Start Cheering (1938) DVD-R

Starring Jimmy Durante, Walter Connolly, Joan Perry, Charles Starrett,
Craig E. Earle
Directed by Albert S. Rogell

Print: black/white
Runtime: 78 min.
Genre: musical
Print Quality: B

Film star Ted Crosley (Charles Starrett), fed up with movie life, quits
pictures to enroll in Midland College, much to the horror of his manager
Sam Lewis (Walter Connolly) and his stooge-friend Willie Gumbatz (Jimmy
Durante). Ted wishes to enroll in school under an assumed name but
Sam, hoping to nip his school plans in the bud, tips off the press and
school. En route, Ted has met and fallen in love with Jean Worthington
(Joan Perry), daughter of Dean Worthington (Raymond Walburn)who is
counting on Ted's enrollment to save his job. Ted, as the hero of many
college and football movies, is given a royal welcome when he arrives. In
an effort to make the Midland football team a bigger draw and pay off the
stadium debt, Ted is put on the varsity team, where, his exploits don't
match those he had on screen, and he is actually a liability. He soon
incurs the enmity of Biff Gordon (Broderick Crawford), the school's
football hero and Ted's rival for Jean. Biff sets Ted up with a fake
fraternity initiation, wherein Ted passes on the tin fraternity ring, taken
from a candy box, to Jean. Suspecting unjustly that Jean was part of the
hoax, Ted quits school and signs a big radio contract. When the school
learns of the hoax, it suspends Biff and the entire team on the eve of the
big game. Ted hears about it and his loyality to the school prompts him to
return and square the team with the faculty. They win the big game. Ted,
still believing that Jean was in on the trick, boards a train back to New
York. Jean learns that Ted is about to lose his radio contract because he
can't get back in time, and suggests to Sam that he arrange with the
school for Ted to broadcast from the stadium, using the college band and
glee club.