Fatemi la corte

(3 stars)

"Are you afraid of me?" "Yeah, I'm afraid you'll bite me." "Don't be silly, you know I'm a vegetarian."

An odd little film, combining wacky college humor, a love triangle, musical numbers, and footage from the 1928 USC and Stanford football game at the L. A. Memorial Coliseum, then just five years old. It's too long at 98 minutes but it had its moments, and was an interesting window into the spirit of the Roaring Twenties. Released just a couple of weeks after the stock market crash, it felt a little like the end of an era.

On the positive side, the playful banter and teasing between the college kids yields some occasional amusing moments. It was Robert Montgomery's first starring role, and Sally Starr is charismatic as the plucky young woman playing him off of his buddy (Elliott Nugent). Watch also for uncredited appearances from Joel McCrea and Ann Dvorak. The carefree dancing at a party was a lot of fun, including some wild moves from Nugent (at roughly the 32:29 point), and you get little bits like jazz inspired vocal riffs and Starr tooling around in a 1927 Chrysler Series 70 roadster. The football footage goes on a little long, but it's always interesting to see the plays being run way back when, and how primitive the equipment was (those helmets!). If you're not into football, I'm sure the last 10 minutes or so will overstay their welcome.

The film never quite makes it because the two male leads often engage in boorish behavior, hazing the freshmen and going after the same women aggressively. It's all meant to be great fun, e.g. Oh those crazy college kids, and while they never do anything egregiously bad, they're not very likeable either. It's certainly a male point of view and the moral, essentially "bro's before ho's," wasn't all that appealing to me. Also, despite it being pre-Code, it's all very safe and rather bland, with no eyebrow-raising moments. It might be worth a look though.

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.

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.