Dreadfully Boring

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Mindless fluff, but a lot of fun all the way through. Busby Berkeley sure knew a thing or two about troop formations. This 1930s Warner Bros. musical/comedy features a fresh cast, including Priscilla Lane, Sterling Holloway, Johnnie "Scat" Davis, Mabel Todd, and Rosemary Lane as college kids. Dick Powell is an alumnus enlisted to help stage the school show, with Ted Healy along for the ride. Lots of 1930s-era college silliness, with freshman caps, fraternity pins, sorority houses, school pride and all that. Berkeley choreographs the rah-rah finale, while the "plot" is never entirely resolved. Priscilla Lane is very cute as an enthusiastic coed and older sister Rosemary Lane is very pretty as the romantic lead.

the thing about Varsity Show is that it's good enough for not being bad, but bad enough for being good. yes, there are a lot of songs in it and the story is differently than the other Busby Berkeley films, but there isn't one song that really is performed well, the story is a bit stupid and it seems as if Busby Berkeley was out of inspiration. the dance performances are seen in other Berkeley films, but now they are shown to us in a worse version. still, I could quite enjoy the college humor, even more than in Buster Keaton's College and so many other movies about (art) schools (like Fame). it's not that I don't have taste for good movies, and that's exactly why I say Varsity Show is a nice relaxation but nothing more.

I was looking forward to seeing Varsity Show because of the fact that I owned the four Dick Powell Decca recordings that were made from songs in this film. The Tony Thomas book, the Films of Dick Powell also said that it was a 2 hour film. In the abbreviated 80 minute version I saw of it, I'm thinking there was a lot of material that was left out and may in fact now be lost. Two of those songs Powell did not sing on the screen, Have You Got Any Castles Baby and Love Is On The Air Tonight. He did do a very nice version of You've Got Something There with Rosemary Lane and the song Moonlight On The Campus seems to have been edited out all together.Still even in the shortened version Varsity Show is an entertaining bit of nonsense about a Broadway producer played by Powell who's had a run of bad luck, but answers the call of the student body of his alma mater to produce their Varsity Show. It was the kind of light weight material that Powell was desperately trying to get out of doing at Warner Brothers, but Jack Warner wouldn't see him in anything else.Jack did give him a good cast to work with however with a lot of very familiar character actors going through their paces. Standing out are Ted Healy on loan from MGM playing Powell's assistant, Edward Brophy as the theater manager who's about to have a stroke because he can't get an advance for rent from the college kids, and Walter Catlett who is very funny as the faculty adviser for the show who knows as much about putting on a show as Ginger Rogers running the Brooklyn Dodgers to quote another Dick Powell song from another film.Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians are here to supply the music and chorus and Rosemary's sister Priscilla Lane is another student. The dancing talent is tops with Lee Dixon who had co-starred with Powell in Golddiggers of 1937 and the great team of Buck and Bubbles who I still remember from the Ed Sullivan Show as a lad. Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer wrote the original songs that I liked so much.Varsity Show got an Academy Award nomination for Busby Berkeley in the category of Dance Direction which was discarded in the Forties. Berkeley did one of his patented extravaganzas for a finale using the theme songs from several colleges and it's quite an eyeful and most entertaining.I hope one day we can get a restored version of Varsity Show. I'm betting a lot of good material might be lost as it stands right now. I have a feeling I'd rate Varsity Show higher if we saw the director's cut.

