Start Cheering

This is another of those rare Three Stooges-here being Moe, Larry, and Curly-feature films before their starring roles in the '60s in which they appear in support of the main cast. The actual stars here being Charles Starrett-a Columbia cowboy in his only time away from a western-and Joan Perry-who would eventually marry studio head Harry Cohn and remain so until his death in 1958. Also, Jimmy Durante and Walter Connolly are the second bananas here. The Stooges have a couple of funny scenes: one on the football field and another at a girls' dorm. In the last sequence, Larry noticeably has his usually wildly hanging curly hair slicked back while wearing a fire hat, probably because he doesn't like his curls tangled up in it! Singer Gertrude Niesen and tap dancer Hal LeRoy also provide some entertaining musical moments as well as Durante when doing his novelty numbers. There's also a weird turn by a Chaz Chase. Watch him in it and you'll understand what I mean. I very much enjoyed this one so on that note, I recommend Start Cheering for fans of the Stooges and Durante.

On April 10, I saw a beautiful print of this obscure Columbia comedy at the Film Forum in New York. Turner will be showing the film on April 13. Durante is the featured comic and performs well, really stealing the show with "I'm Gonna Strut Away in My Cut-a-way". He is sort of teamed with Walter Connelly who acts as his straight man. The team has no chemistry what so ever, and Connelly is unnecessarily cruel to Durante. However, the highlights of the film are two short scenes featuring Howard, Fine, and Howard, The Three Stooges. When they appear on screen, the whole film lights up. They do one routine as football "dummies" and also perform their famous "Point to the Right" sketch. They are dynamite. Sure, they slap each other around, but the Jules White violence from their shorts is missing. This is just good, right on the money slapstick. Broadway singer Gertrude Niesen is here in one of her rare film appearances and she steals the show musically. Hal LeRoy is on hand for a dance specialty, but he is much better served by his Warners two-reelers. The weird comic Chaz Chase (NOT the legendary Charley Chase) performs some of his surrealistic shtick and assists the Stooges in a sketch. Louis Prima appears for a moment, but if you blink, you will miss him. The leading man, Charles Starrett, is a tenor only slightly less cloying than Kenny Baker. Director Albert Rogell keeps the film moving quickly. I only wish the Stooges did more in the film.

I have very little patience for leading men and their love interest, and their songs; and I don't care much for musical numbers by "guest" performers, so much of this movie was a complete bore to me. I'm also not much interested in watching the details spelled out for me in run-of-the-mill stories like this: I prefer watching what the characters DO within a story, not the playing-out of the story itself, and since a lot of time here is spent with the main characters talking out the narrative, my fingers were itching for the fast-forward button. Durante is always fun to watch, but the script is so poor that his jokes mostly fall flat. I agree that he and Walter Connelly have no chemistry, and the justification for Durante even being in the story at all is too contrived to suspend belief. I actually prefer his roles in the late MGM Buster Keaton movies, like "What, No Beer?", where his character is an integral part of the story and his vitality really helps to move along the film. In this movie, the only moments I really enjoyed were Durante's musical number, Hal LeRoy's dance (which I have to admit was spectacular), and the Three Stooges who perform two skits with perfectly timed ensemble work. Basically, the story-laden non-comedic scenes were boring, and most of the Durante comedy was slightly embarrassing and only borderline amusing. Recommendation: don't pay more than $7 to watch it.

Yet another one of those college-set musicals so popular in the 1930s. This one has a famous movie star (Charles Starrett) fed up with Hollywood and deciding to go to college. He enrolls at Midland College, but his manager and his assistant follow him. A dopey dean (Raymond Walburn) insists the movie star be on the football team so they can rake in the money from the publicity.

Jimmy Durante is the star here, as the assistant to the movie star's manager (Walter Connolly). He gets a few songs, but his presence grows wearying , especially when he intrudes and stops cold the terrific "Rockin' the Town" number.

Joan Perry plays the love interest (and dean's daughter). Also in the cast are Ernest Truex as the librarian, Chaz Chase as the paper-eating water boy, and Broderick Crawford as the football captain. The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Curly Howard, and Larry Fine) add a burst of life to a couple scenes. Minerva Urecal plays the sorority house mother, and Louis Prima is the band leader.

The high point of the film is the "Rockin' the Town" number sung by the underused Gertrude Niesen and featuring the equally underused Hal Le Roy as a dancing student. The music is hot and Niesen and Le Roy are just fantastic.

Ted Crosley (Charles Starrett) is tired of acting and unexpectedly quits in order to attend Midland College. The university president is thrilled, as his job is on the line and he assumes the publicity with Crosley attending will save him. But, at the same time, Crosley's manager (Walter Connolly) is determined to work behind the scenes to get Ted tossed out of school and back to acting! So, although Ted's a nice guy, folks hate him and his welcome is short...all because of the manager's machinations! Eventually, Ted has had enough...but by then the manager actually has figured out how to make Ted's going to college work for everyone! But it might just be too late, as Ted has quit!

This is an okay musical comedy extravaganza. The songs are just okay and the comedy is at best okay. My biggest problem is that they made Jimmy Durante's character positively sub-humanly stupid...something that was supposed to be funny but which didn't elicit a single laugh in me. The Three Stooges also appear briefly in the film and are used a bit better....mostly because they seemed to follow the old axiom 'more is less'. Too bad Durante didn't follow this. Overall, an okay film which is quite watchable but not a lot more.

By the way, IMDB says that TCM uses the British print...but the one aired this week was NOT the British but the American print.