A Yank at Oxford

After his early days at MGM when Robert Taylor was marketed as a modern romance magazine cover, it was perceived by Louis B. Mayer that Taylor needed an adjustment of image to expand his casting potential. It was perceived by Taylor as well who was not happy with some of the snide powder puff comments he was getting in some quarters.

Accordingly A Yank At Oxford was an original screenplay written specifically for him in mind. As Taylor in real life was an athletic sort, the casting was no stretch that way.

In his part as an American on scholarship to Oxford Taylor was going into Tyrone Power's territory of the hero/heel. Taylor was more often a nice guy 100% in this stage of his career. But he does very well with the part.

Arriving at Cardinal College in Oxford, Taylor doesn't do much for Anglo-American relations with his braggadocious ways. He makes particular enemies with three classmates, Griffith Jones, Robert Coote, and Peter Croft. But he also backs his brag up and when he meets Maureen O'Sullivan who is Jones's sister who planes out the rougher side of Taylor.

The film was produced by MGM and shot over in the United Kingdom with the real Oxford locations used. Take a look at the writing credits of this film. I'm quite flabbergasted that so many talented hands went into the screenplay. Usually that means a muddled mess, but it all works here.

Several of the players had only worked in British cinema before and A Yank At Oxford was America's first look at a lot of them. Most importantly Vivien Leigh. She had a really interesting part as the wife of a bookstore owner. Her husband is a good deal older than her and she amuses herself with her pick of the young Oxford students. She sets her cap at one point for both Taylor and Jones and it's on her flirtatious ways that the plot hinges. Her naughty flirt in this film may very well have made one David O. Selznick cast her as the ultimate young flirt in Gone With The Wind.

A Yank At Oxford was remade almost 50 years later as Oxford Blues with Rob Lowe in the lead. As an actor in his Brat Pack days, Lowe was cast in a lot of parts that would have gone to a Robert Taylor or Tyrone Power. Still A Yank At Oxford became one of Robert Taylor's most popular roles with the general public and with his enduring legion of fans.

Robert Taylor is "A Yank at Oxford," a 1938 comedy also starring Maureen O'Sullivan, Lionel Barrymore, Vivien Leigh, Edmund Gwenn, and Griffith Jones.

Taylor is Lee Sheridan, an all-American athlete who is accepted into Cardinal College at Oxford and leaves his hometown and his dad (Barrymore) who owns a newspaper. Lee has no idea what he's in for, as his egotism makes him an easy mark for a fake "reception" by the students and other barbs.

He immediately becomes attracted to the lovely Molly Beaumont (O'Sullivan), whose brother Paul (Jones) is having an affair with one Mrs. Craddock (Leigh). Due to a series of unfortunate events, Paul and Lee become mortal enemies.

This film surely had the women drooling in 1938 as Taylor uses his muscular arms to row, his strong legs to run, and his beautiful smile to charm. He glistens with youth and vitality, and there are plenty of shots of "the world's most perfect profile" to please his fans.

Normally Taylor exhibits a very likable personality in films, but in this one, he comes off as too aggressive, finally becoming aggravating to this viewer. He was probably directed that way so that he would appear as a bull in a china shop among all the Oxford gents.

Taylor has fallen into disregard since declaring himself a good American and ratting out Howard da Silva and others during the '50s Communist witch hunts. No one came out a winner who was involved, not the victims nor the blabbermouths.

The sad thing about Taylor is, he truly believed every word he said. If you can separate his politics from his career, he was a very good actor, a gorgeous man, and a very big star back in the day.

Maureen O'Sullivan is perky and pretty as Taylor's love interest - that same year, she and Taylor worked together in "The Crowd Roars." British actor Griffith Jones plays her brother and is not only excellent but very handsome. According to IMDb, he worked into the 1980s and is apparently still alive at 95.

The supporting cast is marvelous, including Edmund Gwenn as a professor and Lionel Barrymore as Lee's proud father. Vivien Leigh plays a flaky, flirty bookshop owner married to a much older man and not adverse to a little hanky-panky on the side. It's not much of a role, and though she was a natural beauty, no one would have considered her for Scarlett just watching this film.

Her last line, however, given the character she portrays, is hilarious. She and Taylor would meet again for the classic "Waterloo Bridge."

"A Yank at Oxford" shows an England untouched by war and young men who worked at being superior athletes and gentlemen as they roamed the hallowed halls of Oxford. That would all end soon. It was a nice fairytale while it lasted.

A skilled, albeit highly egocentric young athlete becomes A YANK AT OXFORD when he accepts a scholarship to the English university. Romance and various personal problems help punch a hole through his self-conceit.

Robert Taylor gets to show-off his athletic prowess (running, rowing) in this pleasant, lightweight film. Produced by MGM's British division, it is an enjoyable look at a privileged world about to be changed forever by World War Two.

Taylor does a fine job in the title role, but he is also aided immensely by excellent co-stars from both sides of the Atlantic: Lionel Barrymore, giving another acting lesson as Taylor's peppery, loyal father; lovable Edmund Gwenn, as the long-suffering Dean of (fictional) Cardinal College, Oxford; beautiful Maureen O'Sullivan, as Taylor's English girlfriend; and enchanting Vivien Leigh, one year before her tremendous success in GONE WITH THE WIND, as a philandering young wife with an eye for male students.

Equally impressive is a gaggle of less well known British actors: stalwart Griffith Jones, as Taylor's main college rival; Robert Coote, as a cheery student forever looking for new ways to get sent down; Walter Kingsford, as a benevolent dean; ancient C. V. France as a delightfully forgetful academician; and cuddly Edward Rigby as Taylor's elderly attendant.

Claude Gillingwater appears as Barrymore's caustic banker. Movie mavens will recognize Ethel Griffies as an Oxford proctor.

This film is a humorous examination of the differences between American and British college youth just prior to WWII with an American take on the situation. Robert Taylor plays Lee Sheridan, an American who comes to Oxford to study and also to run track and field. He runs into difficulty with everything from the English driving on "the wrong side of the road" to the British valuing tradition and teamwork over rugged individualism. Not helping matters is that Lee is a swaggering over-confident albeit talented braggart by the standards of any nation. To complicate matters, Lee's chief rival on the track team is the brother of a girl (Maureen O'Sullivan) in whom Lee is romantically interested.

To make such an "American fish in British waters" film just three years later after the war broke out and the US and England were allies would have been practically a precode in the eyes of the censors, even though cultural differences are always a problem, especially where boisterous youths are involved. It's an enjoyable little film featuring a young Vivien Leigh as she was waiting to become Scarlett O'Hara, and some fine character actor work from Edmund Gwenn as a dean who is still lovable as always even though he is openly contemptuous of Lee whose forward ways leave him shocked and flustered.

In 1938, when the Great Depression had ended and a World War was about to begin, it was easy for elitist British college students to make fun of a transplanted American athlete. But the romantic counterpoint to the culture clash works very well thanks to the great chemistry between Robert Taylor and Maureen O'Sullivan.

A memorable quote from this enjoyable period piece needs to be acknowledged. In a morning after scene, Robert Taylor says to Maureen O'Sullivan: "Don't wipe the sleep from your eyes. It's a beautiful sleep." The scriptwriter responsible for that line was F. Scott Fitzgerald.