There they are the victims of Oxford students’ disdain until Stan gets hit on the head and ‘remembers’ he is really Lord Paddington.

That’s My Boy 1951 (Directed by Hal Walker) 

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Jerry’s dad wants him to be a great football player like he was so he offers football player, Dean, complete college expenses if he will make this happen for his nerdy son.

Strictly Football

Although still timely, exploring the problematic business of college athletics and the student/athlete, Saturday’s Heroes from 1937,  directed by Edward Killy, with Van Heflin  and Saturday’s Hero from 1951 directed by David Miller, with John Derek and Donna Reed, are hard to find.  Look for them on cable or borrow from someone who taped it off TV.

Knute Rockne All American 1940 (Directed by Lloyd Bacon) Pat O’Brien, Ronald Reagan.

Pat O’Brien is at  his best in the biography of the legendary Notre Dame player and coach and his relationship with George Gipp (Reagan).

Mystery on Campus

College Scandal 1935 (Directed by Elliott Nugent) Arline Judge, Kent Taylor, Wendy Barrie, William Frawley.

Entertaining “B” picture with mysterious deaths on campus investigated by sophomore, Arline Judge, and police chief, William Frawley, with romantic triangles and even a song and dance thrown in.

The Falcon and the Coeds 1943 (Directed by William Clemens) Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Rita Corday.

Suave Tom Conway is always entertaining as The Falcon.  In this film he acts as an insurance investigator looking into the presumed suicide of a teacher at a women’s college.

From Harold Lloyd's "The Freshman":