Cheap Pigskin Parade (Video) (David Butler) Price

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Customer Reviews of Pigskin Parade

CUTE LITTLE CURIOUSITY...BUT HARDLY A TOP MUSICAL
PIGSKIN PARADE was a modest little collegiate B-musical made at Fox in 1936 boasting Jack Haley and Patsy Kelly as its biggest stars. Fox made several musicals that year which are far better, and much more entertaining. <
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>We'll probably never see them on DVD. <
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>But we've got PIGSKIN PARADE selected for DVD because it features the film debut of the wonderful Judy Garland who plays a minor supporting role, and gets to sing a few entertaining numbers. Also on hand is a 20 year-old Betty Grable, who was still about 4 years away from becoming a star, and having to stumble through middling pictures like this in between. <
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>For Garland or Grable completists, this is an obvious buy...but others will likely be better off spending their money on a better movie.

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A weak film stuffed with a host of future stars
Let me speak bluntly: this is a remarkably weak B comedy that would not be watched or remembered today except for a quite astonishing collection of future Hollywood stars. The film's plot was hackneyed even when it was made: a Texas university with a lousy football team discovers a hick from Arkansas with a throwing arm for the ages, entices him to join their team, and enjoy exceptional gridiron success. If the film were peopled entirely with performers who were today unknown, there would be no motivation for anyone to see this. But given that the football star from Arkansas has a sister played by Judy Garland, the coach by her future costar in THE WIZARD OF OZ Jack Haley, and the rest of the cast filled out by such Hollywood stalwarts future musical superstar and pin up girl Betty Grable, star character actor Elisha Cook Jr. (THE MALTESE FALCON, THE BIG SLEEP, PHANTOM LADY, and SHANE), and Grady Sutton, the butt of a thousand jokes in various comedies of the thirties and forties. And if one is very, very attentive, it is possible to spot Alan Ladd in an uncredited role as one of the college students. <
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> Take away the future big names, and this is a pretty dreadful film. It is interesting to see Judy Garland a few years before THE WIZARD OF OZ putting her amazing voice on display, and it is fascinating to see Betty Grable and Elisha Cook Jr. and Alan Ladd ages before they would achieve any degree of fame, but once you've played that game, there really isn't too terribly much to enjoy in this film. It was a "B" film made to fill out a double bill, and the studio put no money and no effort into trying to make much of a film. <
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> It is hard to know whether or not to recommend a film of this quality. It is odd to see the stars in a film so vastly below what we later would learn was the level of their talents, but apart from that I can't find a reason to see this one. I'll add a star to the minimum because of the presence of Ms. Garland and the rest, but all in all I would recommend seeking out a more substantive thirties comedy instead.

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Cornpone Humor, Football, & Judy Garland's Feature Debut
Yale invites the University of Texas to compete in a charity football game--but a secretary fumbles the communication and extends the invitation to tiny Texas State University instead. New coach Slug Winters (Jack Haley) and his harridan wife Bessie (Patsy Kelly) manage to whip the team into shape, but when an accident sidelines the star player they find an unexpected replacement in barefoot yokel Amos Dodd (Stuart Erwin)... and before you can say Sis Boom Bah every one is off to the big game!

Best known for his later performance of The Tin Man in THE WIZARD OF OZ, Jack Haley was a memorable light comic of stage and screen, and his pairing with Patsy Kelly is truly inspired. In addition to the then-popular quartet The Yachtclub Boys, the film also offers early glimpses of future big names like Betty Grable, Alan Ladd, Tony Martin, and Elisha Cook Jr., not to mention B movie queens Arline Judge and Lynn Bari.

But then as now, the real noise in the film was teenage Judy Garland, who made her feature film debut on loan from home studio MGM with the small role of Amos Dodd's hillbilly sister "Sairy." Slight though the role was, Garland's handful of cornpone-humor scenes and her three songs served as a wake-up call to her MGM handlers, and for the rest of her MGM contract she would never work off-studio again.

Although PIGSKIN PARADE is hardly in the same league with the Paramount, Warner Brothers, or MGM musicals of the same era, the lightweight story, memorable cast, silly dialogue ("Well, Call My Hawgs!") and pleasant if not greatly memorable songs has a great deal of period charm. I do not think it will greatly appeal to any one who isn't already a fan of 1930s musicals, but those who are will enjoy it--and Garland fans will consider it a minor classic.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer