Student Tour

Jimmy Durante is in here, so we know there will be piano playing, singing, and dancing. Charles Butterworth is here, clearly for the dry, word play and humor. Nelson Eddy is here for the long, baritone solos. Betty Grable and assorted co-stars make for the love stories that abound. There's a plot in here somewhere about the rowing team taking a world tour on a ship, if they can pass the exams. They are "aboard the S.S. Acadia"... somewhere on the back lot, although at the time, the thought of going to Thailand and India probably seemed quite exotic to the viewing public. Running gag about Professor Lippincott (Butterworth) being presented with his own China girl, which only confuses him. He keeps trying to lose her... with NO success. Phil Regan is the captain of the rowing team, and he (and everyone) get in and out of trouble throughout the film. This thing goes all around the mulberry bush, but it's fun to go along for the ride. The big ending is the final race ... somewhere. This shows now and then on Turner Classics... up to 90 votes, currently. Catch it if you can. Some fun, big names in here, many of which would go on to be HUGE Hollywood names. Directed by Chuck Reisner, who had started as actor/director in the early days of silents, and moved easily into the talkies. It's a fun one, with a pretty good story line.

When you watch films made during the Depression, it's often hard to imagine that there even WAS a depression! After all, most of the folks are employed and have tons of money in the pictures...and "Student Tour" is a great example of this dissonance between Hollywood's depiction of the era and reality. This film is all about a pampered crew team that goes on a world tour...and you wonder how most audience members could have even cared about any of this.

I found "Student Tour" to be a surprisingly dull movie considering it stars Charles Butterworth and Jimmy Durante. Believe it or not, with these two it wasn't funny in the least and it sure should have been with this pair. But the writing was the problem...the film just never delivered.

The story begins with the Crew team from Bartlett College learning that they failed their philosophy exams. So, the professor (Butterworth) agrees to allow the team to be tutored while they're on their world tour...so when they return they can retake and hopefully pass the final exam. Through the course of their trip, there is a LOT of singing and dancing, a lot of boorish behavior from some members of the team and not much in the way of laughs.

So, if you're REALLY into rowing, you might enjoy this one...otherwise, it's a dull and disappointing film.

A winning college rowing team is set to go on a world tour until philosophy professor Ethelred Lippincott flunks the whole team. The professor's mousy niece Ann Lippincott convinces him to tutor the group while they're on the trip. Hank Merman (Jimmy Durante) is the trainer.

The girls stealing the test bit makes little sense and looks bad anyways. It's unnecessary in an awkward way. The boys would be the automatic suspects. I would rather cut out that part of the plot. If they insist on pursuing the mean girls plot, have the girls bully Ann. The acting is generally poor and broad. Maxine Doyle seems perfectly fine as the mousy Ann. Her glasses is doing half the work. Durante has a secondary role. He tries to inject some comedy but most of it doesn't strike me as funny. He's better when he's singing. There is one consistent bit that has some good comedic effect. Durante and Butterworth are constantly trying to get rid of Sum Toy. There is also some yellow-face work which never ages well. It's a movie of its day and not necessarily a good one at that.

Philosophy Professor Charles Butterworth just can't get into the school spirit. He's gone and flunked the entire rowing team and their world tour is canceled. What to do, but bring Butterworth along on the Student Tour and tutor them and give them makeups before the big match at Oxford. And who do they get to room with Butterworth, none other but rowing trainer Jimmy Durante.

Probably with a better script the team of Butterworth and Durante might have done better, but this was a slapdash affair that MGM put together. The love interest is a Cinderella story involving team captain Phil Regan and Butterworth's daughter Maxine Doyle. What a difference taking off your glasses can make as Clark Kent would be the first to tell.

MGM house songwriters Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed contributed a most unmemorable score. Jimmy Durante wisely had his own, I Say It With Music interpolated for his number. The main song in the film was The Carlo, a big singing and dancing number that Nelson Eddy sang. Eddy was being showcased as a possible new leading man and would be the following year in Naughty Marietta with Jeanette MacDonald.

Student Tour is all right and entertaining, but could have stood a lot of improvement.

This film manages a difficult feat--making Charles Butterworth and Jimmy Durante unfunny. Two of the greatest comic supporting actors of the 30s are completely done in by their lines.

And the film casts two singers who can't act as the romantic leads, Maxine Doyle and Phil Regan.

Add to this the spectacle of a "Chinese sage" selling his daughter to an American for $50. 1930s films didn't have to be politically correct, but slavery had been abolished 70 years before. Is it funny when it applies to Orientals?

The film has another chance at humor when it discusses philosophy. When students don't know who Descartes was, the professor decides he'd better check to make sure he has the name right. This is supposed to be funny?

The Freed-Brown songs are nice. But it's off-putting to see Nelson Eddy (whose song goes on too long) with a moustache.