Rating: NR
Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 05/22/2007
SubTitles: English/Espanol/French
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1/DD2
Run Time: 93 Minutes
Flags: Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: 20th Century Fox
The first of
20th Century-Fox's college musicals,
Pigskin Parade is also close to the best of them in musical terms -- though they were all at least pretty good on that level -- principally thanks to the presence of 13-year-old
Judy Garland, playing an Arkansas farm girl with surprising sincerity and success (in addition to belting out a couple of numbers with the depth and sincerity of a performer at least twice that age). The plot starts rolling when the Yale University football team, looking for a credible but not too tough opponent for a charity game, accidentally invites the team from tiny Tesax State University (enrollment 700) instead of the University of Texas (enrollment 7500). Texas State has also just gotten a new football coach, Slug Winters (
Jack Haley), who's had a lot of success coaching high school back in Flushing, New York but still has to prove himself with college players -- he arrives with his brassy, outspoken wife (
Patsy Kelly) just ahead of the invitation from Yale, which nearly sends them running back to New York. Through sheer luck and Mrs. Winters' brainstorm, however, they figure out a way they can meet the Yale team on the field and not get steamrollered -- they come up with a fast, highly mobile brand of football that makes them contenders, but then they lose their star-player. Mrs. Winters manages to stumble onto Amos Dodd (
Stuart Erwin), an Arkansas farm boy who developed his arm by tossing watermelons around, and brings him and his sister (
Judy Garland) to the college. But now they have to make Amos -- who never finished high school -- eligible, and keep him interested enough in the team and the college to get him to the game. It's all a lot of fun, with lots of comic antics and a song spicing up the pace every few minutes, and Haley and Kelly are a delight to watch together.
~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
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