Last night, Jackie Moran and Marcia Mae Jones were back, a little bit older, in "Let's Go Collegiate"(1941). The star of this movie is actually a diminutive actor named Frankie Darro, who receives top billing as frat leader "Frankie Monahan" of Rawley University, which is setting up to welcome a top prep school prospect to their championship-level rowing team. Monahan is in charge of the welcoming committee. He also has a Man Friday named "Jeff" (Mantan Moreland) who doubles as his chauffeur (Frankie must be a rich kid though it's never explained) but it's really an excuse to have Moreland provide his particular brand of comic relief. When we first see them together, Frankie - a med student - is practicing an anatomy lesson using Mantan's head for reference. Bulging eyes ensue.
But then Frankie and "Tad" (Jackie Moran), who conducts the school's swing band, are dismayed to learn that "Bob Terry", the champion prep-school sculler, won't be coming to Rawley after all. He's been drafted and they're crushed, not so much because of the loss to the university, but because their gals "Bess" and "Midge" (Marcia Mae Jones and Gale Storm) have been eagerly awaiting Terry's visit. They've heard he's a handsome hunk in addition to being a rowing champ.
Frankie and Tad don't want to let their gals down, or the school, and they know that without Bob Terry (who's never shown), they don't have a chance in the upcoming rowing trials. So, they come up with the idea of finding a substitute, and while searching on the street, they see a big guy carrying a safe, the kind you put money and valuables in. He's actually stealing it from an office, but the boys aren't sharp enough to figure that out. All they can see is that he's strong as heck. "He'll make a good Bob Terry", they decide, and pay him ten bucks to impersonate the absent athlete. The problem is that the safe stealer suffers from seasickness, so he can't go near the water. How is he gonna fake being on the rowing team, then? It doesn't matter for the moment, because there's a pre-race party to attend to, where "Herc" (Frank Sully) - which is the impersonator's real name - dances with, then steals, both Tad's and Frankie's girlfriends, Bess and Midge.
The boys try to pull him away, but he's a street mug who's enjoying his new life as an athletic hero and ladies man. He's not about to give up the attention, and the girls like him because he's big, strong and handsome (sort of). He's also unsocialised and doesn't care about class distinctions, and is embarrassing the Rawley alumni, who are cringing at his table manners. All the boys care about, however, besides keeping his paws off their girls, is getting him prepped for the race. Because of his seasickness, they have to keep him primed with what is labeled onscreen an "upchuck remedy" (no kidding), and is probably similar to Dramamine, if you remember that pill for motion sickness. I took it at six years old, to counteract the effects of riding in my Dad's Buick Riviera, which drove like a boat, and had a leather smell that made the motion sickness worse. Anyhow, Bob Terry (i.e. Herc), who is actually a wanted criminal, does great on the rowing team as long as he has his pills. Keye Luke (of "Kung Fu" fame) has a small role as a coaching assistant who makes Chinese Proverb jokes.
