So This Is College

Could anybody be as obnoxious as the frat boys in the first 20 minutes of this antique? They throw food, they argue about who gets the most girls, they make the freshmen carry their trunks up the fraternity house steps....On the screen it's less funny than that sounds.

Elliott Nugent and Robert Montgomery play football stars entering their senior year. As soon as they are all moved in, they get right down to the intelligent dialog:

Montgomery: The team's got a tough schedule this year.

Nugent: Yeah, we sure have.

Montgomery: I've decided we're gonna cut out the women until after the football season's over.

Nugent: You – hey, are you serious?

Soon enough, the pair cross paths with cute co-ed Sally Star, who enchants them both. Nugent's approach is pushy, Montgomery's more polite, but she shows interest in both and rather quickly the picture develops into a fairly standard two-fellows-in-love-with-the-same- girl story.

The farce takes a more serious turn at about the one hour mark— Nugent, in particular, becomes suddenly human and much more sympathetic. The climax of the story hangs not on which of them will get the girl but a much more important question:

With their friendship all busted up, will Nugent and Montgomery blow the big game against Stanford?

Technically, it's an early talkie fraught with the typical weaknesses—static camera work, dropped dialog—of that brief period during which filmmakers rushed to adopt a new and imperfect technology, making it up as they went. Dramatically, it's really pretty silly.

Still….There is some lively football action in the closing minutes. Also, Cliff Edwards sings a couple of okay tunes.

Unlike many films about college, this one actually names the location - USC, although you never see anybody here crack a book. If you like the early talkies, and in particular if you like Robert Montgomery, I do recommend this one. It is typical of MGM's output in 1929 and 1930 in that if they made a movie that was the least bit comical, then it had to be at least partially musical. This one has some drama in it, but it is mainly a comedy.

Eddie (Elliott Nugent) and Biff (Robert Montgomery) are popular senior football stars playing at USC, moving into their dorm room for the fourth and last time. They're buddies through thick and thin, but then a beautiful coed comes along that neither encourages nor discourages either of them enough to make them believe they are not in the hunt for her affections. At that point, a four-year friendship on campus and on the football field becomes strained. Will the young woman (Sally Starr) choose Eddie? Biff? none of the above? Watch and find out.

This film is notable for being Robert Montgomery's third film role and Cliff Edwards' second. As such, at this point, Elliott Nugent is billed ahead of Montgomery, but that will soon change as Montgomery is a big hit with audiences and begins to compete with William Haines for the kind of leading man roles that normally had gone to Haines. Cliff Edwards doesn't have a huge role here, and frankly he looks way too old to be playing a college student, but he is still fun to watch as always. He is mainly comic relief and musical accompaniment in the musical numbers carrying his trademark ukulele. Also note Polly Moran as the cook at the fraternity house where Biff and Eddie live. She doesn't have many lines, but what she does have goes a long way. I also enjoyed the dance scene as some of the wilder dance numbers echo the exuberance that is the hallmark of the end of the roaring 20's.

Leading lady Sally Starr isn't that well known today, but she was heavily promoted by MGM in the early talkie era as an answer to Clara Bow, and you can't help but see the similarities in everything from her demeanor to her voice that sounds quite a bit like Ms. Bow.

Others have called this film creaky and static, but I really enjoyed it and thought it moved along nicely. There are no halting long-winded scenes, no gestures left over from the silent era - everyone involved seems to "get" acting in the talkie era. The only problem I could see is that occasionally the soundtrack would overpower the speech of the actors and make conversation hard to pick up, but this didn't happen very often. Just don't come to this one looking for a heavy dramatic storyline or even one that makes a lot of sense. It is pure escapism.

In Robert Montgomery's third film for MGM he and Elliott Nugent play a couple of BMOCs on campus and the biggest guys on campus are football players and seniors. The two have a goodnatured rivalry over all things including women they date. But along comes flapper Sally Starr and these two have their mojos in overdrive.

It's as the Bard said it Antony And Cleopatra, Cleo leaves all the men not just satisfied but wanting more. Nugent and Montgomery are both hot to trot for her and it threatens all with them including their team work on the gridiron.

Lots of music, 20s style in So This Is College mostly provided by Cliff 'Ukelele Ike' Edwards. Starr also shows her stuff in some 20s style dancing.

The climax is the big game USC versus Stanford and there's quite an ironical postscript for these two yoyos. It's a good introduction for the work of Robert Montgomery who was starting to be noticed they don't want you.

SO THIS IS COLLEGE is one of those movies that has such an antique look to it you can't help but to stop and see what it is when you're flipping through the TV channels. It is a pretty good musical. The cast works well. Max Davidson is a great Jewish character actor. I recall seeing him in some of the early Laurel and Hardy silents. This film from 1929 gives an interesting look at college life in the late '20s. It's a lot of fun. It includes a big football game sequence. Robert Montgomery stars, in one of his earliest film roles.

This is very much a pre-code movie. It depicts two male college students who are very much in love with each other, though they don't know that. What does that mean? You mean: do they have sex? No, I don't think so. But they are VERY affectionate physically, especially near the end. They are also physically attracted to co-eds. Sp they're bi-sexual, or whatever you want to call that. I'd say that they are two straight men who have fallen in love with each other. We haven't got a term for that yet.

Other than their relationship, there isn't a lot to this movie. The second half is a very long football game between USC and Stanford that goes on way too long.

If you're interested in the history of college football, you might like the second half of this. If you're interested in how Hollywood portrayed same-sex romance, this might interest you. Otherwise, I didn't find it a very engaging movie.