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Pigskin Parade

(1936 b 92')

En: 6 Ed: 5

Texas State gets a new coach and finds a great passer for its big game with Yale in this musical comedy.

Yale regents debate the charity football game and select Texas, but the invitation goes to Texas State. On the train Bessie Winters (Patsy Kelly) complains to her husband, coach Slug Winters (Jack Haley). She wants to go back to New York until they learn that TSU is playing Yale. At a TSU rally everyone sings, and Ginger (Dixie Dunbar) tap dances. The four Yacht Club Boys (including Alan Ladd) sing "Woo-woo." Bessie learns they have great basketball players and tells Winters to have them pass. TSU wins with a passing game.

At a dance the quartet sings "We're Glad to Be In College." Bessie confiscates some gin and gets drunk. She shows football star Biff Bentley (Fred Kohler Jr.) how to block and breaks his leg. Laura (Betty Grable) consoles Chip (Johnny Downs). Herbert Terwilliger Van Dyck (Elisha Cook Jr.) tells Chip he is enrolling and calls football a capitalist plot. Winters argues with Bessie, and she packs. Chip tells her about a great football player, and they go to find him; but they learn he went to Yale. Chip kisses Laura. Sairy Dodd (Judy Garland) tells her brother Amos Dodd (Stuart Erwin) to throw melons, and he can run fast too. Chip offers him a scholarship. Amos can't get into college. Van Dyck is promoting socialist revolution and has credentials. The quartet sings "Down With Everything" to get Van Dyck to throw a brick into a bank window and get arrested as John Smith. Next Amos tells his sister his name is now Van Dyck. He passes TSU to victories. Amos dances with Sally (Arline Judge), but someone cuts in on him. They sing and dance "Balboa," and Sairy sings. Chip learns that Amos is leaving and tells the Winters. Bessie tells her husband to make love to Sally, and he sings to her. Bessie catches them and hits Winters with a shotgun. Sally says she loves Amos and goes with him to the train to New Haven. Sairy sings "Texas Tornado."

On the football field Sairy sings "It's Love I'm After." During the game it snows. Winters puts in Amos. He passes, and TSU scores. At half-time the quartet sings "Texas Sunshine." Yale takes the lead 7-6. Winters knocks himself out on the dugout roof, and Bessie sends in Amos, who takes off his shoes and runs for a touchdown. The victorious Texans dance with joy.

This story celebrates the growing obsession with college football, and no one seems to care that a radical is jailed for two months so that a star player can fraudulently enter the university to play football.

Copyright © 2000 by Sanderson Beck

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