Thanks to a tip off from Francis, Donald O’Connor helps baddies (communists?) from blowing up a factory, enabling O’Connor to go to West Point. It’s a weak basis of a film, a very convoluted way to get O’Connor to West Point. (NB is this a prequel to the first film?)
It is fun to have Francis tutor O’Connor – but really O’Connor is too dim to be an army officer, so you don’t really hope he gets through. Like most Universal films of this period, familiar faces pop up in the support cast – in this case, Lori Nelson and David Janssen.
Far too much time is spent on a couple of boring juveniles (one’s got a pressuring father – zzz... the influence of Buck Privates?) – not only is this dull, O’Connor is just a passive participant for a lot of it. I liked it how he was put in peril by not dobbing at the end, but then to have the star footballer not able to play well because O’Connor gets expelled… what sort of elite athlete is that? There is a bright moment where Francis talks football strategy with the coach and also delivers a before the match address to the team – this is funny. And Leonard Nimoy pops up as a young football player.
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