Let me understand this: MGM agrees to film a movie about Oxford ON LOCATION, in England except for the scenes set...are you ready?...in Oxford! Gee, that makes a lotta sense. Might as well have recreated the ruddy college on a back lot in Culver City and saved a bundle on transportation and hotels. So much for the myth of Louis B. Mayer, astute businessman. As for the other Mayer myth, that of the producer of great films, it too suffers a blow at the hands of this amiable but rambling tale of two cultures in conflict. Biggest problem, for me at least, is the unfocused, hit or miss quality of the story or, to put it another way, the fact that the movie takes about half its length before finally discovering its central conflict, the rivalry and uneasy alliance between the arrogant, breezy Yank (well played, for a change, by Rat Fink Bob) and the equally arrogant but stiff Brit (also well portrayed by an actor I'd not heard of named Griffith Jones). You'd think, with over ten screenwriters working on this project at one time or another, including Spig Wead and F SCOTT FITZGERALD, for cryin out loud, they would have mended this rather glaring story hole and highlighted these two characters in conflict from their very first scene together on the train instead of muddying it up with extraneous folks like Bob Coote's snobbish student. And speaking of thespian fifth wheels, do we really need L. Barrymore's corny old midwestern dad in a film set in the UK? (although asking MGM to resist this hambone is like asking Houston to resist pollution). So, what we are given is a grab bag of scenes, with no unifying element to tie the assemblage together, some of which are good, like the one where Taylor's manservant charmingly keeps him from bailing on Cardinal College, and some of which are, frankly, dull as British food circa 1938, like the needless and not very interesting character played by Margaret O'Sullivan. Clearly, Vivian Leigh, the better actress (sorry Hot Toasty), should have been another bone of contention between Jones and Taylor while O'Sullivan's perennial nice girl should have been at best a lovely red herring. Give it a C plus.
