Varsity Show

I don't usually rate films from this era as low as a 5, and I more often rate 21st century movies a 5 or lower. I am not saying all 21st century stuff is bad. Movies that have come out in the 21st century that I loved and thought were great included "Black swan", "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind", "The pianist", "Girl with a dragon tattoo", "The Aviator", and "The curious case of Benjamin Buttons". I also thought the Harry Potter films were great.

Generally speaking though in my opinion, old times were better, in films and in real life. My list of great films I love from The Golden Age of Hollywood is pages long. I am not saying old times were perfect, nothing is. "Varsity show" was definitely not perfect. It was one of Busby's "slump films", which were three films he made during a bad spot during his life (the bad spot was Busby having accidentally killed someone in a car wreck and he was initially tried for murder). His three slump films were "Hollywood hotel", "Varsity show", and "Gold diggers Paris". Those three films lacked the magic of his usual wonder and had some characters in them which were more weird and stupid acting than what was in Busby's normal greatness.

The opening scenes I saw a familiar face in the late 1930s college crowd. A funny looking long toothed man who I had seen an older version of as a weird TV repair man in 1962 Twilight zone episode "Whats in the box". The man who voiced Whinny the pooh in the 1960s cartoon Whinny the pooh. He was about 19 here and was one of the students among others such as Johnnie Davis and pretty Rosemary Lane. Rosemary was pretty and nice, and was joined by Dick Powell who is been in almost every 1930s Busby Berkeley film. But Powell lost his touch a little here compared to his earlier stuff. "Gold diggers 37" was the first film where Powell wasn't as great as before (his first number of that film "speakin of the weather. Lighning flash!" did not have the same magic that his songs from "Gold diggers 33", "Gold diggers 35", "Dames", etc. had), although "Gold diggers 37" did have one wonderful song with the magic like in the previous films, which was the song at the party "Let's get our heads together" (even that song had one bad little spot that didn't fit with the magic of the rest of the song, and that was when two weird guys at the bar sung a line of the song in weird voices. That one tiny moment was unfortunately a preview of what was gonna happen a bit more during Busby's slump films which included "Varsity show"). "Lets get our heads together" in "Gold diggers 37" was the last wonderful piece of Busby magic until he bounced back again (due to his murder trials being acquitted) and made the wonderful Judy Garland films, starting with "Babes in arms" in 1939.

Powell here in "Varsity show" was eloped with Rosemary. She was cute and nice, but she wasn't as totally amazing and heavenly wonderful like Powell's earlier partners Ruby Keeler and Gloria Stewart. Ruby was an angel, especially "I only have eyes for you", "Like a waterfall", "Pettin in the park", etc., and Gloria was an angel in "Gold diggers 35's" "The words are in my heart".

"Varsity show" wasn't absolutely terrible. It was just a slump film which lacked the magic from Busby's better times, which fortunately was the higher percentage of his career. There one really miserable guy, who was a slump film style character. First, he yelled at all the kids to get out of the theater and then they just sat down and laughed. And then he got the police, but when they got there they just sat down and enjoyed the show. Then the miserable guy got the swat team, but they only joined the police to watch. Then he got the military armed forces, then the governor. They all did the same while this miserable guy's mounting frustration grew while no one else shared it. Most people knew that shows in the 1930s were nice to watch. This film was, I will call it mediocre.

Why watch Varsity Show? Two words: John Bubbles, the man Fred Astaire said was the greatest tap dancer of his generation. John Sublette (John Bubbles was his stage name) and his partner, Ford Washington Lee, were Buck and Bubbles, with Buck primarily at the piano and Bubbles dancing and singing. They were major stars in vaudeville. I can't explain dancing any more than an infant can explain milk, but I know the good stuff when I see it. John Bubbles combined tap, a sort of fast shuffle and ingenious rhythm into something I wouldn't argue with Astaire about. He has a couple of short numbers in this inane college musical and one Buck and Bubbles short production number to "Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?" They make watching the movie something special.

Among the aged aspects of Varsity Show that you have to get past to enjoy the tap artistry of John Bubbles are...the jokes are so corny even Iowa wouldn't take credit for them...the pacing is just about as matter-of-fact as that bland title...several of the students have long since past their college years...ironically, Dick Powell seems too young for the part...and Fred Waring as the drama teacher is so sincere, so constantly smiling and so solicitous of the students as to be creepy.

Still, the Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer songs aren't bad. "We're working Our Way Through College," sung by Powell and the students as they stride through the campus, is bouncy and funny.

"We're working our way through college / To get a lot of knowledge / That we'll probably never ever use again.

It's swell to tell what parallel and parallax is, / But after graduation will it pay our taxes?"

