All-American Co-Ed

After all-male university Quinceton holds a singing concert with the male students in drag, singer Virginia (Frances Langford) and her reporter friend Hap (Harry Langdon) come up with an idea to help raise the profile of all-girl school Mar Brynn, run by Virginia's aunt Matilda (Esther Dale). They'll invite a number of pageant winners to join their school and hold a welcoming concert that will get them attention. The Quinceton boys resent the idea, so they send frat boy Bobby (Johnny Downs), once more in drag, to infiltrate the school and disrupt the concert. However, when Bobby falls for Virginia, it complicates matters.

Producer Hal Roach assembles a lot of radio talent from the time, along with silent comedy star Langdon and former Our Gang regular Downs, for this rather terrible trifle. Langford sings several songs, which are okay. The production values are very bad, with obvious stage sets and poorly-done backdrops. The less-than-an-hour runtime means the pain doesn't last too long, though. Kent Rogers, who was a successful radio comedian and impressionist, does some impressions here (Gary Cooper, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy). He would join the Army Air Corps when WW2 started up, and die in a training exercise before his 21st birthday. Surprisingly, this movie earned a pair of Oscar nominations, for Best Score (Edward Ward) and Best Song ("Out of the Silence").

I won't dwell on the content of the film itself (skip to the last paragraph) because there seem to be enough reviews by people more familiar with the movie than I am. But I just had to say that the DVD quality is surprisingly good.

If you're like me and you bought the MillCreek 10000 Family Classics (or whatever outrageous number of old flicks they managed to cram on a few DVDs), you're probably seeing spots from all the less-than-crisp digital transfers of these old movies, most of which are public domain with low quality sources.

Well, good news, somehow the original source of this film remained in surprisingly good condition. It's on par with some of the expensive, digitally remastered stuff out there. That alone makes this a historic document worth having in your collection, especially if you can get it for a dollar at your local grocery store.

Now about the film itself. It's very entertaining, but don't expect an airtight story. At times it requires some supreme leaps of logic and suspension of disbelief. But if you can get past that, it's all in good fun, the music is timeless, and the comedy is cute. Note that this is very much a "dated" film, meaning there are a lot of references to 1940s culture which many of us may not get. There are a few celebrity impersonations that went completely over my head. Similarly, some of the jokes just flew by me, including the humorous title "All-American Co-Ed" which is a gendrical impossibility (at the time, "all-american" meant "male", and "co-ed" meant "female"). And then there are more unfortunate cultural references of 1940s sexism "A woman doesn't want a mind; she wants a husband" and somewhat narrow racial stereotypes showing black people as uneducated simpletons who can never seem to conjugate their verbs properly. But my point is that this film must be viewed through a 1940s lens, and you'll realize it's all intended in good fun.

What? this film is 65 years old? It plays like a sequel to PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT or a prequel to SOME LIKE IT HOT. Apart from WONDERBAR I have never seen such a gay movie...in fact the ad line in 1941 (!) was "The year's gayest comedy" . It is gay in the way gay is a modern GAY expression. The head of the girls school, a single matronly sort, (keen to rub one girl's 'chest') takes a look at a pic of one girl posing with vegetables and exclaims "Look at those beautiful tomatoes!" and on it goes. There's a song on a train that the girls sing to each other: "I am up at the crack of Dawn (because I have been dreaming of you)".. Honestly! Rude risqué and believe it or not, a full scale drag queen comedy. Apparently there is a university called Quinceton (as in Princeton for Queens) which has a fraternity of good lookin' fellas who all do drag. See that opening scene: They're all in it! Tutus and all... They decide to send one guy to the girls school...in full drag.... The big finale has a song in it about how the Farmer's daughter is alone on the farm since the men have gone to war. The lyric repeated over and over is that "she's can't just rumba with an old cucumber"...... it's not just ME is it ?...hearing this and gasping in laughter and astonishment? Is it? Why are these lyrics in this film this way.. and all the drag antics.... this film is as modern today as any other drag film... and as rude. This gay coded one sidestepped the Hayes office in a dress... and an old cucumber. Hilarious! the DVD is excellent quality too. The music score is terrific: 2 Oscar noms. Because the DVD is spotless this film looks like a new production; and the modern risqué mindset makes it absolutely almost up to date. What also helps is the cast of 20 somethings ...especially the boys each of whom have modern haircuts. Noah Beery Jnr turns up late in the film styled exactly like someone you would see in a magazine today. Incredible;a 65 year old drag show! yeesh! Silent star Harry Langdon is a treat to see too.

Quinceton University student Johnny Downs agrees to a practical joke by gaining a scholarship to girl's college Mar Brynn in drag. But the whole thing threatens to go south as Downs fall for Mar Brynn coed Frances Langford. Of course it all ends with a show in the best Mickey and Judy tradition.

I think that Hal Roach probably had a longer and more coherent version of this film, but it was butchered by editors and probably further sliced and diced for television. Still a lot of funny people like former silent screen star Harry Langdon got some bits in.

Also getting bits in were Noah Beery, Jr. and Alan Hale, Jr. At this time in their careers both Dad Rockford and the Skipper were only known as the offspring of some great character actors. Here they play a pair of lunkhead Quinceton jocks.

All American Coed even got some Academy Award nomination recognition for Best Musical Scoring and Best Song. The song is Out Of The Silence and it truly has not stood the test of time. The winner was The Last Time I Saw Paris which truly has.

I doubt we'll see a director's cut of All American Coed.

The rather sourpuss comment by another reviewer, "In addition, having Kent Rogers along for support didn't help. While Rogers imitations were funny and helped in his brief appearance in STALAG 17 a decade later, here he just seemed like someone's obnoxious child mugging at the camera and doing some terrible impersonations" is aesthetically questionable and factually incorrect. Rogers' impressions were really quite good, although very badly integrated into the scenes in which he appeared. That was the script's fault, not his. And he was NOT in Stalag 17--he was killed in the war a couple of years after making this film.