College Holiday (1936) User Reviews (10)

Modern Greek History

[lugonian · 6/10 · 18 September 2003]

COLLEGE HOLIDAY (Paramount, 1936), directed by Frank Tuttle, is the third installment, following COLLEGE HUMOR (1933) and COLLEGE RHYTHM (1934) to the many "College" musicals Paramount distributed during this period. COLLEGE HOLIDAY, in fact, is an entirely different college musical by not being set entirely on a college campus and avoids the usual cliché football game finale with those "rah-rah" cheers from the bandstand. Instead, there's a large-scale minstrel show where the co-eds gather together to help save a failing hotel resort from financial ruin. Adding to the lineup is a recent Paramount recruit named Jack Benny, who, with this and his subsequent Paramount comedies, was starting to find his comic persona, and in this instance, playing "Love in Bloom" on the violin in his most screechy-ating style that would become his trademark.

As for the plot, it's basically a simple one, revolving around a young girl named Sylvia Smith (Marsha Hunt) who aids her father, in the process of losing his hotel, assuming the title as manager and hires radio performer J. Davis Bowster (Jack Benny) for guidance. Professor Hercules Dove (Etienne Girardot), an ancient Greek mythology enthusiast who happens to hold a mortgage on the hotel, uses Carola P. Gaye (Mary Boland), a middle-aged heiress, to convert the hotel into a sexual laboratory for express purpose of mating the perfect specimens for both sexes. Bowster recruits college co- eds as prospects, but instead of having a Greek pageant as planned, he decides to save the hotel by having the students perform in a staged musical minstrel show.

More on the lavish scale than Paramount's previous college outings, and a little over the standard 75 minutes, this 87 minute production has a large cast consisting of George Burns as George Hymen; Gracie Allen as Girardot's hair-brain daughter, Gracie "Colliope" Dove; with Martha Raye (Daisy Schloggenheimer of Corn City); Olympe Bradna (Felice L'Hommedieu); Ben Blue (The Stage Hand); Louis DaPron (Barry Taylor); Jed Prouty (Sheriff John J. Trimble, an officer of the law who tries to close down the hotel but agrees to give it another month to make good); and the California Collegians. The comedy team of Burns and Allen show up a little late in the story but make a grand entrance in style riding down the street on a chariot, ala Ben-Hur. To add to the confusion, they do find time in inserting their usual comic routines into the plot.

With music and lyrics by Ralph Freed and Burton Lane, the musical soundtrack listing is as follows: "The Sweetheart Waltz" (sung by chorus during opening credits/ then by Leif Erickson and Marsha Hunt); "Our Alma Mata" (sung by students); "Just a Rhyme for Love" (tap danced and sung on train by Johnny Downs and Eleanor Whitney); "So What?" (sung by Martha Raye); "The Sweetheart Waltz" (reprise by chorus); "I Adore You" (sung by Leif Erickson and Marsha Hunt); "The Minstrel Show is in Town" (sung by chorus); "I Adore You" (reprise by Erickson and Hunt); "Love in Bloom" (by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger, violin solo by Jack Benny); "Just a Rhyme for Love" (instrumental tap dance number with Downs and Whitney); "Who's That Knocking at My Heart" (sung by Martha Raye); and Pateranski's "Ah Latinque" (instrumental dance number with Ben Blue, Gracie Allen, others, followed by untitled jive number performed by collegians).

With a handful of songs, the best is the romantic ballad, "I Adore You," introduced by master of ceremonies Jack Benny during the Minstrel Show segment as "Enchantment," as sung by Leif Erickson as Huntg's love interest, Dick Winters. "I Adore You" is such a pleasing song, it's a pity it's constantly interrupted by spoken dialog and never heard straight through. Those with sharp hearing will take notice a goof made by Jack Benny introducing, in a hesitant manner, the song, "Enchantment" as sung and performed by MR. Sylvia Smith and MISS Dick Winters. Listen for it. "The Sweetheart Waltz" is another love ballad that is plugged a couple of times during the story, and sung by chorus, especially during one memorable but far-fetched sequence where the lovers (Erickson and Hunt) jump from the diving boards from opposite sides of the swimming pool, and join together as they swim parallel upwards, embracing to a kiss while still under water. Another good number here is "Who's That Knocking at My Heart," a true show stopper performed by the surprisingly loud and effective Martha Raye in black-face. The segment in which Jack Benny does his violin solo to "Love in Bloom" is played for laughs when it has its share of constant interruptions with the sounds of hammering, pipe organ music playing Stephen Foster's "Swanee River," as well as stage hands yelling back and forth at one another.

