Sweetheart of the Campus
                             
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Year: 1941
Rating: 5.0
This is a slight innocuous B musical (68 minutes) from Columbia, but for us oldies who grew up while the TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was a mainstay for fourteen years, it has a nostalgic value. Back then there were only three TV channels with new shows and sooner or later everyone tuned in to the Nelson couple and their two sons, David and of course Ricky who became an idol in his own right.  I can't say I remember it well, but it was your typical family fare of wise parents instructing their two boys on right and wrong. This film was made long before the TV show, but a year after Ricky was born. Ozzie had been a moderately successful band leader with Harriet as the singer. They had a few hits, but it was radio that made them famous. Though they recorded a lot of music back then, I don't think he is listened to much anymore even by big band aficionados. Basic white bread music. And that is what the film gives us from him.  The musical highlight is a black act that does one song - Zoot Watson and the Four Spirits of Rhythm singing Tom Tom the Elevator Man.



But that isn't all. America's Sweetheart Ruby Keeler also has a big role in it and taps a few songs. She is no Eleanor Powell or Ann Miller, but she is fine though perhaps not the best choreographer. This was to be Keeler's final film until a comeback in the 1970s. She had been a huge star in the Busby Berkeley films in the 30s' starting with her debut in 42nd Street. That film was a big hit and revitalized the musical and made her and Dick Powell stars. The two of them were to co-star in a number of the Berkeley films. But by 1941, Keeler had left Warners, divorced Al Jolson and remarried. This was her swan song. Wish it had been a better one.



The plot is a soggy mess that is almost embarrassing to relate. Ozzy has a band with Keeler as the featured dancer. The establishment at a college shuts them down because their location is too close to the college. But a sympathetic college staff member - Harriet Nelson - helps them enroll in the college and set up in the gym. It makes no sense. All of the college students look like they celebrated their teen years long ago. Ruby has a thing for Ozzie but of course Ozzie only has eyes for Harriet. Hard to imagine why Columbia made this but I guess both Ozzie and Ruby were popular enough at the time to give it clearance. The director is Edward Dmytryk, still stuck in B films for two more years till Murder, My Sweet with Ruby's partner - Dick Powell.