User reviews

Got my Mill Creek Entertainment DVD collection of "20 Movie Pack Musicals" and decided to watch the second shortest picture in there called All-American Co-Ed which clocks in at 49 minutes. This was one of Hal Roach's "streamliners" which were too long for a short but too short to actually be called a feature. It's basically a musical comedy about a man from Quinceton (former silent Our Ganger Johnny Downs) infiltrating a girls college called Mar Brynn in drag. You'll have to watch the movie to see why. Anyway, this was an amusingly silly fluff piece that should provide interest to fans of Harry Langdon, Frances Langford, Noah Beery, Jr., Alan Hale, Jr. (yes, the future Skipper of "Gilligan's Island"), Dudley Dickerson (an occasional Three Stooges supporting actor playing the stereotypical porter role but also getting to do some entertaining singing and dancing), and, since I always like to identify any player from my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, Lillian Randolph. The last one has the unfortunate task of playing someone who's scared of ghosts and thinks one has inhabited her laundry room but the segment is so over-the-top that one can't get too offended. Since this movie was made during the Production Code, there are some mild double entendre jokes that I found amusing. There's also some funny slapstick humor that got me in stitches such as what happens to the Beery and Hale characters. There's also another guy, Kent Rogers, who does some good celebrity impersonations like that of Gary Cooper as well as Edger Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Among the entertaining songs is one that got an Oscar nomination called "Out of the Silence" with words and music by Lloyd B. Norlind, sung by Langford with a chorus of women behind her. There's also a couple of enjoyable numbers by a forgotten trio called The Tanner Sisters. Like I said, the whole thing is fluff that doesn't always make sense but if you have an hour to fill, you won't be bored with All-American Co-Ed. P.S. Roach's son, Hal, Jr. made up the story and his daughter Margaret plays one of the co-eds.

After all-male university Quinceton holds a singing concert with the male students in drag, singer Virginia (Frances Langford) and her reporter friend Hap (Harry Langdon) come up with an idea to help raise the profile of all-girl school Mar Brynn, run by Virginia's aunt Matilda (Esther Dale). They'll invite a number of pageant winners to join their school and hold a welcoming concert that will get them attention. The Quinceton boys resent the idea, so they send frat boy Bobby (Johnny Downs), once more in drag, to infiltrate the school and disrupt the concert. However, when Bobby falls for Virginia, it complicates matters.

Producer Hal Roach assembles a lot of radio talent from the time, along with silent comedy star Langdon and former Our Gang regular Downs, for this rather terrible trifle. Langford sings several songs, which are okay. The production values are very bad, with obvious stage sets and poorly-done backdrops. The less-than-an-hour runtime means the pain doesn't last too long, though. Kent Rogers, who was a successful radio comedian and impressionist, does some impressions here (Gary Cooper, Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy). He would join the Army Air Corps when WW2 started up, and die in a training exercise before his 21st birthday. Surprisingly, this movie earned a pair of Oscar nominations, for Best Score (Edward Ward) and Best Song ("Out of the Silence").

About as light-weight as a puff of smoke, the movie still manages to be a rather delightful surprise. The songs are pretty forgettable, though LeRoy Prinz's choreography helps compensate. And catch that opening—I had to look twice to make sure I wasn't imagining. The premise is a loaded one. A boys' fraternity gets revenge on an all-girls' school by dressing one of the brothers as a girl and sending him over to cause trouble. Actor Downs in drag is a hoot and some boy's nightmare blind date. Naturally, he falls for one of the girls, but can't give away his disguise. There're a number of cute set-ups, energetically executed by a lively cast, including yokels Beery Jr. and Hale. Watching Downs negotiate a girdle while lying on a bed is a real hoot. All in all, it's an amusing little farce, rather like Alan Dwan's two farcical set-ups of the same period, Getting Gertie's Garter (1945), and Up in Mabel's Room (1944).

Quinceton University student Johnny Downs agrees to a practical joke by gaining a scholarship to girl's college Mar Brynn in drag. But the whole thing threatens to go south as Downs fall for Mar Brynn coed Frances Langford. Of course it all ends with a show in the best Mickey and Judy tradition.