Unseen on television since the 1980s on public broadcasting channels such as WLIW, Channel 21 (Long Island City, N.Y.), COLLEGE HOLIDAY came to cable TV on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: June 28, 2014). Once scene, many may consider it to be, at best, delightful nonsense that plays like a series of acts from a vaudeville show, with George Burns playing it straight Gracie Allen as her usual self with all the silly responses, getting most of the laughs. In conclusion, Jack Benny steps out of character addressing the movie audience (not the audience in the movie), "Ladies and gentlemen. I hope you notice our attempt in this picture to maintain the spirit of classic Greek tragedy throughout. Whenever the story interfered with art, we did not compromise. We gave up both." After a few more lines, Benny closes the story as he would do in his future TV show, "Goodnight folks." "Goodnight, Jack!" Next installment in Paramount's college semester, COLLEGE SWING (1938). (**1/2)

Little known 'inside story'.

[itsmits · 7/10 · 17 December 2006]

It has been a full 70 years since I was fortunate enough to see this film. Fortunately, others have been able to recall much of the more salient facts including the story and performances. I was lucky enough to have a couple of older brothers who had the foresight to buy a recording of the lovely ballad "I Adore You" and although it is a 78, I have been able to recall the typical 1930's love song.

One comment I noticed was the description of a sequence as being 'far-fetched'. This was when Leif Erickson and Marsha Hunt had been thwarted several times by intrusions when attempting to kiss. They finally solved the problem by diving into the water and consummating their osculation before surfacing.

The significance of this was that it was an attempt of the producer to emulate a very popular advertising campaign at the time by a swimwear manufacturer (Either Jantzen or Catalina)in which the kiss under water was the center of interest. It was a very popular picture ad in Esquire magazine as well as other magazines of the day.

a pastiche with several amusing scenes

[[e-mail] · 7/10 · 21 May 2003]

Forget about plot! This is one example of the 1930s Paramount "Big Broadcast" and "college" series, all of which are entertaining during individual scenes. Eugenics was a popular topic of discussion during this era: one which later became discredited in large part because of "breeding" experiments in Nazi Germany. On a much less serious note, in this film we have a wacky "professor" and an even wackier wealthy patron (Mary Boland in great form) who bring a trainload of "Paramount Co-Eds" and college studs to be matched up, so as to produce perfect physical specimens, all the time dressed in pseudo-classic Greek togas and "sarongs". The prof's exemplar daughter is Martha Raye. Burns and Allen do a couple of comic bits totally unrelated to the "plot". Maltin calls all this silly. Who can deny it? If you stop looking for anything to think about and relax, you'll have an intermittent good time, and if you doze off it won't make much difference (Dorothy Lamour and Marjorie Reynolds appear briefly as co-eds, but viewers probably won't spot them.)

Benny struts his stuff, but Girardot and Boland rule.

[pronker · 6/10 · 13 July 2014]

Lots of fun with Benny here, and his radio show must have improved his confidence because he is much funnier than in the film which played before this one, Big Broadcast of 1937, and acres funnier than in his painful to watch shorts of the early '30's. BB1937 was a letdown, and disappointed because I am a Benny fan. In College Holiday, he is graciously able to be himself, as his radio persona, actually, and shares the 'mike' with Burns and Allen, who entertain in their inimitable style. Boland as a matron with more dollars than sense personifies the giddy rich, dabbling in this and that until the Next Big Thing comes along. This time, Boland and her friend Girardot make a fun pair, decked out in togas and spouting stuff about eugenics, which was of interest during this time period. Now eugenics does not sit well with Americans, and the young folks recruited unknowingly for the eugenics have their own ideas of who they want to date, thank you very much.

