VARSITY SHOW (Warner Bros. 1937) Warner Home Video

The era of the Busby Berkeley super-spectacle at Warner Bros. was decidedly winding down by the time William Keighley’s Varsity Show (1937) hit theaters. For here is the type of mindless fluff and nonsense for which virtually no sustainable plot was possible – its careworn ‘hey kids, let’s up on a show’ variation from screenwriters Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay, Sid Herzig and Warren Duff, so tired, congested, and, thoroughly out of step with the advancing times, it was mildly in danger of sinking the entertainment value to be found in Berkeley’s more aggressive energies to stage some truly remarkable production numbers throughout. All the more reason to have faith in the inimitable talents of this wunderkind choreographer and bask in his seamless staging of his grand finale ‘Love Is On The Air Tonight’. Employing several hundred dancers on a massive 60-ft. wide by 50-ft. high series of bleachers, Berkeley’s inventive choreography paid homage to some of the biggest and brightest college football teams; his overhead shots, capturing his mind-boggling assemblage of dancers in varsity letter formation. Varsity Show is really little more than an excuse to sell Berkeley’s art to the masses. Indeed, the picture would have been much better served if staged as a sort of Ziegfeld Follies-styled presentation of skits and songs, for that is practically what we get here, except that the exposition seems increasingly to get in the way of the joys to be had elsewhere.

The plot unravels with Professor Washburn (Roy Atwell) protesting the introduction of swing music to Winfield College’s annual varsity show. Students Barbara Steward (Rosemary Lane), Betty Bradley (Priscilla Lane) and Trout (Sterling Holloway), among others, protest the rigidity with which the college is being run. They appeal to the sensibility of Dean Meredith (Halliwell Hobbes) who backs up Washburn's decision. The students' next course of action is to contact, Charles Daly (Dick Powell); a local boy and Winfield alumni who made good as a Broadway producer. The students hope to convince Daly to stage their campus show. Daly's stage manager, Willy Williams (Ted Healy) isn't so much sympathetic to the students' cause as he sees a way for he and Daly to get back on top and in good with both Broadway and a new deal to make a film in Hollywood. What none of the students realize is that Daly’s success on the Great White Way has long since turned to vinegar. He desperately needs a hit to prove to his backers that he is still a viable commodity. Meanwhile, the college’s precarious financial situation threatens cancellation of the show.

A rather perfunctory story to say the least, Varsity Show’s salvation is its musical program that intermittently, and happily, interrupts its leaden plot conventions with oodles of talent showcased, arguably, to its best in song and dance. In her film debut, Rosemary Lane makes an extremely winsome heroine out of her fluff piece. Dick Powell is in good voice and spirits, still playing the half optimist/half cynic/all boy wonder that made his early career as a crooner at Warner Bros. so wildly popular with the bobby-soxer set. Sterling Holloway and Ted Healy deliver bits of welcomed comic relief. Varsity Show may not be a superior musical offering, but it has sparks of brilliance and a memorable cast who sell the whole contraption as though it were legit.

Warner Home Video’s DVD is most impressive; a very crisp, clean B&W image with solid contrasts and fine detail evident throughout. Occasionally, grain and age-related artifacts intrude, but these are mostly during dissolves, wipes and fades. The audio is adequately represented. From a transfer perspective, there is absolutely nothing to complain about herein. Extras are limited to a few vintage short subjects and theatrical trailer. *Please note: 2 sources consulted in the writing of this review list Varsity Show's run time at 120 min. and make special mention it was one of Warner's most ambitious movie musicals of the decade. This DVD contains only an 80 min. cut, meaning roughly 40min. of material has been excised somewhere along the way. It is unclear whether or not these changes were made before or during the original theatrical release – to squeeze in more daily viewings – or were done decades later, to accommodate the picture’s screening on late-night television, with all excised material destroyed or archived somewhere on the Warner back lot. Whatever the case, Varsity Show in its present form is truncated and forgettable at best. Notable for Berkeley’s work, the picture is otherwise a snore.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

2.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

2