In Life Begins At College, the Ritz Brothers playing three zany tailors go to school
and in fact start their own fraternity and admit one member, newly arrived Indian
student played by Nat Pendleton joins them.
Pendleton is playing a student not too bright, but he's also one of those oil rich
Indians from Oklahoma. When some of the alumni try to force out football
coach Fred Stone, Pendleton gives the school an endowment to keep Stone at
his job. Amazing how Dean Maurice Cass's attitude changes when the Ritzes
say the magic word endowment.
There's a romance going between school quarterback Dick Baldwin and Gloria
Stuart. Baldwin is as bland as Grandma's soup when she has unexpected company for dinner. A little livelier is Joan Davis pursuing Nat Pendleton so
you'd think she was trying to scalp him. Tony Martin appears simply as 'Bandleader' in the credits, enough to get a couple of opportunities to vocalize.
Who dubbed Gloria Stuart's singing is anyone's guess.
Pendleton's charcter is based on Jim Thorpe who at that time was making a
few dollars in bit parts for films. Stone's character I would say was based on
Amos Allonzo Stagg who was the grand old man of football and would live
right up to the 60s and would pass the century mark.
Life Begins At College with the Ritz Brothers joining the Marx Brothers from
Horsefeathers and Wheeler&Woolsey from Hold 'Em Jail in the pantheon of
college football films. The Ritzes of course do run amuck on the gridiron as
did these contemporaries in their films.
This is still an amusing film.