Martha Raye plays a well-defined character, funny in her own style, raucous as usual; her beau is Ben Blue, and in all the films I've seen him try to be funny in, he's not once made me laugh. I must bow to his physical comedy efforts, though, and think the funniest thing about him is his befuddled face, because it's not the lines nor his delivery of them.

Funnier than about anything is the end of the film, with Benny breaking the fourth wall and addressing the movie audience with a particularly amusing ending line. So, if you're in the mood for some terrific Johnny Downs dancing, nice singing in a novelty tune 'Just a Rhyme for Love' and a chariot race with 'Calliope' AKA Gracie Allen and of course George Burns, this will entertain. It sure was better than Big Broadcast of 1937.

College Holiday is an amusing musical comedy starring Jack Benny, George Burns & Gracie Allen

[tavm · 7/10 · 14 February 2018]

After a few years of glancing at the title and the beginning credits of this movie on YouTube, I finally watched it there on TV just now. It stars Jack Benny and the comedy team of George Burns & Gracie Allen-big radio stars who were also very close friends in real life. All three provide many funny moments throughout the picture. There's also some amusing turns by Mary Boland, Ben Blue, and Martha Raye who also sings some of the songs provided. There's something of a plot but it often gets forgotten so I won't mention it. The whole thing is so tolerable I even didn't mind the Minstrel numbers at the end. So on that note, I say give College Holiday a look.

Kitchen Sink Musical

[boblipton · 4/10 · 29 June 2014]

Paramount seems to toss every minor comedy actor they had -- some would become major stars, but not from this -- into this poorly written potboiler of a college musical in which no time is spent on campus and the whole thing ends with a minstrel show in a eugenics lab.

There's little cohesion in this work and while you may enjoy individual comedy bits -- Burns & Allen driving a chariot while doing their act certainly amused me -- it looks like the sort of thing that some one started working on the script and by the time director Frank Tuttle got it shot, all the cast were making it up as they went along. The music is good and a couple of the numbers are well presented -- I'm impressed by the eccentric choreography that Leroy Prinz did for Johnny Downs and Eleanore Whitney in "Just a Rhyme for Love"; however, even though everyone does his job competently, in front of and behind the camera, the crazy-quilt construction of this film renders this only intermittently amusing.

A zany comedy loaded with quirky characters

[SimonJack · 7/10 · 8 April 2020]

Paramount assembled a top cast of comedians of the day for "College Holiday," and added some music and dance to go with it. I don't recall any other film that has three actresses playing zany brainless characters. Billie Burke was the hands-down best at this role - never failing to get many guffaws for her lines in so many wonderful comedies. But this film has three actresses who offer their own versions of befuddlement.

Gracie Allen is the queen of the nonsensical, here playing Calliope 'Gracie' Dove. Mary Boland offers her talents at silliness as Carola P. Gaye and Martha Raye plays the goofy Daisy Schloggenheimer.

But, of course, some men have their comedic roles, headed by Jack Benny as J. Davis Bowster. And, where would Gracie be without hubby George Burns, here playing George Hymen? Ben Blue is the quirky Stage Hand who offers the silly antics he was known for, and Etienne Girardot is a wacky eugenicist, Prof .Hercules Dove.

The film is filled with young folks who sing and dance a few numbers -- in between trying to steal kisses. The story is about as wacky as the variety of characters that make up the cast. The screenplay is good and the cast are all good. Except for Gracie's incomprehensible lines and the silly ones of the other actresses, the script has very little funny dialog. Most of the comedy is provided by antics and situations.

This is a fun film that most people even in the 21st century should enjoy. Here are some favorite lines.

Dick Winters, "Well, how can I ask your father for your hand in marriage if I don't know his name? Sylvia Smith: "Well, I'll tell ya. It's the same as mine."

