Knute Rockne All American

Pat O'Brien had his best role ever as Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. From humble beginnings, Rockne entered Notre Dame as a student circa 1910. He is into chemistry but becomes a marvelous football player and hero.

Upon graduation, he teaches chemistry at the school but he has got the football fever that tugs at him, this forces him to give up chemistry to pursue his dream of coaching the game. In a way, too bad, the school probably lost a great chemistry teacher-certainly far better and nicer than the one I had in high school. (Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn to be exact.)

He motivates his students. He will not tolerate academic underachievement. He is a coach for all seasons.

O'Brien captures that common kind touch. One of his students, George Gipp, is memorably played in a fine brief supporting performance by Ronald Reagan.

The years pass and the achievements run high-but Knute remains the same kind coach who testifies before Congress when football is called into question.

Donald Crisp is outstanding as a Notre Dame priest who knew that Rockne was destined to coach football. Albert Basserman is adequate, but his Jewish accent in the portrayal of a priest is awkward at best. Basserman was nominated that year in the supporting category for "Foreign Correspondent."

Rockne's tragic death, in a plane crash, robbed the world of many more years of a totally professionally wonderful human-being. The film is great.

Recently was traveling in Norway from Bergen, Norway and stopped in the small town of Voss, Norway and there was a monument in honor of Knute Rockne who was born in Voss years ago. The people all know about Knute to this day and tour guides are proud to stop at his monument. This film is a great history of this great man and his great love for Notre Dame Never realized that Knute has such great talents in chemistry and laboratory science and also taught chemistry for years and at the same time coached the football team. Ronald Reagan played the role of George Gipp, (The Gipper) who was an outstanding football player; Reagan had a short role, but gave a great supporting role in this film. Donald Crisp, (Father John Callahan) was outstanding as a priest who always had great faith in Knute during his entire life at Notre Dame. This is a great Classic film and will be viewed by many generations to come. Enjoy.

Knute Rockne, All American (1940 Warner Brothers) starring Pat O'Brien, Ronald Reagan, Donald Crisp, and John Qualan is technically and artistically a splendid movie, far better than its reputation in many circles as mainly a nostalgia movie about one of college football's grand old men (Knute Rockne, long time football coach for Notre Dame University in South Bend Indiana).

It is a movie of which displays the very best talents of Warner Brothers movie studio at the height of it's golden age in the years immediately before USA entry into World War II.

The camera work, the special effects provided by Hollywood cameraman and then future director Byron Haskin (he later directed Walt Disney's "Treasure Island" [1950] and also George Pal's "War Of The Worlds" [1952] movies in the early 1950's and in his old age was interviewed on camera in the 1970's by Kevin Brownlow for the "Hollywood: The Silent Era" documentary series which described Haskin's silent era cameraman days), the slick and wonderful newspaper headline montages which punctuate and advance the movie story (which covers the entire, rather long life of Knute Rockne from his childhood in Norway to his death following decades of service as Notre Dame's football coach of fame) are all breathtaking.

This is no "airhead" movie.

In addition to the great way it captures the physical part of college football, and the charismatic personality of Knute Rockne during his coaching years (and also during his undergrad years as a student football player), the movie takes on the question of what place football and "big sports" have had and should have in the college world, and in American culture generally, and provides viewers with thoughtful, worthwhile answers worth pondering and reviewing often.

But briefly, Knute Rockne, All American (1940 Warner Brother) starring Pat O'Brien and Ronald Reagan is an intelligent movie about a subject many people doubt is intelligent at all....football and other big time contact sports.

Ronald Reagan is given second billing in the beginning credits as the co-star of the movie, Pat O'Brien's main co-star. Yet Reagan's time on the screen (he plays George Gipp, a World War I era Notre Dame University football player of fame who sadly died in his senior year at Notre Dame) is relatively brief.

Reagan's actor performance is underplayed, and quiet to the point of being undramatic. His more hysterical performance as "Drake McHugh" in King's Row (1942 Warner Brothers) two years later is rightly counted his best and most skilled movie actor performance by movie historians (he plays a character in King's Row who has his legs amputated and is spectacular in the scene where he discovers in a hospital recovery room what has happened to him).

