Reviews

Following their first National League Pennant win since 1920, The Brooklyn Dodgers team players, though losing the 1941 World Series, went to Hollywood to appear as themselves in this film's field and locker room scenes. Though uncredited on screen, they included Mickey Owen, Dolf Camilli, Billy Herman, Pewee Reese, Arky Vaughan, Dixie Walker, Cookie Lavagetto, Peter Reiser, and pitchers Hugh Casey, Whitlow Wyatt, and Freddie Fitzimmons. However, Lloyd Nolan played the team manager instead of Leo Durocher and Red Barber's substitute was KMPC radio Broadcaster Hal Berger whose 1941 in-studio game recreations fostered the birth of L.A.'s Dodger fan clubs.

Unlike Edmund Gwenn's portrayal of Kris Kringle on Macy's parade float, Monte Woolleys's Santa Claus was like the alcoholic one Kris replaced at the start of "Miracle on 34th Street". In this film, "Life Begins at Eight-thirty" (that's curtain time for old-time stage professionals) Monte's Thespian character, Madden Thomas, does a between-jobs gig as Department Store Santa, who secretly sips his much-needed "courage", smuggled in from the neighborhood saloon, through a hose from hot water bottle concealed behind his beard. When an uppity customer gasps indignantly upon hearing this Santa letting out a long loud belch, Monte leans down toward her, demanding sarcastically, "What did you expect madame -- chimes?"

Although dismal as cinema (static wide-angle camera records acts performed on a large theatre stage) it is great notstalgia to see (in a few rare close-ups) stars of the 20's, many of whom were yet to become famous. Particularly, as Master of Ceremonies, Frank Fay, who, 15 years later in 1944, would be cast on Broadway in a role which had already been offered to (and turned down by) 4 famous stars: Harold Lloyd, Edward Everett Horton, Robert Benchley, and Jack Haley. Frank Fay then originated in his greatest role the character Elwood P. Dowd in the Mary Chase play "Harvey" (the name of his imaginary 6-foot-tall rabbit friend). When the producers later sent Fay to take the National Touring Company cast on the road, the play then continued on Broadway with the remaining cast, but with role of Elwood P. Dowd played by James Stewart, who had just finished his movie characterization of George Bailey (It's Wonderful Life). Another road show cast I saw in 1947 at San Francisco's Geary Theatre starred Joe E. Brown, who would recommend Stewart for the movie version.

When I (at age 16) first saw "Bachelor Mother" at Radio City Music Hall in its 1939 original release in New York, I had only heard of Clara Bow as the "It" girl, but had not seen "It" (the title of her very popular 1927 silent movie). But I did (at age 36) see "Bundle of Joy", the musical version remake of "Bachelor Mother". But when I finally did (at age 79) see "It" on Turner Classic Movies, I recognized it immediately as the identical story. Department store girl falls for the boss (store owner's son) who ignores her. She finds someone's baby but everyone believes it's hers. Including boss and his parents. They all fall in love with the baby, and then they all finally end up falling for Clara/Ginger/Debbie. Ask Robert Osborne why there are no other comments about this (including his)? Am I the only one who noticed?

Frank Albert, Stanford's All American quarterback, the main character in the movie "The Spirit of Stanford", was played by himself, and he was credited as such when the film was shown in theaters.

The Stanford football team had lost nearly all of its games in the fall of 1939, when Albert was a sophomore. Sports writers predicted even worse results for 1940 when Stanford hired the coach of the team of the University of Chicago, which had not only lost all of its games in 1939, but had even cancelled its football program permanently.

The new coach was Clark Shaughnessy, who, while in Chicago, had worked as a consultant to the Chicago Bears in developing a new style of offense: the T-Formation.

In all previous systems, the center had to put both of his hands on the ball and start the play while looking upside down through his legs and passing the ball back to one of the four players in the backfield. But in the new "T", which became the basis of all modern football, as players and fans have seen the game since then, the play starts with the center facing straight ahead as an effective offensive blocking lineman, and using only one hand to lift the football back through his legs into the waiting hands of the quarterback, who turns and hands it (or passes it back or laterally) to one of the running backs, or keeps it and runs with it, or passes it forward to a receiver.

The sports writers were unimpressed by this combination of losers and their "Model-T" machine, kept under wraps in secret practice sessions. They predicted, each week of that season, that Stanford would lose the following Saturday's game.

When the team proved them wrong by beating every opponent on their schedule that fall, the "experts" still predicted they would lose the Rose Bowl Game against Nebraska, especially when the Cornhuskers coach took his team the day before the New Year's day classic to watch the T-Formation executed by the visiting Chicago Bears, winning against the local Los Angeles Bulldogs. They were wrong again. Watching it from stadium bleachers is not the same as facing it on the gridiron.

The new Stanford team, which the writers had christened "The Wow Boys", had going for it the advantage of surprise, with the newness of the "T". But their real "edge" was something else -- that which football coaches try to instill in today's teams: a positive attitude spurred by heightened emotion. That new element, which those former losers had gained, and which inspired this movie's title, was "The Spirit of Stanford".

After graduation and Navy service in World War II, Albert continued his football career as the original quarterback of the newly-formed San Francisco Forty-Niners, and later, as its coach.