Dick Winters, "Miss Smith, California. Yeah, that's gonna be easy..."

J. David Bowster, "Uh, have you any other children, professor... at large, I mean?"

J. David Bowster, "Say, you know, you speak pretty good French." Stage Hand, "Is that what that is?"

Not exactly Broadway Melody of 1936...

[AlsExGal · 4/10 · 4 September 2021]

... and I can tell that is what Paramount was aiming for. How they missed so badly is inexplicable. Maybe because they were trying to splice some previous college themed musical comedies with their Big Broadcast films so very shortly after the advent of the production code is part of the reason this one lands with a thud.

The number that opens the film - "Sweethearts Waltz" - is the only memorable song in the film. Two collegiate strangers - Marsha Hunt and Leif Erickson - dance to this tune and fall in love without knowing anything about each other, when Hunt's character - Sylvia Smith - is abruptly called away because her father has had a nervous breakdown. So Erickson's character is left only knowing her last name and that she is from California. He's like the prince with nothing but the glass slipper to go on in finding Cinderella.

This boils down to Sylvia trying to save her dad's hotel with the help of the partner that sank the hotel in the first place -Davis Bowster (Jack Benny). He, in turn, needs time from the hotel's mortgage holder, a goofy woman (Mary Boland) who is into eugenics. This is where the script just loses its way. Benny tells Boland that he is going to bring back to the hotel a bunch of college students so she and her weird friend the professor can do a eugenics experiment. But he tells the college students that they are coming to California to be entertainment for the hotel. How can he make both things happen? How is this going to save the hotel? And why are all of these eugenics kooks dressed like the ancient Greeks?

Much of the film is spent trying to keep the collegiate guys away from the collegiate gals - apparently a requirement of Boland's character. And after about two minutes the joke wears thin. How could you possibly miss with George and Gracie, Jack Benny, and a still teenage Martha Raye, all staples of Paramount 30s musical comedies? Watch this film and find out. There are a bunch of big holes in the plot too, but suffice it to say I could have dealt with that if I could have just gotten a few laughs out of it.

How can a film that promotes eugenics and has a LONG minstrel show finale be a good film--particularly when it has almost no laughs?!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 28 June 2014]

"College Holiday" is a film with practically no plot and the writing is generally awful. This is why although there are some talented folks in the film, it manages to make the least of them! Oddly, the film has relatively glowing reviews and a very respectable 7.0. Don't believe it---this is a terrible so-called comedy.

Jack Benny plays a guy whose hotel is going out of business. When a crazy rich lady arrives to try to take over his hotel, he convinces her that he can help her find a lot of subjects for her eugenics experiment* and she has no idea he's the hotel owner. So, Benny goes to colleges around the country recruiting handsome college students--and they have no idea that they are going to be involved in some sort of wacky breeding program! And who is the 'expert' who will be matching up these couples? The ideal woman, Calliope (Gracie Allen).

This plot makes little sense and is just an excuse for a plot. Additionally, considering the Third Reich and what they did in regard to eugenics, it's a completely distasteful subject--selectively breeding people like dogs in order to better the human race. What they don't mention is that the eugenics movement ALSO sought to eliminate so-called 'inferiors'. Mostly, people thought this would occur through mass sterilization programs, but the Nazis found an easier way by simply killing these undesirables! So much for a plot for a comedy!!

As far as the rest of the story goes, it really is very, very thin and there are LOTS of sidetracks. Mostly the film consists of lots of excremental song and dance numbers--some of the worst of the era. This, the general lack of laughs and the goofy plot served to make a singularly awful film--and you can barely tell that it was SUPPOSED to be a comedy. Among the unfunniest folks in this film are Ben Blue and Martha Raye--who are simply detestable and obnoxious. As for George Burns, Gracie Allen and Jack Benny, they should have been a lot funnier and their pairing should have been wonderful. It wasn't and the film is at best annoying. Especially awful is the finale--which is a giant minstrel show!!!!

