Life Begins in College

I enjoyed this movie very much. Plenty of good humor if you're not overly woke. The drop dead gorgeous, Marjorie Weaver it's only in the movie at the 42 - 46 minute mark, and she has no lines!

A hilarious scene is actually the one with Marjorie Weaver. Here, the Ritz are bribing the college dean to keep the coach. A lot of good humor and song and dance. I laughed out loud several times while viewing.

Nat Pendleton as "George" the American Indian rings the changes of just about every possible stereotype ("Me-um, How, etc.) that the most gutter-minded person could imagine. It's not quite at the level of "Birth of A Nation" but comes close. I know this was a different and less sensitive time, and maybe it is wrong to judge it by current standards. At best, it is an indicator of how far we have come in the 80 years since it was filmed.

Too often the Ritz boys were not allowed to just let loose and run away with a picture like other comedy teams of the time. Even as headliners in this one, they are not really given the chance to shine as characters. In "Life", they are three college-campus tailors who befriend an American Indian who shows up as a freshman and is promptly abused by his classmates.

Fans of the politically correct steer clear, as this film does not treat Native Americans with a whole lot of respect. The first shot of the film is a sign identifying the college as a school for American Indians. A girl says, "I've never seen an Indian here". An older gentleman replies, "Oh the school was started for Indians, but they have schools on reservations now. A few years back an Indian tried to go here, but of course we ran him out!" Enter Nat Pendleton as the latest Indian, nearly running folks over on his motorcycle.

But back to the Ritzes. They get three specialty song and dance numbers entirely unrelated to the plot. Some good crazy dancing. One or two funny scenes otherwise. Meanwhile the leading man is entirely unlikeable and a bad actor to boot, so we don't even root for him to get the girl. Tony Martin has what amounts to a cameo. Joan Davis fans will be pleased.

42-year-old Nat Pendleton plays an Indian (with a wooden-Indian manner of speaking that disappears towards the end) who goes to college. Everyone dumps on him, save the Ritz Brothers, but when he starts winning football games for the college, everyone likes him.

It's a Ritz Brothers movie, their first feature with the names above the title. Their on-at-all-times stereo shtick comedy doesn't appeal to me, but director William Seiter deals effectively with my usual dislike by filling the movie with subplots common to college movies of the era: romance (Gloria Stuart plays the daughter of football coach Fred Stone and her rocky romance with pursuing Dick Baldwin), band music (Tony Martin sings a few songs) and, of course, football. Why there's even a brief scene in a classroom!

The best comedy performance is Joan Davis'. She plays a co-ed in hot pursuit of Nat Pendleton, and her barely-repressed craziness and timing are the most amusing thing in this rote movie.

The movie works all right as an average programmer. If you're fond of the Rotz Brothers, you'll enjoy their antics. Otherwise it averages as an amiable time-waster with several fine performers collecting a paycheck. And the Ritz Brothers, of course.

In Life Begins At College, the Ritz Brothers playing three zany tailors go to school and in fact start their own fraternity and admit one member, newly arrived Indian student played by Nat Pendleton joins them.

Pendleton is playing a student not too bright, but he's also one of those oil rich Indians from Oklahoma. When some of the alumni try to force out football coach Fred Stone, Pendleton gives the school an endowment to keep Stone at his job. Amazing how Dean Maurice Cass's attitude changes when the Ritzes say the magic word endowment.

There's a romance going between school quarterback Dick Baldwin and Gloria Stuart. Baldwin is as bland as Grandma's soup when she has unexpected company for dinner. A little livelier is Joan Davis pursuing Nat Pendleton so you'd think she was trying to scalp him. Tony Martin appears simply as 'Bandleader' in the credits, enough to get a couple of opportunities to vocalize. Who dubbed Gloria Stuart's singing is anyone's guess.

Pendleton's charcter is based on Jim Thorpe who at that time was making a few dollars in bit parts for films. Stone's character I would say was based on Amos Allonzo Stagg who was the grand old man of football and would live right up to the 60s and would pass the century mark.

Life Begins At College with the Ritz Brothers joining the Marx Brothers from Horsefeathers and Wheeler&Woolsey from Hold 'Em Jail in the pantheon of college football films. The Ritzes of course do run amuck on the gridiron as did these contemporaries in their films.

This is still an amusing film.