For those fond of choral music there's Waring and his Pennsylvanians (they're in the movie as college students) doing some fine singing. Aficionados of college pep songs will hear a bunch of them at the big smash close. And for those with a morbid fondness for stories about alcoholics, there's Ted Healy in a major role and Lee Dixon in a minor one. Healy, who's the reason there was a Three Stooges, wound up in Hollywood as one of the highest paid comedy actors. His specialty was the big grump. Let me tell you, he was good. He also was a big-time alcoholic. He got into a drunken fight the night his first child was born (the year Varsity Show was released) and died several hours later. He was 41. Lee Dixon was big and blond, an eccentric dancer in the early Buddy Ebsen style. He was handsome enough with an open, quizzical kind of face. He towered over everyone else. He was 23 when he made Varsity Show and played one of the students, had a few lines and a couple of brief dance steps. By the early Forties he was drinking so heavily no one wanted to take a chance on him. Rodgers and Hammerstein offered him the part of Will Smith in Oklahoma! after extracting the promise he wouldn't hit the bottle. He received great reviews with his two numbers, "Kansas City" and "All Er Nuthin'" (with Celeste Holm as Ado Annie). All was well for a year or so, then he started sneaking drinks, then more and more. That was that. He faded fast and died at 39 in 1954. What's the moral to Healy and Dixon? You've got me.

The story? The kids at Winfield College are putting on the annual varsity show but their professor adviser insists that there'll be nothing "swinging" or "modern." A group of them decide to go to New York and ask Chuck Daly (Dick Powell), famous Broadway producer and Winfield graduate, to take over the show. They've got a lot of great songs and ideas. They don't know that Daly has had three flops in a row and is broke. We can skip the next hour. The show is a smash, on Broadway no less, with a Busby Berkeley finale. Chuck wins a co- ed's love with Rosemary Lane the co-ed. She's second billed after Powell. Her sister, Priscilla, is third billed and gets a song to sing and a few dance steps to share with Dixon. Priscilla Lane has never done much for me, but here, at 22 and in her first movie, she's a cutie pie.

College musicals always seem to give off that indulgent condescension that so many adults reserve, usually to their regret, for the young. Still, some can be a lot of fun. There are three I like a lot. Too Many Girls has a book as inane as Varsity Show, but it has a great Rodgers and Hart score and a terrific Lucille Ball performance. Best Foot Forward has a fine Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane score, including that rouser, "Buckle Down, Winsocki," plus Ball again, and a great cast that includes June Allyson and Nancy Walker. Good News is a lot of fun, just as corny as the rest, but June Allyson is appealing, Peter Lawford avoids being appalling, and best of all there's Joan McCracken and Ray McDonald dancing. "Pass that Peace Pipe" is a showcase for both of them, especially McCracken.

VARSITY SHOW (Warner Brothers, 1937), directed by William Keighley, is a college campus musical, in fact, Warners' only contribution to the college musical of the 1930s. Originally distributed in theaters at two hours in length, circulating prints are from the 1940s reissue at 79 minutes, with 40 minutes of material clipped from the original negative and lost since then. Considering this edition happened to be the only known print in existence today, this review is taken on the basis from the edited version.

The story begins with Ernie Mason (Fred Waring) and his fellow students of Winfield College rehearsing for the upcoming annual varsity show. Ernie, assistant to Professor Sylvester Biddle (Walter Catlett), the faculty adviser, finds he and the students aren't being given the freedom they need to put on a successful show. Biddle insists the show be done his way or none at all, in spite that his ideas are out-of-date and his refusal to allow swing music as part of the score. Janitors Buck and Bubbles come up with an idea in hiring Charles "Chuck" Daly (Dick Powell), a former alumnus now a successful Broadway producer, to help direct the show. Betty Bradley (Priscilla Lane), Buzz Bolton (Johnnie Davis), Johnny "Rubberlegs" Stevens (Lee Dixon) and Trout (Sterling Holloway) volunteer in coming to New York City to locate Daly. At first Daly refuses, but because Daly has just closed his latest Broadway flop (his third in a row), he and his assistant, William W. Williams (Ted Healy) decide to return to Winfield College where they not only agree to help direct the varsity show, but become part of the fraternity by staying in the dormitory run by Mrs. Smith (Emma Dunn), as well as finding themselves suitable love partners, Daly with Barbara Steward (Rosemary Lane) and gravel voice Williams with Cuddles (Mabel Todd), a buck-tooth, bespectacled blonde with a very peculiar laugh.

