Parade du football

By all means not a great film, with a silly premise not made any less so. However it is easy to like and does liven up the spirits as long as not too much is expected.

'Pigskin Parade' is mainly notable for being the film debut of 14-year old Judy Garland, but it is worth watching for more than just historical interest. Garland's performance is certainly one of 'Pigskin Parade's' standout features, she is a real charmer here and not only does she look like she is having a lot of fun but she gets ample opportunity to show off her unmistakable vocal pipes and sounds fabulous for so young.

Tony Martin is also very early in his career, and does make an impression singing the film's best song "You're Slightly Terrific". Betty Grable is similarly charmingly perky, while Stuart Erwin, though am personally not sure about the Oscar-nomination especially with greats like Walter Brennan and Basil Rathbone also in the running in the category that year, is fun and endearing. A pre-'The Wizard of Oz' Jack Haley does just fine, while Patsy Kelly comes very close to stealing the show as a less than subtle character. Love her chemistry with Haley, which can be uproarious to watch. Nice to see Elisha Cook Jnr.

Visually, while not exactly lavish 'Pigskin Parade' is attractive enough, everything is shot well and it was made with care. The bright and breezy direction from David Butler helps. The songs are hardly award-worthy and they vary in the memorability and relevance factor but they are very energetic and pleasant, while they are not necessarily "great" songs count me in as somebody who enjoyed listening to them. "You're Slightly Terrific" and Garland's numbers come off best, and they're staged in a way that isn't big and bold but never static or indifferent either, due to that the cast seem to be enjoying themselves too much.

Scripting has its snappy and funny moments, the film never drags and has a breeziness throughout.

Not that 'Pigskin Parade' is perfect this said. The story is thin, does get contrived in places and is as old as the hills. Some of the script is corny and overly-silly, with some of the comedy over-played on odd occasions. Could have done with less of the Yacht Club Boys, they serve little purpose other than their songs and their performing style is neither interesting or fun and grates somewhat, trying to see them pass for college kids even for comedy strains credibility beyond belief.

Overall, not great but good undemanding fun. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Yale invites the University of Texas to compete in a charity football game--but a secretary fumbles the communication and extends the invitation to tiny Texas State University instead. New coach Slug Winters (Jack Haley) and his harridan wife Bessie (Patsy Kelly) manage to whip the team into shape, but when an accident sidelines the star player they find an unexpected replacement in barefoot yokel Amos Dodd (Stuart Erwin)... and before you can say Sis Boom Bah every one is off to the big game! Best known for his later performance of The Tin Man in THE WIZARD OF OZ, Jack Haley was a memorable light comic of stage and screen, and his pairing with Patsy Kelly is truly inspired. In addition to the then-popular quartet The Yachtclub Boys, the film also offers early glimpses of future big names like Betty Grable, Alan Ladd, Tony Martin, and Elisha Cook Jr., not to mention B movie queens Arline Judge and Lynn Bari.

But then as now, the real noise in the film was teenage Judy Garland, who made her feature film debut on loan from home studio MGM with the small role of Amos Dodd's hillbilly sister "Sairy." Slight though the role was, Garland's handful of cornpone-humor scenes and her three songs served as a wake-up call to her MGM handlers, and for the rest of her MGM contract she would never work off-studio again.

Although PIGSKIN PARADE is hardly in the same league with the Paramount, Warner Brothers, or MGM musicals of the same era, the lightweight story, memorable cast, silly dialogue ("Well, Call My Hawgs!") and pleasant if not greatly memorable songs has a great deal of period charm. I do not think it will greatly appeal to any one who isn't already a fan of 1930s musicals, but those who are will enjoy it--and Garland fans will consider it a minor classic.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

"Pigskin Parade" is a thoroughly enjoyable college football musical - the kind of fluffy, unpretentious froths 20th Century Fox usually done well. It recounts the events leading to a big charity football game between Texas State University and Yale.

Sure at times it's silly and corny; but when you come across an innocent and charming cast that includes Judy Garland (in her debut!), Betty Grable, Stuart Erwin, Arline Judd, Jack Haley, Patsy Kelly, Alan Ladd, Tony Martin, Elisha Cook Jr, plus those enchanting musical numbers, any flaw or implausibility has to forgiven.

The teaming of Jack Haley and Patsy Kelly as the married coaches guiding TSU at the Yale Bowl is itself fun to watch. You should see Haley's reaction when he finds out his wife has injured the team's star player! Stuart Erwin as the dour hillbilly tosser Amos Dodd later turned ace footballer is hilarious!

Judy Garland, on loan from MGM, looks very young in her role, three years before she starred again with Jack Haley in "The Wizard of Oz".

The young, up-and-coming Betty Grable, with her carefree enthusiasm, was a delight to watch again after she starred in another frothy campus musical "Old Man Rhythm"(1935). This is one her earliest roles and she handles it in a bouncy, exuberant manner like most of her best roles.

David Butler's direction is unpretentiously fluid, breezily mixing slapstick and highly uproarious songs/numbers. My favorites are "The Balboa", "It's Love I'm After", "You Say the Darndest Things" and "We're Glad to Be In College".

Watch it and Enjoy.

Stepping into the role that was usually reserved for Jack Oakie in these college films is Stu Erwin in Pigskin Parade. That substitution got for Erwin a nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the first year of the Supporting Players categories at the Academy Awards.