At one point, a character calls Mantan Moreland "Midnight", to his face, and it's played in a lighthearted way, but it goes without saying that such a line would never be written into a script now. Marcia Mae Jones doesn't have as much to do as in the other two films we've seen her in; mostly she just looks pretty and flutters her eyelashes at Frank Sully, who is really the star of the show. You'll remember him as the dumb but enthusiastic detective who exhausts Dick Lane's police chief in the "Boston Blackie" movies. Sully has the same kind of Big Dumb Guy charisma as Barton MacLane, but whereas Barton is often menacing, Sully is always a goof, though a hilarious, attention-grabbing one. Young Gale Storm, who plays Frankie's gal "Midge" and went on to a long and successful movie and TV career, sings two songs in close-up, and is cute as a button while doing so. Mantan and Marguerite Whitten (who plays the caterer "Malvina"), also sing a duet on "Let's Do a Little Dreamin'" which is very stylish and shows there was more to Moreland than just double takes and "Lemme outta here" jokes. There isn't much plot to speak of, except trying to get Bob Terry in shape for the rowing race, but this is all about the moments of getting there, and we love these actors and characters. Two Big Thumbs Up and a very highly recommendation for "Let's Go Collegiate". The picture is razor sharp. ////
We don't have a movie from the previous night, but we did begin another Tom Tyler chapter serial, "The Phantom of the Air"(1933), in which he plays "Captain Bob Raymond" an air racer and Federal Border Patrol Agent who works to keep contraband out of the country. In the first 20 minute episode, he dethrones the reigning air race champ (Leroy Mason), who is also a smuggler and is planning to sabotage Raymond's plane, to kill him in the next episode. We are loving these chapter serials, which are like motion picture comic books or soap operas. We just finished watching Tyler in the similarly-titled "The Phantom", a 4 hour, 15-episode adventure about the search for a treasure in the South Pacific. We also just finished "Zorro's Fighting Legion", which was also great but didn't have enough Sheila Darcy :). All of these serials get Two Big Thumbs Up. Once you start watching them, you'll get hooked, just as surely as Spielberg and Lucas once did. As for Tom Tyler, I think he, like Charles King, is becoming one of my very favorite movie stars, though in a different way because he and King are polar opposites. Tyler is the epitome of the tall, handsome Matinee Idol, but the main reason I like him is the way he plays his roles, with a "happy to be here" smile and a unique style of diction. He was of Lithuanian heritage and grew up in Michigan, so he has an unusual Midwestern/European accent and a very formal way of saying his lines, in which every syllable is pronounced. He also comes across as a genuinely good guy, and I think I've mentioned that he was an Olympic weightlifter and an amateur champion sponsored by the Los Angeles Athletic Club, of which my Dad was a member. My brother and I spent many Saturday mornings and afternoons at the Club, taking judo, gymnastic, swimming and handball lessons and running wild through the old building, where we raced down the staircases and in the elevators. We didn't always like having to go to the Club, because sometimes kids wanna play with their friends on the weekends, but once we got there we always had fun, playing basketball and tossing the medicine ball, too. And, they had the best cheeseburgers ever, in the third floor restaurant, and the second best hot dogs in L.A. (after Cupids) in the gym. So here's to Tom Tyler and the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and all the chapter serials we're enjoying.
I should also mention that I'm very impressed with four albums that have come out in recent months. Besides the new King's X (reviewed recently), I've been blown away by "Closure/Continuation", the latest from Porcupine Tree. The sound design alone on that record is worthy of the accolade "masterpiece", and when you add what I think is the best album of their career, it's quite an achievement. Maybe it was the Covid break that gave these bands a chance to hunker down and concentrate, I don't know, but Eric Johnson is another artist who's latest work is equal to the best of his career. I am a gigantic fan of EJ and have seen him umpteen times in concert. Of course, he's most famous for "Ah Via Musicom" (a great album), but my favorite has long been "Venus Isle". That album, which came out in 1996, is an all-time Top Ten record for me. I think I even numbered it once as my sixth favorite album ever. Which makes it all the more impressive that his two new CDs, "Yesterday Meets Today" and "The Book of Making", which were released simultaneously and can be thought of as a double album because their total running time is 65 minutes, are just about equal, musically and in sound and feel, to "Venus Isle". The songwriting, playing, and most of all, the feeling on his new records is off-the-charts.
The new music by all these artists is currently in constant rotation at The Tiny (along with the blogging music I mention, and my late night Wagner), and, while I don't know if it gives me hope for the future of rock (because, um....well forget it), it does make me happy that some of my favorites still have it in them to create records that make me care again. Oh, and Rick Wakeman too, with "The Red Planet" from two years ago.
So there you have it and that's all I know for tonight. We'll be back to having two-movie blogs for the foreseeable future, now that all the concerts are over. My blogging music for tonight has been "Manifesto" by Roxy Music, and once again "Avonmore" by Bryan Ferry. My late night music is (as always) Wagner, this time "Die Feen". I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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