Knute Rockne All American

Pat O'Brien had his best role ever as Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. From humble beginnings, Rockne entered Notre Dame as a student circa 1910. He is into chemistry but becomes a marvelous football player and hero.

Upon graduation, he teaches chemistry at the school but he has got the football fever that tugs at him, this forces him to give up chemistry to pursue his dream of coaching the game. In a way, too bad, the school probably lost a great chemistry teacher-certainly far better and nicer than the one I had in high school. (Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn to be exact.)

He motivates his students. He will not tolerate academic underachievement. He is a coach for all seasons.

O'Brien captures that common kind touch. One of his students, George Gipp, is memorably played in a fine brief supporting performance by Ronald Reagan.

The years pass and the achievements run high-but Knute remains the same kind coach who testifies before Congress when football is called into question.

Donald Crisp is outstanding as a Notre Dame priest who knew that Rockne was destined to coach football. Albert Basserman is adequate, but his Jewish accent in the portrayal of a priest is awkward at best. Basserman was nominated that year in the supporting category for "Foreign Correspondent."

Rockne's tragic death, in a plane crash, robbed the world of many more years of a totally professionally wonderful human-being. The film is great.

I caught this on TCM this afternoon and kept in on to catch Ronald Reagen as George Gipp. As another commentor noted, it comes across as pure documentary and this movie is only for those who harbor an interest in football and are familiar with the story of "the Rock." Pat O'Brien appears to be looking off-screen at cue cards and Reagan, in the scene in Rock's living room, coughed as if instructed by a doctor.

I much prefer The Pride of the Yankees with Gary Cooper, which was released only two years later and nominated for Best Picture by the Academy. However, Knute Rockne All American not so bad that you can't enjoy it and I especially enjoyed the stock footage of Notre Dame football.

The only other thing that puzzled me was the pronunciation of his name. For years I've heard it pronounced NEWT with the silent k, but here it's pronounced KA-NEWT. I guess I learned something else...

The Knute Rockne legend is largely founded on this Lloyd Bacon biography, in which Pat O'Brien stars as the sainted Notre Dame football coach. In his most famous role, Ronald Reagan plays star quarterback George Gipp, who utters the immortal line "Win one for the Gipper!" Rock's speech in front of the college athletics evaluation committee was just outstanding, and the stock footage of the old games is even to this day some great football. Fabulous sports biography .

You don't have to be a Notre Dame football fan to enjoy this, because I am not....but, as a football fan in general, this was fun to watch. It almost makes me a Fighting Irish devotee. If you can't get caught up in the emotion in this film, gridiron fan or not, you better check your pulse because this is an emotional film with some very touching scenes.

As a sports fan, I loved watching the classic footage of early college games. They had some pretty wild plays back then with a lot of laterals. They interspersed that footage with Pat O'Brien shown as head coach Knute Rockne on the sidelines and some of the players, such as George Gipp (Ronald Reagan).

Reagan gets pretty good billing in this film but his part really isn't that large. O'Brien is the only actor with a large role in here. The rest - all playing nice characters - include Gale Page as Rockne's wife "Bonnie;" Donald Crisp, as the Notre Dame's "Father John Callahan;" Albert Bassermann as chemistry professor "Father Nieuwland" and Reagan, as Gipp, perhaps Notre Dame's most talented and famous player ever.

What this film does nicely is balance the personal story with the football. Neither angle is overdone. The characters in here all people you can root for, as there are no villains. On my last look, it was interesting to discover Johnny Sheffield - Tarzan's son - playing Rockne at the age of seven and to see George Reeves, TV's Superman, as one of the players.

There have been very few football movies made in Hollywood, for some reason, and precious few good ones. This is one of them.

When Warner Brothers decided to produce the biography of Notre Dame's legendary football coach, Knute (pronounced Ka-Newt) Rockne, there were major hurdles that had to be faced. Rockne had only passed away nine years earlier, at 43, and his image and distinctive speaking style were well-known to football fans, nation-wide, through newsreels and radio, as was his Cinderella-like story (born in Voss, Norway, he and his family had emigrated to Chicago, Illinois when he was five, he worked to pay tuition to attend Notre Dame, then went on to revolutionize football as both a player and coach). Any film about Rockne had to secure the permission of his widow, Bonnie Skiles Rockne, and the cooperation of Notre Dame, and both wanted final approval of both the script, and the actor to play 'Rock'.

While the script, focusing on Rockne's devotion to 'his boys', making football more exciting, and his unshakable faith in the importance of athletics and education to America's youth, would win Mrs. Rockne and Notre Dame's support, casting the coach would prove a challenge. When stocky, darkly handsome 41-year old Irish American actor Pat O'Brien (best known as James Cagney's frequent co-star) was announced to play the craggy Norwegian American Rockne, there was some concern raised whether he was 'right' for the role. But in full makeup, O'Brien was quite convincing, and he could mimic the coach's staccato speaking style perfectly. Knute Rockne would become O'Brien's 'definitive' role, as well as his personal favorite, in a career that spanned over sixty years.

From his introduction to football as a boy (played by Johnny 'Tarzan's Boy' Sheffield), as he admonishes his father (veteran character actor John Qualen) to "speak American, Papa...We're in America, now", through his years working at a Post Office earning tuition money, to his courtship of Bonnie Skiles (Gale Page) and on-field partnership with 'Gus' Dorais (Owen Davis Jr.), who would toss Rockne the forward pass against Army that would revolutionize the game, the story is both entertaining and informative (Rock, it is revealed, could have made a "first class" chemist).

Then Ronald Reagan appears, as flippant, yet private George Gipp, and the film achieves it's legendary status. Coach Rockne and player Gipp, as portrayed by O'Brien and Reagan, have a 'father/son'-like bond that is irresistible, and in less than ten minutes of screen time, Reagan establishes himself as no longer a 'B' actor, but a star to be reckoned with. The "Win One for the Gipper" speech has become one of the best-loved in movie (and sports) history, and, while it has been parodied frequently through the years (particularly while Reagan was President of the United States), it is still quite moving.

While Gipp's untimely death casts a momentary pall on the film, his place is soon taken by the legendary "Four Horsemen", as Rockne introduces 'the backfield shift' to football. The coach becomes the spokesperson of College Football, defending both himself and such legends as Alonzo Stagg, 'Pop' Warner, Howard Jones, and Bill Spaulding (playing themselves), against charges of gambling and football's place in an academic environment.

Through it all, Bonnie Rockne offers loving support to her often preoccupied but devoted husband and their large family. The bond they share is so intimate that she 'feels' the airplane crash that takes his life, in the film's tragic finale.

Punctuated by Notre Dame's classic fight song, KNUTE ROCKNE ALL AMERICAN is certainly not a 'perfect' film (watch how frequently jersey numbers appear, disappear, and change, as vintage newsreel footage is used during big games), but the overall result is both rousing and sentimental. It's easy to see why "Rudy" Ruettiger would be inspired by it, and would want to add his own chapter to Notre Dame's illustrious history.

The film certainly deserves it's 'classic' status!