Life Begins in College

The Ritz Brothers--Al, Harry and Jimmy--star in Life Begins in College, capitalizing on the then-popular "football comedy" subgenre. Based on a series of magazine short stories by screenwriter and producer Darrell Ware, Life Begins in College is a zany screwball comedy much in the Marx Brothers style.

The Ritz Brothers play themselves as seventh-year undergraduates working their way through college at a local tailor called "Klassy Kampus Kleaners." The brothers lack any sort of academic aspirations, instead focusing their collective energies on becoming football stars. The brothers befriend football player George "Little Black Cloud" Black (Nat Pendleton), a wealthy Native American student--the first and only Native American at the fictional Lombardy College-- who wants to drop-out of college after being the victim of a humiliating prank pulled by the football team's star player, Bob Hayner (Dick Baldwin, in his first feature-length role). While the brothers genuinely like George, they quickly realize he is their potential ticket onto the school's football team. After replacing Bob as the team's star quarterback, George is disqualified because he played semi-professional football which is in violation of collegiate rules. This plotline is a nod to All-American football star Jim Thorpe, an athlete of Native American descent who was stripped of his two Olympic gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon because of a two-year stint on a minor league baseball team. After a series of implausible events that are requisite in the typical screwball comedy, the Ritz Brothers finally get their chance at gridiron glory, scoring touchdowns for the opposing team and unintentionally saving the day in the game's final moments, much to comedic effect. Rounding out the story is a romantic plotline between Bob and Janet (Gloria Stuart), and George and Inez (Joan Davis).

While they had appeared in a handful of films as specialty acts in the early-to-mid 1930s, including such films as Sing, Baby, Sing (1936), One in a Million (1936), On the Avenue (1937) and You Can't Have Everything (1937), it wasn't until a year after signing with Twentieth Century-Fox that the comedic trio earned top billing in Life Begins in College. Although the Ritz Brothers are often compared to the Marx Brothers, their comedic style was quite different. Rather than each one having distinctly different personalities like the more popular Marx Brothers, the three Ritz Brothers mimicked one another. Following the success of Life Begins in College, the Ritz Brothers starred in several more films, including a loan-out to producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1938 for The Goldwyn Follies and their most popular film, the musical version of The Three Musketeers (1939), starring Don Ameche and Binnie Barnes. But by the end of 1939, the Ritz Brothers left Fox after a contract dispute and signed with Universal Pictures, making a string of low-budget films for the studio, with their last feature-length film as a comedic trio Never a Dull Moment in 1943.

Iowa-born Nat Pendleton was a Columbia University graduate and star-athlete, later competing in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Belgium, where he won a silver medal in wrestling. By the 1920s, Pendleton eyed a career in Hollywood and made a successful go of it, securing a series of bit and supporting parts as brawny henchmen and lovable goons, in over one-hundred productions. His most recognizable performances are in a pair of Marx Brothers' films, Horse Feathers (1932) and At the Circus (1939), as well as the popular Thin Man and Dr. Kildare franchises for MGM.

Joan Davis was a popular comedienne, starring in a number of B-comedies for Twentieth Century-Fox, including Love and Hisses (1937), Sally, Irene and Mary (1938) and My Lucky Star (1938). Davis was also one of the top talents of radio throughout the 1940s, and from 1952-1955 she starred in the popular sitcom I Married Joan, co-starring Jim Backus, for which she is best remembered today.

Life Begins in College also features the original songs "Big Chief Swing It," "Our Team is on the Warpath," "Fair Lombardy" and "Why Talk About Love?" composed by Lew Pollack with lyrics by Sidney Mitchell, as well as "Sweet Varsity Sue," written by Charles Tobias, Al Lewis and Murray Mencher.

Director: William A. Seiter
Producer: Harry Wilson and Darryl F. Zanuck
Screenplay: Don Ettlinger and Karl Tunberg
Cinematography: Robert H. Planck
Editing: Louis R. Loeffler
Art Direction: Hans Peters
Music: Lew Pollack, Sidney D. Mitchell and Louis Silvers
Cast: The Ritz Brothers (Al, Harry and Jimmy Ritz playing themselves), Joan Davis (Inez), Tony Martin (band leader), Gloria Stuart (Janet O'Hara), Fred Stone (Coach Tim O'Hara), Nat Pendleton (George "Little Black Cloud" Black), Dick Baldwin (Bob Hayner), Lon Chaney Jr. (Gilks) and Elisha Cook Jr. (Ollie Stearns).
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By Jill Blake