VARSITY SHOW (Warner Brothers, 1937), directed by William Keighley, is a college campus musical, in fact, Warners' only contribution to the college musical of the 1930s. Originally distributed in theaters at two hours in length, circulating prints are from the 1940s reissue at 79 minutes, with 40 minutes of material clipped from the original negative and lost since then. Considering this edition happened to be the only known print in existence today, this review is taken on the basis from the edited version.The story begins with Ernie Mason (Fred Waring) and his fellow students of Winfield College rehearsing for the upcoming annual varsity show. Ernie, assistant to Professor Sylvester Biddle (Walter Catlett), the faculty adviser, finds he and the students aren't being given the freedom they need to put on a successful show. Biddle insists the show be done his way or none at all, in spite that his ideas are out-of-date and his refusal to allow swing music as part of the score. Janitors Buck and Bubbles come up with an idea in hiring Charles "Chuck" Daly (Dick Powell), a former alumnus now a successful Broadway producer, to help direct the show. Betty Bradley (Priscilla Lane), Buzz Bolton (Johnnie Davis), Johnny "Rubberlegs" Stevens (Lee Dixon) and Trout (Sterling Holloway) volunteer in coming to New York City to locate Daly. At first Daly refuses, but because Daly has just closed his latest Broadway flop (his third in a row), he and his assistant, William W. Williams (Ted Healy) decide to return to Winfield College where they not only agree to help direct the varsity show, but become part of the fraternity by staying in the dormitory run by Mrs. Smith (Emma Dunn), as well as finding themselves suitable love partners, Daly with Barbara Steward (Rosemary Lane) and gravel voice Williams with Cuddles (Mabel Todd), a buck-tooth, bespectacled blonde with a very peculiar laugh.With the music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer and Richard Whiting, the good selection of songs from the 79 minute print includes: "The Varsity Show's Rehearsing Today at Three O'Clock" (sung by cast); "Old King Cole" (sung by Johnnie Davis); "We're Working Our Way Through College" (sung by Dick Powell); "I'm Dependable" (sung by Priscilla Lane and Fred Waring/ written by Tom Waring and Don Raye); "On With the Dance" (sung by Rosemary Lane); "You Got Something There" (sung by Dick Powell and Rosemary Lane); Tap dance solo act performed by Buck and Bubbles; "Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?" (sung by Priscilla Lane); "Love Is on the Air Tonight" (sung by Buck and Bubbles); "Have You Got Any Castles, Baby?" (tap dance by Buck and Bubbles); "On With the Dance" (sung by Buck and Bubbles); "Old King Cole" (sung by Johnnie Davis); "On With the Dance" (reprise); "You Got Something There" and "Love Is On the Air Tonight." If one looks very closely to the opening credits and to the list of songs, one tune, "Little Fraternity Pin," is listed but not heard in VARSITY SHOW. As much the story may be as predictable as any college musical of that time, the majority of the songs for this production were quite standard. Forgotten today, VARSITY SHOW contains the most entertaining college finale ever presented. Choreographed by Busby Berkeley, it did get nominated for an Academy Award in the best dance direction category. Though it didn't win, VARSITY SHOW still demonstrates Berkeley's true ability in his creative staging techniques. With Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians orchestrating the finale, the real show stopper centers upon an individual co-ed throwing a football on numerous occasions across the stage over to a group of students to form themselves into spelled-out letters of well known universities as Yale, Wisconsin, Notre Dame and Stanford. All these letters are used with color tiles with the underscoring to just about every familiar college song imaginable. It's an excellent production that makes up for whatever flaws the film itself contains. Buck and Bubbles shouldn't go unnoticed. They, too, contribute to several good dance routines. Not quite as effective and faster style of the Nicholas Brothers over at 20th Century-Fox, but a routinely style all their own. The supporting cast includes: Halliwell Hobbes as Dean J.M. Meredith; Edward Brophy as Mike "Curly" Barclay; Ben Weldon, Robert Homans and Tom Kennedy. Lee Dixon, who was becoming a familiar face in the Warners musical starting with GOLD DIGGERS OF 1937 (1936), followed by taking second billing opposite Ruby Keeler in READY, WILLING AND ABLE (1937), and co-starring opposite Dick Powell in THE SINGING MARINE (1937), makes his final bow in VARSITY SHOW. In the edited version, he not only limited in his contribution to the story (though possibly had extensive scenes from the two hour edition), but had his name placed thirteenth in the closing cast credits. He later scored successfully in the Broadway musical, OKLAHOMA (1943), and appeared one more time on screen in the western drama, ANGEL AND THE BAD MAN (Republic, 1946), starring John Wayne, before his death in 1953.VARSITY SHOW in present form is a pleasing musical with a bright score. (One can hope the missing footage will someday suffice and take the place of the chopped-up copy on TCM). As for the cast, Dick Powell, Ted Healy, Rosemary Lane, Johnnie Davis and Mabel Todd appeared together again in another large scale Warners musical, "Hollywood Hotel" (1937), that introduced the popular theme song, "Hooray for Hollywood." Directed entirely by Busby Berkeley, it lacked the great musical finish that highlights VARSITY SHOW so well. Rah! Rah! Rah! (***1/2)