‘Good News’ (1947): College Football, Musical Style

Promotional headshot of actor Peter Lawford, circa 1950–1960. (Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Commentary

Football is a major topic of discussion right now, as fans process Damar Hamlin’s startling medical emergency and anticipate the finals later this month. If modern football is too much for you, but you still enjoy the game, you may want to escape the news cycle with a classic film about the beloved sport. Personally, I’m not a sports fan, but I enjoy many old movies which are centered around athletic events. One of my favorite films about football is “Good News” from 1947.

This is a Technicolor musical comedy, made in the grand style which only MGM could produce during Hollywood’s Golden Era. It features MGM stars June Allyson and Peter Lawford as its leading couple, with Broadway performers Patricia Marshall and Joan McCracken in supporting roles.

This film’s nostalgia is twofold, since it’s a 75-year-old movie which had a 20-year-old setting when it was released. As the opening credits describe, “This story takes you way, way back to another era - 1927. That was the year they were dancing the Charleston - The year Coolidge did not choose to run - The year Will Rogers was elected mayor of Beverly Hills - The year of ‘flaming youth’ - When a girl was a flapper - and a boy was a sheik.”

A College Story

“Good News” takes place exclusively at Tait College, a fictional American college, which looks like a pretty fun place to get an education. Like most colleges, Tait loves its football team, making its players big men around the campus. The team’s star is Tommy Marlowe (Lawford), a ladies’ man who thinks he’s the cat’s pajamas. Every girl at the Phi Gamma Gamma sorority wants to be his girl except newcomer Pat McClellan (Marshall), a snooty finishing school transferee who is looking for a man with lots of wealth “of culture.” When she completely snubs him, he makes it his goal to impress her by speaking French, a language she frequently speaks to seem refined.

Cropped screenshot of June Allyson from the trailer for the film "The Secret Heart" in 1946. (Public Domain)

Tommy signs up for a French class, but he decides he needs some private study, as well. At the library, he befriends assistant librarian Connie Lane (Allyson), an intelligent language student who has admired him from afar for years. They bond over a musical French lesson, but she’s disgusted that he still wants to use his newfound knowledge to impress Pat. Meanwhile, high-strung Coach Johnson (Donald MacBride) is concerned that Tommy’s obsession with French and pursuit of Pat will hurt his performance on the field.

Tommy isn’t the only football player with heart troubles. Bulky “Beef” (Loren Tindall) is always sulking about his sweetheart Babe Doolittle (McCracken), but he’s trying to solve his problems by studying psychology. He has good reason to worry about Babe, since the energetic flapper has fallen for the skinny benchwarmer on the team, Bobby Turner (Ray McDonald), who is terrified of Beef. As Babe navigates her strategy with the two men, her best friend and roommate Connie wonders if Tommy will ever realize that his budding relationship with her is the real thing.

Making Movie Magic

“Good News” had a rocky journey to the big screen. The story started as a 1927 Broadway musical by the same name, which introduced popular hits “Button Up Your Overcoat,” “You’re the Cream in My Coffee,” and “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” The successful play was first adapted to the screen by MGM as “Good News” in 1930, resulting in a pre-Code film that received mixed reviews. Ten years later, MGM planned to remake the story as a backyard musical starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, continuing the pair’s success after “Babes in Arms” (1938). The lovable song and dance duo would make three more such musicals, in addition to three pairings in Andy Hardy films, but “Good News” was not one of them. I love this film just as it is, but it would have been a perfect pairing for Rooney and Garland, even if the diminutive Mickey was a little small for a football player!

The production was again mounted in 1947. This time, Van Johnson was initially considered for the male lead, but he was ultimately replaced with Peter Lawford. Although Lawford felt a little insecure about his singing and dancing abilities, he was frequently cast in musicals, and he knew better than to question the wishes of the studio executives. Gloria de Haven wasn’t so wise, since she refused to play Pat McClellan, a role she deemed insignificant, and was put on suspension by the studio as a result. Many songs from the original play were used in the movie, particularly the less famous ones which served the story well. In addition, two new songs, “Pass That Peace Pipe” and “The French Lesson,” were written by studio songwriters specifically to be numbers in this film.

“Good News” doesn’t have any huge musical movie stars, so it relies instead on clever group numbers, where cast members trade verses to progress the story. Tommy tells Bobby how to be a playboy in “Be a Ladies’ Man,” and they are soon joined by several other male students as they sing and dance around the campus. In the first scene at the sorority house, all the principal cast members sing about being “Lucky in Love,” introducing us to the main characters and central relationships of the story in one cute song. “Pass That Peace Pipe” is an elaborate dance number in the soda shop which has little bearing on the plot but offers Joan McCracken and Ray McDonald a chance to show off their dancing skills. One of my favorite numbers is “The French Lesson,” when Connie gives Tommy a musical crash course in French vocabulary in the library. This number is adorably clever and especially interesting after you learn that Peter Lawford was a fluent French speaker, so he taught June Allyson the pronunciation before they filmed the number! An extra gold nugget in this movie is 22-year-old Mel Tormé, who plays a student with just a few lines. The famous jazz singer sings a few verses in group numbers, but his beautiful, velvety voice gets to shine on “The Best Things in Life are Free.”

University of Pittsburgh 1927 football team seniors on Nov. 30, 1927. (Public Domain)

Football and the Good Old Days

This movie’s opening says that it is set in the Roaring Twenties, but the college youth we see are hardly “flaming.” The culture of the 1920s is about as accurate as the costuming. Slang, cars, technology, and certain cultural references indicate the era, but this is clearly the 1920s through the lens of the 1940s. By 1947, the flippant, comical depictions of loose “modern” lifestyles which were common in movies in the 1920s and early 30s were no longer acceptable. Since 1934, Hollywood had pledged to make all films decent and wholesome for audiences of all ages and backgrounds by following the Motion Picture Production Code.

The Code was going strong in 1947, and its influence throughout the 1930s and 40s had heavily shaped the film industry by the time “Good News” was made. When people went to see a lighthearted musical, they expected it to be clean, wholesome entertainment the whole family could enjoy. This college-themed movie lives up to those standards, using the colorful style of the 1920s as an interesting backdrop without including the loose behavior which accompanied it.

If you want to see football as an old-fashioned, rough and tumble game played in the fresh air by clean-scrubbed young men, I suggest you watch “Good News.” It’s a fun musical celebration of this Americana athletic game, but it also teaches important lessons about life. Excelling at football or any other athletic activity is a fine pursuit for a young man, as long as he doesn’t forget about learning, exploring, and valuing the important things in life.