If you do watch this film, and I pray you don't, look for a couple things. First, Benny hammering out his theme song "Love in Bloom" near the beginning of the film. Second, when Marsha Hunt and Leif Erickson jump into the lake, the underwater shot clearly was done in a pool--as you can see the sides of the pool in the distance.

In conclusion--the film had white folks in black face, almost no laughs AND it promoted Nazi ideals of race supremacy. All in all, reasons that I am right about this awful film and the other reviewers are not!

A wonderfully off-the-wall '30s musical-comedy

[VinnieRattolle · 8/10 · 11 July 2014]

Spoiler-lite. In an attempt to save his hotel from foreclosure, Jack Benny (named Bowster but essentially the same character as his famous public persona) recruits a bunch of college kids to put on a big show, and he acquires funding for his scheme from a daffy, Greek-obsessed socialite (Mary Boland) who holds the hotel's deed and is led to believe that the kids are going to be paired up to create a perfect "super-race." Gracie "Calliope" Allen is the loony daughter of a eugenics professor charged with pairing off the couples but the kids themselves have their own ideas about whom they should be coupling with...

The big attractions here are radio stars and real-life friends Benny, Burns and Allen in their second and final movie pairing (though they continued to appear together on radio and television over the next few decades). Benny, forever preoccupied with the song "Love in Bloom," isn't as sharp as in his radio/TV shows (or even the notorious "The Horn Blows at Midnight"), but he still has plenty of funny moments. Gracie's as loopy as ever (taking the measurements of every man she encounters in hopes of finding her perfect Apollo - and continuously misreading the tape measure as "32") and George is appropriately flummoxed. It's a full half hour before George and Gracie enter the picture (in a horse-drawn chariot driven by Gracie) but in terms of comedy, they fare much better than Benny.

The movie's other subplots revolve around the romances of Leif Erickson/Marsha Hunt and Johnny Downs/Eleanore Whitney, as well as the the butch Martha Raye, whose mother has raised her to remain virginal. Erickson and Hunt get most of the screen time, but it's Raye who steals the show, singing, dancing and fending off the advances of various men -- most notably comedian Ben Blue, the hotel's electrician, who becomes smitten with her. There's a lot of stuff going on in this zany, zippy comedy!

The music, primarily penned by the guys behind Benny's theme song, also deserves mentioning because there's not a weak link in the chain. "(Enchanted) I Adore You" and "The Sweetheart Waltz" are both beautiful love songs for Erickson and Hunt's characters. "Rhyme for Love" is a gibberish-filled little ditty for Downs and Whitney that one could literally tap their toes to; and Martha Raye sings the showstoppers "So What?" and "Who's That Knocking at My Heart?"

Another reviewer could only focus on the self-perceived negative, and I feel the need to address that. Eugenics, a scientific hypothesis that the genetic makeup of mankind could be improved, has since been inextricably linked in public consciousness to Adolph Hitler (who went a step beyond by eliminating undesirables). In absolutely no way does this film endorse Nazism; as a matter of fact, it portrays everyone with a belief in eugenics as a few pancakes short of a full stack. Additionally, the movie ends with the kids performing a minstrel show. Minstrel shows had been around for a century at that point and were famous for performers appearing in blackface - but once again, it wasn't until decades later that blackface was deemed racially insensitive. Viewing the film in historical context, it wasn't intended to be offensive and quite frankly, it's pretty impressive - one moment Martha Raye's in blackface and suddenly they change the lighting filters and she's white, then b(l)ack again. It's actually a shame that they did the blackface bit because it incites discomfort in modern audiences (myself included) and that's unquestionably why the film spent so many years out of circulation.

With 7 writers (4 credited), the film feels a bit disjointed, doubtlessly a lot of footage hit the cutting room floor (a thoroughly WTF color lobby card features Benny submerged in water trying to hitch a boat ride from Hunt) and the ending is completely abrupt (with Benny directly addressing the audience to wrap up the story). In the end, it's not exactly a lost gem but there are a lot of fun gags and great performances, and I'm delighted that TCM has recently unearthed this kooky rarity!