Pigskin Parade is typical of the college films of the Thirties when students were hardly expected to think about anything of social or political significance. The main thing on the minds of the folks at Yale was who to play in a tune up charity game before the big annual match with Hah-vard. In fact the one guy in the film who does think about issues is Elisha Cook, Jr. and he's a figure of ridicule. Although it is kind of funny how the fraternity boys use his radicalism to help them in their cause of victory over Yale.

But to the students and faculty at Texas State University in Prarie, Texas this is one big deal to show up those Yankees. They have a sad sack football team with a brand new coach from Yankeeland himself in Jack Haley. Although truth be told, it's his wife Patsy Kelly who's the real brains here. A lot of the comedy with Kelly and Haley involves her showing him up and not being too diplomatic about it.

In fact she has the unique idea of utilizing the championship basketball of the school as football players in a unique passing game. Kelly also with Betty Grable and Johnny Downs who discovers Stu Erwin, a natural quarterback in a melon field, heaving melons across it. Thrown in as a bargain is Erwin's little sister Judy Garland who becomes the team mascot.

This film was Judy's feature film debut, she would not make another film outside MGM until she left that studio and did A Star Is Born in 1954. Her songs are negligible, but her talent is apparent to all.

The best song in the film is done by another guy just getting started in the picture business. Tony Martin sings You're Slightly Terrific at a pep rally and he was also going places.

Further down the cast list is Betty Grable and even further down is Alan Ladd who you can see in some of the scenes at the fraternity house and at the football game.

Pigskin Parade is a pleasant enough film with a whole lot of talented people showing their stuff. Did these kids ever go to class in these schools?

"Pigskin Parade" only has one thing wrong with it. It's kind of lousy. But as far as musicals go, it's a *good* kind of lousy.

I've seen Hollywood musicals that bored the hell out of me. I've seen musicals where the songs were lifeless and dull, and the musical numbers put you to sleep. I've seen musicals where the acting in between the musical numbers was sheer cinematic torture. I've seen musicals where the performers seemed to be sleepwalking through the movie, and where the characters they were playing were so brain-dead and annoying that you just wanted to whack 'em upside the head with a tube sock full of wood screws! "Pigskin Parade" is silly and corny, but it is never boring. The musical numbers are not great, but they are always fun to watch. The characters are stereotypes, but the cast plays them with such enthusiasm that you can't help liking them.

The plot: Bessie and Winston "Slug" Winters (Patsy Kelly and Jack "Tin Man" Haley) arrive at Texas State University to coach the football team. Although they spend most of the movie arguing with each other in Ralph-and-Alice-Kramden mode, they make an effective coaching team. Their big success comes when they discover Amos Dodd (Stuart Erwin), a country bumpkin farmer who can hurl a melon with missile-like accuracy. They immediately sign him up as the new quarterback for the football team.

Texas State is mistakenly invited to play in a charity football game against Yale. (They wanted the University of Texas, but sent the invitation for the game to the wrong university.) Will the Texas State team win the game? Will Amos Dodd score a game-winning touchdown in the final seconds of play? What do you think? This is one of those "college musicals" where all the college students look as if they are about thirty years old. Most of the songs are sung by a nutty quartet of "sophomores," played by the Yacht Club Boys. They look old enough to be visiting their kids at the college on Parents Day. (One of them even admits that he has been in college for seven years -- beating John Belushi to the movie line by 42 years.) The musical numbers are not great, but they are a lot of fun to watch. There is one called "You're Slightly Terrific," which pretty much describes the entire soundtrack. The songs are "slightly terrific," but not overly so.

The songs written and sung by the Yacht Club Boys have a great satirical edge to them. They sing "We'd Rather Be In College," in which they admit that, with the Depression raging, they are better off in college than they would be in the current job market; "Down With Everything," a *wonderful*, vigorous musical number that satirizes college revolutionaries, sung to a would-be college Trotsky. And "We Brought The Texas Sunshine With Us," which the Yacht Club Boys sing in the middle of a snowstorm at the Yale football game.

And then there is Judy Garland in her feature film debut, playing Amos Dodd's country-bumpkin sister. The first time we see her in the movie, she is barely recognizable, wearing overalls and sporting pigtails, and using a phony Texas accent. ("Hey, yuh wanna buy a melon?") Within a few scenes, however, she has been transformed (offscreen) into a college girl/young starlet. In her first few scenes, she tells everybody, "I can sing. Wannuh hear me?" It takes a few scenes before someone lets her sing -- and *dammit,* can she ever sing! Her first big-screen musical number is the tail-end of the song, "The Balboa!"--a rather rocky (har!) college dance number, sung at the TSU Homecoming Dance. ("The Balboa" was no "Carioca" or "Continental," although it tried to be.) From there, she sings "The Texas Tornado" and "It's Love I'm After." And if you saw this movie in 1936, you just *had* to know that Judy was going to be a major star! To quote the great Roger Ebert, "I cannot recommend the movie, but ... why the hell can't I? Just because it's godawful? What kind of reason is that for staying away from a movie? Godawful and boring, *that* would be a reason." Well, I *could* recommend "Pigskin Parade." It's not exactly "godawful," but it *is* lousy. But despite the lousiness, you will have a good time watching it. You won't love it the way you love "Wizard of Oz" or "Singing in the Rain." But you will like it -- as long as you accept the lousiness of the movie and go with it.