I think that Hal Roach probably had a longer and more coherent version of this film, but it was butchered by editors and probably further sliced and diced for television. Still a lot of funny people like former silent screen star Harry Langdon got some bits in.

Also getting bits in were Noah Beery, Jr. and Alan Hale, Jr. At this time in their careers both Dad Rockford and the Skipper were only known as the offspring of some great character actors. Here they play a pair of lunkhead Quinceton jocks.

All American Coed even got some Academy Award nomination recognition for Best Musical Scoring and Best Song. The song is Out Of The Silence and it truly has not stood the test of time. The winner was The Last Time I Saw Paris which truly has.

I doubt we'll see a director's cut of All American Coed.

Hollywood studios were trying all types of comedy films by 1940 when things were heating up around the world before WW II. There were lots of these comedy and musical combos with stories set on college campuses. There was so little new or different in any of them, and most weren't big successes. "All-American Co-Ed" is in both groups. Frances Langford was just in three dozen movies, but was known more for her radio shows and singing with big bands.

Johnny Downs was a good actor, but had the misfortune of being just another handsome face who could act, when the studios put everything into two or three leading actors. So, Downs and many others like him were relegated to lesser films. This is one of the earliest Hollywood films with an actor in drag. Downs plays Bobbie DeWolfe, a girl who goes to an arch-rival all-girls' college. But, it's a dud for comedy.

The best reason to see this B picture is to see Harry Langdon. He was a late silent era comedian, writer and director who was well liked. While he didn't do many feature films with the advent of sound, he did make a few dozen shorts that were the common accompaniments of feature films in theaters through the 1950s. Langdon died in 1944 at age 60. He has the best line in this film as Hap Holden, who says, "Oh, don't be silly. Everybody knows that Quinceton men don't succeed - they inherit."

What? this film is 65 years old? It plays like a sequel to PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT or a prequel to SOME LIKE IT HOT. Apart from WONDERBAR I have never seen such a gay movie...in fact the ad line in 1941 (!) was "The year's gayest comedy" . It is gay in the way gay is a modern GAY expression. The head of the girls school, a single matronly sort, (keen to rub one girl's 'chest') takes a look at a pic of one girl posing with vegetables and exclaims "Look at those beautiful tomatoes!" and on it goes. There's a song on a train that the girls sing to each other: "I am up at the crack of Dawn (because I have been dreaming of you)".. Honestly! Rude risqué and believe it or not, a full scale drag queen comedy. Apparently there is a university called Quinceton (as in Princeton for Queens) which has a fraternity of good lookin' fellas who all do drag. See that opening scene: They're all in it! Tutus and all... They decide to send one guy to the girls school...in full drag.... The big finale has a song in it about how the Farmer's daughter is alone on the farm since the men have gone to war. The lyric repeated over and over is that "she's can't just rumba with an old cucumber"...... it's not just ME is it ?...hearing this and gasping in laughter and astonishment? Is it? Why are these lyrics in this film this way.. and all the drag antics.... this film is as modern today as any other drag film... and as rude. This gay coded one sidestepped the Hayes office in a dress... and an old cucumber. Hilarious! the DVD is excellent quality too. The music score is terrific: 2 Oscar noms. Because the DVD is spotless this film looks like a new production; and the modern risqué mindset makes it absolutely almost up to date. What also helps is the cast of 20 somethings ...especially the boys each of whom have modern haircuts. Noah Beery Jnr turns up late in the film styled exactly like someone you would see in a magazine today. Incredible;a 65 year old drag show! yeesh! Silent star Harry Langdon is a treat to see too.

After watching this on one of the local PBS station's digital channels and reading through other reviews I felt I should add one as well. I found this movie to be very funny, and not all in ways it was intended to be. I generally don't care for musicals, yet I enjoyed this movie.

Simply because it's old and somewhat dated, some lines are funny now that weren't necessarily intended to be then. But the jokes and some of the other lines aren't bad. From what I gather, these movies were made to be the warm-up act for other features, so if you're expecting Oscar-worthy material, you'll be disappointed. Taken for what it is, though, a sort of cheesy drag comedy, it's not too bad; it's certainly more watchable than some other films done around the same theme. You need some suspension of disbelief, but even there it's not too bad.

