What makes it different from others?

The greatest movie ever!

The greatest movie ever made..!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

I stumbled into Pigskin Parade this morning because my cold kept me from sleeping. Was I surprised at how much I enjoyed this screwball football musical-comedy. We begin with a conference of the directors at Yale University, where they are deep in a serious debate…and then we learn it's about who to invite to play football in a big charity game in November. Fearing Michigan is too tough, (and here I wished they had said, "How about Ohio State?") they settle for the University of Texas.Only the idiot assistant cannot differentiate between the famous school in Austin, and Texas State University in Prairie in his directory, so they invite a weak team no one has ever heard of to their big game. That the dummy that made the mistake works for Yale really starts the comedy in this film.It happens that TSU has just hired a new football coach from Flushing, New York (we learn he was coaching high school there). Winston "Slug" Winters is played by Jack Haley. He and his wife Bessie, played by Patsy Kelly are really the stars of this more than anyone else. Some of the best scenes feature this pair.The new coach has barely settled in when the invite from Yale comes. They excitedly accept and now need to build a winning team. Bessie finds out that while they haven't won a football game in years, they have a terrific basketball team, with four members of that group also on the football team. She gets Slug to realize that they can do well with basketball-like passes (laterals) among those four. Led by the athletic-looking passer Biff Bentley, the team begins the season rolling over everyone they play.Mixing in all through the plot are songs at every pep rally, and at dances after every game. We see little game action, mostly read newspaper headlines. The Yacht Club Boys are featured. I thought the quartet interesting in that two of them wore neckties and two bows ties all the time. Their songs were humorous, particularly the one about how they are so proud to still be in college, now sophomores, just 14 years after they started college.Magnum, P.I. fans will likely recognize Icepick (Elisha Cook, Jr.) who checks in at a fraternity early in the film. Many scenes later, we learn that he hasn't registered for classes. He is a socialist, busy working on distributing his propaganda material.About halfway through the season Bessie takes away some gin from students right before that week's big dance. Unfortunately, she winds up drinking it. Unfortunately for TSU, she encounters Biff and tries to show him how to be tougher at stopping a blocker/ball carrier. She knocks him into the wall, breaking his leg.Now they need to find a replacement. Bessie takes two students with her, one of them Betty Grable, to track down some hotshot passer in Arkansas. That doesn't pan out, but they stumble onto a kid (Stuart Erwin) in a melon field who can fling watermelons long distances with great accuracy—putting them into a large net held by his sister, Sairy, played by Judy Garland. They whisk the two of them off to good ol' Texas State, eager to show the coach his new passer.What they hadn't considered was that the passer, Amos Dodd, doesn't have the qualifications for enrollment at the school. Here's where the little socialist comes in. The students trick him into breaking a large window in the bank, so he will get put in jail for 60 days. Amos assumes his role, and spends his days in school as Herbert Van Dyke.Things go well for a while, with plenty more songs, but another problems crops up that leads to Bessie getting a chance to pretend to be jealous of her husband making love (1930s-meaning) to a coed where she clubs him wife a shotgun butt, to again save the day for the team.Finally everyone boards the train for the big trip to Connecticut. Amid the football scenes, there are some humorous things like the way the crowd seems whipped in a frenzy on every scene, even a second-down punt. Virtually all the Texas State fans are wearing large white cowboy hats. We got lots of quick reaction shots of fans in a large bank of stands. I wonder if it was the same bank of fans, just wearing Eastern hats for the shots of Yale fans and cowboy hats for the Texas State fans.It's a defensive struggle, with TSU holding a 6-0 lead most of the game, before Yale scores and converts for a 7-6 lead. Most of the game is played in a howling snowstorm. At halftime, the TSU band comes over to the Yale side to perform a special song they planned. Here the Yacht Club Boys are reluctant, but proceed with "The Football Song/Texas Sunshine" where they sing about how they brought the Texas sunshine with them, that without it, they wouldn't have a chance to win, etc., that makes for a comical song.During the second half, Bessie keeps having the usher hand notes to her husband, who mostly ignores them. Late in the game, she winds up on the bench beside him. The bench is more like a baseball dugout, and right after Bessie says, "We don't have a chance," Winston stands up and bangs his head on the roof, knocking himself out. She immediately declares, "Now we do have a chance." I can't be spoiling anything by revealing that she sends in the next play and TSU scores right before the final gun to win the game.Loaded with fun songs and funny lines, I found this a most enjoyable film. Funnier than most musicals, to me, the songs were more fitting than you often find.

