Slow-witted Warners nonsense, directed by an uncharacteristically sleepwalking William Wellman, about college football. Pat O'Brien, sputtering and sparking with great enthusiasm, is the greatest football coach in the world, constantly being hired from college to college. He lands at a generic school that hasn't won a game in years and quickly turns the team around, aided by such superannuated undergrads as boastful Lyle Talbot and thoughtful Dick Powell. (He sings one song that has to do with nothing else.) Much football footage, none of it terribly exciting, and the moral seems to be, if you want to win the game, fatally injure the opposing star quarterback. Ann Dvorak, looking glum, also gets mixed up in this, as O'Brien's ever-neglected wife, while Hugh Herbert and Donald Meek do their usual thing on the sidelines. It's a wonder Frank McHugh doesn't turn up. Warners pictures of this vintage usually have smart wisecracks and some social consciousness, but this lacks both, and Dick Powell is not what you'd call a convincing star college football player. As it ground to a triumphant finish, I was mentally revisiting all the superior Wellman product from the decade, and wishing this would turn into "Public Enemy."
Review of College Coach