I suspect they played with the script here and there to give screen time to feature particular actors - Kent Rogers' scene where he does a Charlie McCarthy impression particularly seems tacked on for the relatively simple task he performs while doing this (which I won't spoil).

Towards the end you find out where Lady Gaga must have gotten her inspiration, some of the costumes in the girls' show are so preposterous I was laughing at them as well. Which more than likely was intentional. Most are only seen for a short time, I would imagine because much movement in them is not possible.

And I'm not sure I understand what is particularly racist about the scenes featuring black actors. At least from my understanding the jobs they're shown holding wouldn't be unusual for real African-Americans to have during those times; and the scenes involving the washerwoman you could just as easily substitute a ditsy blonde woman (say along the lines of Betty White's character in The Golden Girls) and it would still work. Perhaps people see this and feel it's a slight to all blacks implying they're dumb, but dumbness doesn't know race, and I've known real people who are ditsy enough you might be able to play that scene in real life and get away with it. The only thing that I see that's stereotypical is their dialog and that's just a product of the era.

It's somewhat amusing to see Alan Hale Jr. in a role more along the lines of what Bob Denver would later play in Gilligan's Island, while Noah Beery behaves more like the Skipper would.

Over the last few months, Turner Classic Movies has featured many Hal Roach films that were in the post Laurel and Hardy era. Around the same time this team left Roach Studios, Roach began specializing in short feature-length films (about an hour in length). Some were pretty good (such as TANKS A MILLION and TOPPER) but many suffered from exceptionally poor scripts and unappealing actors--and the films definitely did not age well. This is one of those forgotten films and after seeing it, I really think TCM should have let it remain forgotten! The film is a cross-dressing comedy with a lot of music. The male students at Quinceton University are angry at being disrespected by the females at Mar Brynn University, so they decide to have one of the guys matriculate as a girl in order to make the girls school look foolish(?). Unlike TOOTSIE, this film had neither a decent script or an actor capable of playing the part. It just wasn't believable nor was it particularly funny. Much of the problem was that the jokes were generally very corny (such as the names of the schools) and the songs pretty poor as well (such as their bizarre tribute to vegetables). In addition, having Kent Rogers along for support didn't help. While Rogers imitations were funny and helped in his brief appearance in STALAG 17 a decade later, here he just seemed like someone's obnoxious child mugging at the camera and doing some terrible impersonations. Aside from a good version of Charlie McCarthy, his Cary Grant and the rest of his attempts were just awful and sounded nothing like the originals. In fact, he should have been embarrassed to see himself on film--it was that bad.

Overall, this is a sad and limp comedy that shows none of the genius or spark that once made Roach Studios the gem of Hollywood. Not worth your time, as there are so many better comedies about cross-dressing.

This film is one of Hal Roach's "streamliners" that was made during the 1940s. A wild opening credit sequence puts the titles over some gorgeous legs. When the credits end, the camera moves up to reveal that the legs all belong to guys! Yes, this cute comedy does bear a certain resemblance to the later, more famous, "Some Like It Hot", in that Johnny Downs, our hero goes undercover in drag at an all-girls school. Frances Langford is along to supply some pretty singing, and there is a production number at the end which is reminiscent of Ziegfeld. This is one more film in my Mill Creek musical compilation. These films are underrated gems which deserve to be seen.

The rather sourpuss comment by another reviewer, "In addition, having Kent Rogers along for support didn't help. While Rogers imitations were funny and helped in his brief appearance in STALAG 17 a decade later, here he just seemed like someone's obnoxious child mugging at the camera and doing some terrible impersonations" is aesthetically questionable and factually incorrect. Rogers' impressions were really quite good, although very badly integrated into the scenes in which he appeared. That was the script's fault, not his. And he was NOT in Stalag 17--he was killed in the war a couple of years after making this film.

The joke in this film's title was too subtle for me, but a Yank friend explained it: "All-American" formerly designated a group of male collegiate athletes, and a "Co-Ed" was a female college student ... so "All-American Co-Ed" is a sexual oxymoron. Here's a musical comedy about transvestism which (except for some unpleasant racial humour) manages to maintain at least a surface appearance of innocence. But under that surface ... whoops!