PIGSKIN PARADE (20th Century-Fox, 1936), directed by David Butler, the studio's answer to the wide range of college musicals made popular in the 1930s, contains its own assortment of comedy, songs and a football game finale (hense the title) all told in 93 minutes. With a credit list of staff and actors listed on a rolling football, Stuart Erwin, who appears late into the story, heads the cast, though the real leads are Patsy Kelly and Jack Haley in that order. By today's standards, its sole interest is on future musical film stars in smaller roles: Betty Grable (in 20th-Fox debut) and Judy Garland (on loan from MGM), resulting to one of the most musical college movies up of that time. The slight plot begins in a conference room where a deliberation meeting at Yale University as the board of directors select for its charity game the football team from the University of Texas to play against them in New Haven, Connecticut. A clerical error between Freddie (George Offerman Jr.) and Sparks (Eddie Nugent) has them getting the team from Texas State University in Prairie, Texas, instead. Winston "Slug" Winters (Jack Haley), a coach from Flushing, Long Island, arrives by train with his wife, Bessie (Patsy Kelly) to his new assignment in shaping up the team. "Biff" Bentley (Fred Kohler Jr.), the football captain chosen to lead the team to victory, meets with an accident of a fractured leg, forcing Winters to find an immediate replacement. Hoping to acquire Stanley Russell, Bessie, accompanied by fellow students, Chip Carson (Johnny Downs) and his girl, Laura Watson (Betty Grable), encounter Sairy Dodd (Judy Garland) whose older brother, Amos (Stuart Erwin) is seen tossing melons long distances into a basket. Impressed by his accurate throw, Amos is chosen as Bentley's substitute, acquiring a college scholarship for both he and his sister in the process. All goes well until the unexpected occurs.Taking amiable support for Arline Judge playing Sally Saxon, the college vamp; Elisha Cook Jr. as Herbert Terwillinger Van Dyke, the wimpy socialist; Dixie Dugan (Ginger Jones); Grady Sutton, and Sam Hayes playing himself as the radio announcer of the football game. Look quickly for future leading man, Alan Ladd, in a minor bit as one of the students. Along with Patsy Kelly's antics and sarcasms, and Jack Haley's bit of confusion, there's time for songs, lots of them. Composed by Sidney Mitchell and Lew Pollack, song interludes include: "T.S.U. Alma Mater" (sung by students); "You're Slightly Terrific" (Sung by Anthony "Tony" Martin, danced by Dixie Dunbar); "Woo-Woo" (written/performed by The Yacht Club Boys); "T.S.U. Alma Mater" (reprise); "We'd Rather Be in College" and "Down With Everything" (The Yacht Club Boys); "Balboa" (sung by Dixie Dunbar, cast members/Judy Garland); "You Do the Darndest Things" (sung by Jack Haley); "The Texas Tornado" and "It's Love I'm After" (both sung by Garland); "The Football Song/Texas Sunshine" (written and performed by The Yacht Club Boys) and "The Texas Tornado" (sung by cast). Although all the musical interludes are delivered in a very entertaining manner, the true musical highlight is unquestionably 14-year-old Judy Garland's rendition of three lively songs, much of them forgotten. Garland's scenes are limited but makes the most of it with her singing ability and transformation from barefoot hillbilly gal in pig-tales to talented singing teenager. The Yacht Club Boys as 14 year career students, are an interesting foursome of comic strip-type faced characters. They perform their specialty numbers well, never missing a beat. Interestingly, Betty Grable, singer and dancer in her own right, doesn't get a solo number to herself. As for Stuart Erwin has the distinction of being the only actor to head the cast and earn an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. If anyone deserves an acting honor in the supporting category is Patsy Kelly, who, in true form, is very funny as the assertive wife who calls the plays for her husband. Television revivals for PIGSKIN PARADE have been few and far between over the years. In 1996, American Movie Classics selected PIGSKIN PARADE as part its annual film preservation series. Availability on home video came about that same time. The names of Grable or Garland, mostly Garland, are the reasons why this routinely done musical has been kept from oblivion.Clam shell video boxes with Garland's face on the cover might have made this an easy sell, but disappointment for those expecting her to be the lead. Later placed on DVD with Garland, Erwin, Kelly and Haley on the cover, Fox Movie Channel along with Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: January 7, 2011, as part of its Betty Grable tribute) have also taken part of cable television revivals. As silly as it appears, PIGSKIN PARADE is the kind of college musical made watchable for Depession era audiences, a sort of reminder of how films of this nature have proved successful with an assortment of stars working with limited plot material. (*** touchdowns)

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?

For those who pooh-poohed this film, remember Stu Erwin received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for this film. Patsy Kelly is always a wonderful comedienne. This is a film to lift the spirits. Made at a time when Americans needed to have their spirits boosted. The premise is admittedly bogus, but the result is a great laugh riot. Years ago I recorded it from an AMC broadcast and played it for my parents (both depression era children - neither recalled it) they couldn't stop laughing. I'm certain it received the same reaction when it first appeared in 1935. It is an example to humor with out bawdy references. I wish it were on DVD, I'd buy in an instant. This helped buoy spirits in an era before Adolph Hitler raised the US economy out of the Depression.