Before the days of the juvenile delinquent, the "college movie", with plenty of attendant singing and jitterbugging, was the big studio's strategy for attracting teens to the theater. But for veterans like Ruby Keeler, the genre wasn't an exact fit. Having rejected several scripts from Warners (and laying low after a "mental cruelty" divorce from Al Jolson), the studio that made her famous with 42nd Street (1933) let her go. Keeler was quickly snatched up by RKO, amidst rumors that she'd be partnered with Astaire, but the result was instead this party yarn about a bandleader (Ozzie Nelson) and his featured dancer (Keeler) who run into opposition from a prim university matron (Kathleen Howard) when they try to open a nightclub within 5 miles of campus. This light teen musical is an early film by Edward Dmytryk, later famed for tough guy yarns like Murder, My Sweet (1944) and The Caine Mutiny (1954). Look for Harriett Hilliard as a professor's daughter -- she and husband Nelson would later become television's Ozzie and Harriet.

By Violet LeVoit