With the music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer and Richard Whiting, the good selection of songs from the 79 minute print includes: "The Varsity Show's Rehearsing Today at Three O'Clock" (sung by cast); "Old King Cole" (sung by Johnnie Davis); "We're Working Our Way Through College" (sung by Dick Powell); "I'm Dependable" (sung by Priscilla Lane and Fred Waring/ written by Tom Waring and Don Raye); "On With the Dance" (sung by Rosemary Lane); "You Got Something There" (sung by Dick Powell and Rosemary Lane); Tap dance solo act performed by Buck and Bubbles; "Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?" (sung by Priscilla Lane); "Love Is on the Air Tonight" (sung by Buck and Bubbles); "Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?" (tap dance by Buck and Bubbles); "On With the Dance" (sung by Buck and Bubbles); "Old King Cole" (sung by Johnnie Davis); "On With the Dance" (reprise); "You Got Something There" and "Love Is On the Air Tonight." If one looks very closely to the opening credits and to the list of songs, one tune, "Little Fraternity Pin," is listed but not heard in VARSITY SHOW.

As much the story may be as predictable as any college musical of that time, the majority of the songs for this production were quite standard. Forgotten today, VARSITY SHOW contains the most entertaining college finale ever presented. Choreographed by Busby Berkeley, it did get nominated for an Academy Award in the best dance direction category. Though it didn't win, VARSITY SHOW still demonstrates Berkeley's true ability in his creative staging techniques. With Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians orchestrating the finale, the real show stopper centers upon an individual co-ed throwing a football on numerous occasions across the stage over to a group of students to form themselves into spelled-out letters of well known universities as Yale, Wisconsin, Notre Dame and Stanford. All these letters are used with color tiles with the underscoring to just about every familiar college song imaginable. It's an excellent production that makes up for whatever flaws the film itself contains. Buck and Bubbles shouldn't go unnoticed. They, too, contribute to several good dance routines. Not quite as effective and faster style of the Nicholas Brothers over at 20th Century-Fox, but a routinely style all their own.

The supporting cast includes: Halliwell Hobbes (Dean J. M. Meredith); Edward Brophy (Mike "Curly" Barclay); Ben Weldon, Robert Homans and Tom Kennedy. Lee Dixon, who was becoming a familiar secondary character in the Warners musicals as GOLD DIGGERS OF 1937 (1936), READY, WILLING AND ABLE (1937), and THE SINGING MARINE (1937), makes his final bow in VARSITY SHOW. In the edited version, he not only limited in his contribution to the story (though possibly had extensive scenes from the two hour edition), but had his name placed thirteenth in the closing cast credits. He later scored successfully in the Broadway musical, OKLAHOMA (1943), and appeared one more time on screen in the western drama, ANGEL AND THE BAD MAN (Republic, 1946), starring John Wayne, before his death in 1953.

VARSITY SHOW in present form is a pleasing musical with a bright score. (One can hope the missing footage will someday suffice and take the place of the chopped-up copy on TCM). As for the cast, Dick Powell, Ted Healy, Rosemary Lane, Johnnie Davis and Mabel Todd appeared together again in another large scale Warners musical, "Hollywood Hotel" (1937), that introduced the popular theme song, "Hooray for Hollywood." Directed entirely by Busby Berkeley, it lacked the great musical finish that highlights VARSITY SHOW so well. Rah! Rah! Rah! (***1/2)

Mindless fluff, but a lot of fun all the way through. Busby Berkeley sure knew a thing or two about troop formations. This 1930s Warner Bros. musical/comedy features a fresh cast, including Priscilla Lane, Sterling Holloway, Johnnie "Scat" Davis, Mabel Todd, and Rosemary Lane as college kids. Dick Powell is an alumnus enlisted to help stage the school show, with Ted Healy along for the ride. Lots of 1930s-era college silliness, with freshman caps, fraternity pins, sorority houses, school pride and all that. Berkeley choreographs the rah-rah finale, while the "plot" is never entirely resolved. Priscilla Lane is very cute as an enthusiastic coed and older sister Rosemary Lane is very pretty as the romantic lead.

For die-hard Berkeley fans only--this collegiate musical is certainly more a mirror of it's time than most, with lots of college men over 30 clad in beanies swooning in song over long-skirted coeds; simple plot--all the students want to present the hot new rhythms of the New Varsity Show, but the fuddy-duddy professor (Walter Catlett in usual sputtering mode) won't let them. Enter former alum and Broadway Star Dick Powell, all dimples and smiles, intent on Saving The Day With Music! The whole enterprise is a build up to the sensational Busby Berkeley finale with hundreds of dancing coeds in astounding geometrical designs; unfortunately, the less-than-memorable music is not by Al Dubin and Harry Warren (who composed the Gold Diggers series).

According to Tony Thomas's Busby Berkeley book, and reliable film historian Leslie Halliwell (and numerous other sources), this should be a 120 minute film; why has Turner, usually the standard for accuracy, released an 80 minute print--40 minutes shorter? Some collector, somewhere, must be sitting on an old studio print and, if anybody is able, the intrepid folks at Turner will track it down and we can see what will probably make this the dynamic vintage musical it should be.