Grande chérie

SWEETIE is a better than average musical from 1929, the first year talking pictures were the norm but many were quite stiff. This one is well photographed, moves well, and most thankful for a 1929 Paramount, the cast is including the men are not decked out in heavy makeup.

Rising Broadway starlet Nancy Carroll and college football quarterback Stanley Smith decide to leave their current activities behind and elope. Coach Wallace MacDonald talks Stanley out of it since he's important to Pell College potentially getting their first winning season ever and the college's survival may depend on it. Alas Nancy has already quit her show and she is furious when Stanley asks her to wait until the season's over, just eight months. They break up and she goes back to Broadway - and has to start over as a chorus girl. Revenge shows up out of nowhere (in one of the weirdest ever "meeting again" scenarios in films) when Nancy's distant cousin dies, and it turns out she will inherit the very college Stanley attends! The all-boys school welcome the young beauty with open arms including a surprised Stanley but she has revenge up her sleeve even if it closes the college!

Nancy Carroll is the nominal star but I'd venture both Stanley Smith and Helen Kane have more footage; there's quite a piece before Carroll enters the picture and even then she is off the screen for periods. Carroll was fast becoming a popular star on the early talkie screen but here her character is considerably more devious and selfish than in other films. Another comet of the era is Helen Kane, now a legendary vocalist but her peak was also brief. Helen Kane was one of a kind, a slightly plump comic vocalist specializing in sexy songs and as man hungry in her films as Mae West would later be. She may be an acquired taste but plenty of fans myself included most definitely acquired it. She's delightful and keeps this film moving with her cute songs, including the now classic "He's So Unusual" which was given renewed fame in the 1980's by Cyndi Lauper. Jack Oakie, early in his career and much thinner than in his salad days, is good as Nancy's pal and Helen's song partner. He pens a new college song for Pellham, a sassy "Alma Mammy", a parody of a Al Jolson number which is given three performances in the film, one by Oakie, a quite elaborate one by the school chorus including the girls from the neighboring college, and finally and unfortunately one at the big football game in which the chorus wears comic black masks.

Three supporting players of note standout here. William Austin is a kindly, effete staff member named "Professor Willow" (the credits suggest his nickname is a word often used before willow, and which probably would be censored here but I didn't hear anyone use it; it was either cut or the work of some bad boy in Paramount's credits title division). Austin had a long career playing "sissy" types in films but rarely gets mention in film history books like Franklyn Pangborn. Wallace MacDonald was playing bits from the early 1910's, often in Charlie Chaplin pictures. He was quite a handsome hunk of a man and looks remarkably young at 38 for this era when most men of his age back then seemed quite middle aged, he later had a brief career in B westerns beore moving on to a long career as a film producer for Columbia. Another handsome supporting player was Joe Depew as one of the youngest on the football team (just 17 in 1929) , his acting career never got off the ground but he worked behind the scenes and worked steady as a associate director for Paul Henning on his television shows in the 1950's leading to his being the director of over 140 (over half of the series) for the legendary sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies".

Neither Stanley Smith nor Stu Erwin, as a dumb student, seem that credible as football heroes (Smith is both the star quarterback and the composer of the school's musicals!) but this movie is quite fun and has a talented cast that makes it work, perhaps so much so that there were dozens of similar musicals in the next few years.

Betty Boop... whoops i mean helen kane makes a wonder perfomace in this early talkie as well as Nancy Carroll who does well in this musical drama but wished she did more singing in this picture. Some scenes were corny and rushed but then again this was the early days of sound. It is a wonder how early colleges looked liked in the 1920s and wonder how it would be during the great depression. Football is depicted as it was in the motion picture "so this is college" also a film that came out in 1929. Most of these college productions of the early days of hollywood dont show a classroom or the students even attending any classess.

Helen Kane steals the whole show at Pelham College. She does the "Prep-Step" with Jack Oakie and watches the boys from a tree . .. until she gets caught.

Lots of good songs. Nancy Caroll sings "My Sweeter Than Sweet" and Helen sings "He's So Unusual" later made famous again by Cyndi Lauper.

They used to show TV prints of this one but now . . .who knows where it is. Paramount films are disintegrating fast.

Had this film debuted into the 1930s, I would have given it a lower score. However, films from 1928-29 were a rather crude lot because the sound systems they were using were so antiquated and they weren't yet able to film well outdoors or in more natural environments because of this bulky sound equipment. So, comparing them to later films doesn't seem fair and I cut these early sound flicks some slack.

"Sweetie" is a college musical comedy. And, like nearly all college films of the day, the students never seem to go to classes. Instead, they go to parties and football games...and that's really about it!

The star of the school's football team has a secret--he's planning on eloping with his girlfriend Barbara. But the coach appeals to the young man's school spirit and he reluctantly agrees to stay. Barbara is not happy about it but soon after she ends up inheriting this college (huh??). Soon she's running the place and with this comes lots of inexplicable singing and dancing. And, now things are very tense between the two...and she takes it out on the football team. In the end, it all boils down to the cliched 'big game'.

In addition to Nancy Carroll and Stanley Smith in the leads, Helen Kane, Stu Erwin and Jack Oakie are on to provide comic relief. As for Kane, depending on who you read, was the inspiration for Betty Boop and her main talents in this film consist of her singing and sexually harassing Stu Erwin...and sounding much like Betty Boop in the process.

So is this college romp any good? Yes and no. The film has a lot of energy and a few cute moments but it also could use some closed captioning because the sound is only fair. But Helen Kane's routine does wear a bit thin and the songs are an indifferent lot.

By the way, during the game you might notice a play where a player is tackled and he hits the ground but gets up and keeps running. Back in the day, you could legally keep running until you were taken down and held there.

Stanley Smith is an obscure actor today, but in 1933 he was to take Dick Powell's role in Footlight Parade when Dick got sick with pneumonia. When Dick got well, Stan was out, and he never amounted to much. Judging by his performance in this film, I can see why. He reminds me of Lawrence Gray, who was adequate but lacked that something special that made audiences want to see him again.

The film also stars Nancy Carroll who was quite beautiful, Helen Kane who won me over with her cute voice and silly antics (she is introduced sitting in a tree shooting the man she loves), and Jack Oakie who is quite attractive here in this early part, and brimming over with the personality that made him famous. The scenes are incredibly beautiful, mostly set on a college campus, and the music is fun but none of it is very memorable, except for "Alma Mammy" which turns the alma mater into a jazzy Jolson-style number.

This college romp was screened at Cinevent in 2012.