Themes: Football Players, Fish Out of Water, College Life
Main Cast: Patsy Kelly, Jack Haley, Stuart Erwin, Johnny Downs
Release Year: 1936
Country: US
Run Time: 95 minutes
Plot
The first of 20th Century-Fox's college musicals, Pigskin Parade is also close to the best of them in musical terms -- though they were all at least pretty good on that level -- principally thanks to the presence of 13-year-old Judy Garland, playing an Arkansas farm girl with surprising sincerity and success (in addition to belting out a couple of numbers with the depth and sincerity of a performer at least twice that age). The plot starts rolling when the Yale University football team, looking for a credible but not too tough opponent for a charity game, accidentally invites the team from tiny Tesax State University (enrollment 700) instead of the University of Texas (enrollment 7500). Texas State has also just gotten a new football coach, Slug Winters (Jack Haley), who's had a lot of success coaching high school back in Flushing, New York but still has to prove himself with college players -- he arrives with his brassy, outspoken wife (Patsy Kelly) just ahead of the invitation from Yale, which nearly sends them running back to New York. Through sheer luck and Mrs. Winters' brainstorm, however, they figure out a way they can meet the Yale team on the field and not get steamrollered -- they come up with a fast, highly mobile brand of football that makes them contenders, but then they lose their star-player. Mrs. Winters manages to stumble onto Amos Dodd (Stuart Erwin), an Arkansas farm boy who developed his arm by tossing watermelons around, and brings him and his sister (Judy Garland) to the college. But now they have to make Amos -- who never finished high school -- eligible, and keep him interested enough in the team and the college to get him to the game. It's all a lot of fun, with lots of comic antics and a song spicing up the pace every few minutes, and Haley and Kelly are a delight to watch together. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
Director David Butler isn't quite as nimble as some of the others who would take on this sort of movie in the future, but as a first effort in a new comedy sub-genre (at least, for the talkie era), he keeps the dialogue and the pace snappy and gets a lot out of his performers. Indeed, some of the funnier scenes here are played by actors such as Maurice Cass, who were not well known for their comedic skills; some of the music is a drag, though not when Judy Garland is on screen, and even the throwaway lines express humor that keeps this 1936 relic fresher than it would appear to have a right to be. Jack Haley and Patsy Kelly steal most of the scenes they're in, with Kelly the sparkplug for a lot of the humor -- but they make such a good team together playing each other, that it's hardly fair to Haley to say this without that disclaimer. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Bogart Rogers - Associate Producer, Gwen Wakeling - Costume Designer, Ad Schaumer - First Assistant Director, David Butler - Director, Irene Morra - Editor, David Buttolph - Composer (Music Score), Sidney D. Mitchell - Composer (Music Score), Lew Pollack - Composer (Music Score), David Buttolph - Musical Direction/Supervision, Hans Peters - Production Designer, Arthur C. Miller - Cinematographer, Darryl F. Zanuck - Producer, Thomas K. Little - Set Designer, Bernard Freericks - Sound/Sound Designer, Roger Heman - Sound/Sound Designer, Nat Perrin - Screen Story, Arthur Sheekman - Screen Story, Mark Kelly - Screen Story, William Conselman - Screenwriter, Harry Tugend - Screenwriter, Jack Yellen - Screenwriter
Due to a misunderstanding, Yale inadvertently invites the small Texas State University to play their football team for a benefit game. Coincidentally, TSU has just hired a new coach Jack Haley who arrives at the college with his wife (Patsy Kelly) just in time to hear the announcement that the team is to play Yale. The coach digs in to whip the team into shape, but just before the big game, the quarterback breaks his leg. All seems hopeless until they stumble across an Arkansashillbilly, played by Stuart Erwin, who throws a football like no one they've ever seen. The only problem remaining is to figure a way to get the college to enroll the hillbilly so that he can take the place of the injured quarterback.[1]
University in film
The university in the film, Texas State University, is fictional; the real-life Texas State University did not receive that name until 2003. The logo on the football players' uniforms resembles the long-time logo of Texas A&M University.