The late choreographer LeRoy Prinz was openly gay: Max Wilk's book 'The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood' contains an hilarious anecdote about Prinz working for "Aunt Sam" during WW2. Prinz usually subordinated his talents to other film-makers' vision. When Prinz decided to make his first movie as a director-producer, 'All-American Co-Ed' was the result. I can't help wondering to what extent this cross-dressed story struck a personal chord with Prinz. I'm aware that homosexuality and transvestism are two different phenomena, but there's inevitably some overlap. Considering that 'All-American Co-Ed' is almost entirely about cross-dressing, there's surprisingly little homosexual content here ... and most of it is sapphic rather than male.

Every culture has its cross-dressed traditions. We Brits have got panto dames and principal boys. For some reason, the Americans have got Hasty Pudding clubs with college males in frocks and wigs. I normally dislike American college movies, since they're always about the Big Game or the Big Dance. (Classes? What classes?) 'All-American Co-Ed' gets a free pass for that crime with its witty disclaimer: 'Any similarity to actual college life depicted in this picture is purely coincidental.' Prinz starts out dangerously during the opening credits by showing a chorus line of shapely gams, inviting us to find them attractive ... then tilting upwards to reveal that these are college boys in drag. Good job for me I'd spotted the male kneecaps.

There are some weird musical decisions here. Johnny Downs, in full drag but male voice (like Danny La Rue) warbles 'I'm a Chap with a Chip on His Shoulder' while tapping his shoulders. Why would a female impersonator deliberately call attention to his shoulders? (Elsewhere, some genuinely female chorines sing about 'The Crack of Dawn' ... is there a pattern here?) The 1940s seem to have been some golden age for drag, since women's fashions in that decade favoured padded shoulders, enabling transvestites to get by with linebacker clavicles. During one scene in this movie, Frances Langford's outfit has wider shoulders than Johnny Downs's! Some of the clothes on the (real) females in this movie are extremely attractive. However, Johnny Downs's stunt double (likewise in female garb), who shoulder-flips Noah Beery Jnr, is even less convincingly feminine than Downs.

Considering that Bob Sheppard (Downs) is trying to pass for female, he makes some weird decisions ... such as choosing the tomboy name 'Bobbie' rather than a genuine female alias. (Femalias?) Even more fatally, he fakes a dainty swoon in the presence of Noah Beery Jnr and Alan Hale Jnr ... but deliberately falls into Beery's arms, letting Beery find out how heavy 'she' is. Oh, and Downs gets to speak that line (mandatory dialogue in every drag comedy) about how it 'sure feels good' to get out of those female clothes ... so we don't get any, erm, ideas.

Johnny Downs was apparently unable to speak in a convincing female register, so 'Bobbie' pretends to have laryngitis. Downs should have used the trick that professional female impersonators use: practise speaking with only the upper half of his vocal cords, so that his voice will be in the female range and timbre with fewer overtones.

There are quite a few double entendres in the dialogue and lyrics. Somebody comments that Johnny Downs (in female disguise) looks like 'orchids covered in dew'. Did anyone connected with this movie check the origin of the word 'orchid'? The women's school is cried Mar Brynn, an obvious parody of Bryn Mawr. I wonder if anyone realised that 'Bryn Mawr' is Welsh for 'big breast'.

Harry Langdon has his best role (and gives his best performance) of his talkies career here, as a glib publicist, while Esther Dale is lumbered with the role of the headmistress who doesn't twig that "Bobbie" (with male jawline and falsetto voice) is a male, even when 'she' goes to bed in full make-up. Memo to all headmistresses: when a female student shows up at your boarding school with only one piece of luggage, she's no female.

Downs (in male garb) and Langford 'meet cute' in a surprisingly erotic scene with a bellrope. (He ain't done right by our knell.) I could have done without dialogue like 'A girl doesn't want to live in a mind; she wants to live with a husband.' Also annoying are Kent Rogers's alleged impersonations of celebrities, including (just before the fade-out, in voice-over) Jerry Colonna. Black performer Dudley Dickerson is stuck in a 'yassuh' role but at least he gets to cut loose with some dance steps. Less pleasant is a scene in which Downs 'haunts' black laundress Lillian Randolph.