This movie is part of the USA Federal Government Library Of Congress National Film Registry List and placed among 475 movies (as of 2010) ranked as important and notable due to aesthetic, cultural, and/ or historical importance.

Knute Rockne, All American (1940 Warner Bros) starring Pat O'Brien and Ronald Reagan is important in all three areas, a sweetheart of a movie worth screening often, truly a cinematic masterpiece not ranked usually among "the great movies," but worthy and excellent in every way.

-------------------

Written by Tex Allen, SAG Actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Com and choose "Tex Allen" "resume" for contact information, movie credits, and biographical information about Tex Allen.

He has reviewed more than 42 movies posted on WWW.IMDb.Com (the world's largest movie information database, owned by Amazon.Com) as of January 2011.

These include: 1. Alfie (1966) 29 July 2009 2. Alien (1979) 24 July 2009 3. All the Loving Couples (1969) 17 January 2011 4. All the President's Men (1976) 16 November 2010 5. American Graffiti (1973) 22 November 2010 6. Animal House (1978) 16 August 2009 7. Bullitt (1968) 23 July 2009 8. Captain Kidd (1945) 28 July 2009 9. Child Bride (1938) 24 September 2009 10. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) 22 September 2010 11. Destination Moon (1950) 17 January 2011 12. Detour (1945) 19 November 2010 13. Die Hard 2 (1990) 23 December 2010 14. The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) 19 November 2010 15. Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) 26 July 2009 16. King Solomon's Mines (1950) 1 December 2010 17. Knute Rockne All American (1940) 2 November 2010 18. Claire's Knee (1970) 15 August 2009 19. Melody Ranch (1940) 10 November 2010 20. Morning Glory (1933) 19 November 2010 21. Mush and Milk (1933) 17 January 2011 22. New Moon (1940) 3 November 2010 23. Pinocchio (1940) 6 November 2010 24. R2PC: Road to Park City (2000) 19 November 2010 25. Salt (2010) 24 August 2010 26. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) 21 January 2011 27. Sunset Blvd. (1950) 1 December 2010 28. The Forgotten Village (1941) 21 January 2011 29. The Great Dictator (1940) 1 November 2010 30. The King's Speech (2010) 19 January 2011 31. The Last Emperor (1987) 20 January 2011 32. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) 9 January 2011 33. The Man in the White Suit (1951) 5 August 2009 34. The Philadelphia Story (1940) 5 November 2010 35. The Social Network (2010) 19 January 2011

Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA movie actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for more information about Tex Allen.

Tex Allen's email address is TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com.

See Tes Allen Movie Credits, Biography, and 2012 photos at WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen. See other Tex Allen written movie reviews....almost 100 titles.... at: "http://imdb.com/user/ur15279309/comments" (paste this address into your URL Browser)

The Knute Rockne legend is largely founded on this Lloyd Bacon biography, in which Pat O'Brien stars as the sainted Notre Dame football coach. In his most famous role, Ronald Reagan plays star quarterback George Gipp, who utters the immortal line "Win one for the Gipper!" Rock's speech in front of the college athletics evaluation committee was just outstanding, and the stock footage of the old games is even to this day some great football. Fabulous sports biography .

I caught this on TCM this afternoon and kept in on to catch Ronald Reagen as George Gipp. As another commentor noted, it comes across as pure documentary and this movie is only for those who harbor an interest in football and are familiar with the story of "the Rock." Pat O'Brien appears to be looking off-screen at cue cards and Reagan, in the scene in Rock's living room, coughed as if instructed by a doctor.

I much prefer The Pride of the Yankees with Gary Cooper, which was released only two years later and nominated for Best Picture by the Academy. However, Knute Rockne All American not so bad that you can't enjoy it and I especially enjoyed the stock footage of Notre Dame football.

The only other thing that puzzled me was the pronunciation of his name. For years I've heard it pronounced NEWT with the silent k, but here it's pronounced KA-NEWT. I guess I learned something else...