Themes: Football Players, Sibling Relationships, Love Triangles
Main Cast: George O'Brien, William Janney, Frank Albertson, Ward Bond, Helen Chandler, Joyce Compton
Release Year: 1929
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
Plot
One of the few pre-1930 John Ford films currently available, the part-talkie Salute was co-directed by Ford and David Butler. George O'Brien is cast as cadet John Randall, star player for the Army college football team. His principal gridiron opponent is Navy player Paul Randall (William Janney), his own kid brother. In the days before the big Army-Navy game, John and Paul's sibling rivalry intensifies as both pay court to pretty Nancy Wayne (Helen Chandler). The film concludes with the inevitable Big Game, an expert blend of newly shot scenes and Fox Movietone newsreel footage. Stepin Fetchit, a Ford favorite, goes through his usual bizarrely racist routines as the hero's valet. The entire University of Southern California football team appears in Salute, including two strapping young players named John Wayne and Ward Bond. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Salute is a 1929motion picture directed by John Ford, starring George O’Brien, Helen Chandler, William Janney, Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Perry), and Frank Albertson about the football rivalry of the Army–Navy Game. John Wayne had an uncredited role in the film, as one of three midshipmen who perform a mild hazing. The film was partly filmed on location at Annapolis Naval Academy. The comic relief character played by Fetchit was common for the era, but would be considered quite racist and degrading by today’s standards.