Somehow, this impoverished all-female college devoted to 'horticulture' (oh, dear) manages to stage an elaborate musical with plenty of invisible musicians on the soundtrack, some wince-worthy lyrics, plus Downs doing some surprisingly graceful pirouettes. However, the photography and lighting throughout the film are excellent, especially during Langford's big number ... which contains a patriotic reference, possibly leading audiences in 1941 to wonder why all these big strong college boys are in frocks instead of uniforms. 'All-American Co-Ed' gets my rating of 8 out of 10. Now put your trousers on, lads.

All-girl school Mar Brynn tries to get more pupils and publicity by making fun of the Quincton college.

For revenge, the boys there sent Bob Sheppard to Mar Brynn, dressed as a girl, to give them a slight scandal.

But he falls in love with Virginia, the girl who is putting on a show there.

Now Bob has the problem of getting revenge for Quinceton and not loosing his girl, especially when Quinceton hears about his relationship and decides to sent him support.

Produced by Hal Roach who did all the Laurel & Hardy and Little Rascal movies.

You cant go wrong with this entertaining movie. It's fun stuff. Mindless but fun and watchable.

I won't dwell on the content of the film itself (skip to the last paragraph) because there seem to be enough reviews by people more familiar with the movie than I am. But I just had to say that the DVD quality is surprisingly good.

If you're like me and you bought the MillCreek 10000 Family Classics (or whatever outrageous number of old flicks they managed to cram on a few DVDs), you're probably seeing spots from all the less-than-crisp digital transfers of these old movies, most of which are public domain with low quality sources.

Well, good news, somehow the original source of this film remained in surprisingly good condition. It's on par with some of the expensive, digitally remastered stuff out there. That alone makes this a historic document worth having in your collection, especially if you can get it for a dollar at your local grocery store.

Now about the film itself. It's very entertaining, but don't expect an airtight story. At times it requires some supreme leaps of logic and suspension of disbelief. But if you can get past that, it's all in good fun, the music is timeless, and the comedy is cute. Note that this is very much a "dated" film, meaning there are a lot of references to 1940s culture which many of us may not get. There are a few celebrity impersonations that went completely over my head. Similarly, some of the jokes just flew by me, including the humorous title "All-American Co-Ed" which is a gendrical impossibility (at the time, "all-american" meant "male", and "co-ed" meant "female"). And then there are more unfortunate cultural references of 1940s sexism "A woman doesn't want a mind; she wants a husband" and somewhat narrow racial stereotypes showing black people as uneducated simpletons who can never seem to conjugate their verbs properly. But my point is that this film must be viewed through a 1940s lens, and you'll realize it's all intended in good fun.

To all of the 'experts' on cross dressing, and all of those giggling for a hint of 'gayness' in a seventy year old movie. I realize that being gay is the in thing today. Everybody wants to be gay. Even gay people want to be 'gay-er.' But it wasn't always that way, children. Seventy years ago, a beautiful blond woman stepped up to a microphone and created MAGIC. This movie features Frances Langford who from her first entrance in a movie, raises the quality of any film she is in. If she doesn't make your pulse race, then you don't have one. Must I state the obvious, that this film was made in 1941 for 1941 audiences. 'Some Like it Hot' and 'Tootsie' would come along years later. Lets just watch the 1940's movies for what they are...Sheer Entertainment. No political messages, no social conscience. 'All American Co-Ed' is a fun romp of silliness, spiced with the grand personality and sultry sound of the G.I. heart throb herself, Frances Langford. 'Out of the Silence' is a wonderful song sung so meltingly by Langford. It deserved an Academy Award nomination. It should have won. Is it too late for a recount?

All American Co-Ed (1941)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The gayest movie of the year! That there was the original tagline to this unfunny, incredibly boring, so-called comedy about an all girls school who places an ad in the paper calling their cross-town all boys school a bunch of losers. To get revenge, one of the guys dresses in drag and wins a scholarship to the girls school. Um, yeah. I guess the Oscar nomination for Best Song is the only positive thing about this film but in reality, who remembers that? While watching the film I kept seeing the screenwriter in my head as he sits at his typewriter laughing at all the "jokes" he was putting in the screenplay. I'm sure the screenwriter thought he was coming up with some clever and smart but all of the jokes bomb and the film seems too long at even 50-minutes. Stick with Some Like it Hot or Tootsie.