This one starts out rather silly. The premise is that a college girl is in love with a college boy who wants to go to Russia for two years. She doesn't want to force herself on him but her friends will do anything to get them together. At first the whole thing looks and feels ludicrous. The stereotypes of the black porters today are insulting. The women - Maureen O'Sullivan, Ruth Hussey, Ann Morriss, Joyce Compton, and Julie Bishop (here credited as Jacqueline Wells) - are all gorgeous of course, more like models than college girls. Lew Ayres plays the would-be wanderer and Burgess Meredith his friend in tow. Everybody is a bit too old for the parts but as the film progresses somehow this becomes irrelevant as the comedic elements begin to overshadow the shortcomings. The first to look out for is the gym scene where O'Sullivan coyly agrees with everything Ayres says while he tries to convince her (and himself) of the nobility of his plans. O'Sullivan floats around the gym in her trademark elfin way and you wonder how this poor man can resist her. Joyce Compton, as the ditsy blonde, has several moments such as her overt manipulation of the police chief. Also throughout the film Hussey's presence is elemental. She, perhaps more than O'Sullivan, contributes to its enjoyment. Her strong, wise-cracking portrayal makes you forget this is a terribly outdated sexist story and you begin to enjoy it for what it is: silly fun! One last scene to point out. The look on Ayres' face when he sees his car has been taken apart is priceless. Of course don't bother to ask how that was done with bare hands and in about ten minutes. That would spoil the magic.
6 Reviews
not Lew Ayre's best.... girls scheme to keep boys around
ksf-215 January 2010
Certainly some big, fun, familiar names in this MGM 67 minute shortie - a YOUNG Burgess Meredith, almost 30 years before he was the Penguin in Batman. I didn't really get him in the old black and white films. He and Lew Ayres were both about 30 by now, although they both look younger than that. Maureen O'Sullivan is "Alex", the heroine of our story, who is determined to drag her man to the spring dance. Sterling Holloway (was also the voice of Winnie the Pooh!) has about four lines in this one. The first half of the film is all about the girls and their antics as they lay out their plans for the dance. lots of giggling. In spite of all the great comedians with whom the director worked over the years, i found this one pretty bland and monotone. I'd recommend watching L. Ayres in "Holiday" instead; also from 1938... that one is 100 times funnier. I think they cast gave it their best, but had to work with a lame, whitewashed script. Might have been a little more interesting before the Hays Commission. The men take the women to Maloney's restaurant, and Sam (Ayres) tells Alex he is going to Russia, and can't attend the dance with her. Then the scheming starts.... Directed by Sylvan Simon, who had made a bunch of movies with Red Skelton, Abbott & Costello, and even Lucille Ball. Simon croaked at age 41... heart attack.
Only the most hardened Stalinist.
bkoganbing2 August 2019
Spring Madness is adapted from a flop Phillip Barry play Spring Dance that only
ran for 24 performances in 1936. As this was a flop and not a hit like The Philadelphia Story MGM let it's B picture unit handle it. So we see no big stars
like Cary Grant, James Stewart, and Katharine Hepburn in it.
A good B picture cast like Maureen O'Sullivan, Ruth Hussey, Julie Bishop, and Ann Morriss head the cast which is set at a girl's ivy league college. They do fine.
But I think the reason this play flopped because the leading male character played by Lew Ayres is really a fathead. He and his sidekick Burgess Meredith want to take a slow boat to Vladivostok and live and study in Russia.
By 1938 only the most hardened Stalinist would want to go there. When the play was running on Broadway the purge trials were getting started. When the film was released they were in high gear. Very few believed the babble defense the Daily Worker had of them.
There are some funny scenes and Burgess Meredith steals all scenes he's in with some outrageous overacting. On Broadway his part was played by a young Jose Ferrer.
The film has a few good laughs many with Burgess Meredith.
A good B picture cast like Maureen O'Sullivan, Ruth Hussey, Julie Bishop, and Ann Morriss head the cast which is set at a girl's ivy league college. They do fine.
But I think the reason this play flopped because the leading male character played by Lew Ayres is really a fathead. He and his sidekick Burgess Meredith want to take a slow boat to Vladivostok and live and study in Russia.
By 1938 only the most hardened Stalinist would want to go there. When the play was running on Broadway the purge trials were getting started. When the film was released they were in high gear. Very few believed the babble defense the Daily Worker had of them.
There are some funny scenes and Burgess Meredith steals all scenes he's in with some outrageous overacting. On Broadway his part was played by a young Jose Ferrer.
The film has a few good laughs many with Burgess Meredith.
This trifle is more entertaining than it has a right to be.
tjonasgreen11 March 2004
A nonsensical 'B' movie that deals with a college romance, SPRING MADNESS is brighter and more entertaining than it has any right to be, and the reason is surely director S. Sylvan Simon. He seems to have been influenced by the buoyancy and overlapping wisecracks of STAGE DOOR the year before, and though the material and the actors here are not up to the level of that classic, this movie is great fun to watch.
Though all of the cast look too old to be college kids, they pitch in with high spirits and manage to make it seem like they had a ball making this. Maureen O'Sullivan looks more beautiful than in anything else I've ever seen her in (including her TARZAN pictures), Lew Ayers and Burgess Meredith are skillful if not especially interesting, and Ruth Hussey delivers her sardonic dialog with delicious dryness. No one in this ensemble cast lets the team down, they all deliver. You couldn't be blamed for passing this by, but if you have the chance you should check it out. It shows what energy and ingenuity can do to perk up a routine script.
Though all of the cast look too old to be college kids, they pitch in with high spirits and manage to make it seem like they had a ball making this. Maureen O'Sullivan looks more beautiful than in anything else I've ever seen her in (including her TARZAN pictures), Lew Ayers and Burgess Meredith are skillful if not especially interesting, and Ruth Hussey delivers her sardonic dialog with delicious dryness. No one in this ensemble cast lets the team down, they all deliver. You couldn't be blamed for passing this by, but if you have the chance you should check it out. It shows what energy and ingenuity can do to perk up a routine script.
Glossy but empty
planktonrules24 April 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Although this film stars some good MGM talent and is a polished and pretty film to watch, it is at heart a piece of very forgettable fluff. About the only interesting aspect of this dopey film is the beginning, when Lew Ayers and Burgess Meredith are trying to get visas to go live in the USSR for two years! Now THAT is an unusual twist, but it also mirrors a fascination some idealistic college-age Americans had with an idealized notion of the Soviet Union (before the reality of Stalin's rule was well known). Apart from this interesting bit, the rest of the film is just dull and ridiculous. The film is set at a girls college where apparently the only expectation is for the ladies to find and marry a rich man--showing up on time or staying awake during classes is unimportant. And, while the male heroes of the movie attend Harvard, they plan on dropping out two weeks before graduation--now that makes a lot of sense. The gist of the film is this--Maureen O'Sullivan wants to marry Ayers but he is intent on going to Russia. That's it--the rest is just filler--and not particularly interesting filler at that.
College Girl Faces Big Problem - How, Oh How, to Get Her Fellow to the Spring Dance
movingpicturegal9 March 2006
Very silly story about serious Harvard man, Sam (Lew Ayres), all set to go on a two year trip to Russia to study the economy and write a book on the youth movement. One problem though - his girlfriend Alex (Maureen O'Sullivan), student at a nearby girl's college, doesn't know he is going. Alex and her slang-talking gal pals at college seem to care about one thing and one thing only - the spring dance. Alex is determined to get her man to that dance, but he actually has plans, along with his chum "The Lippencott" (well played by Burgess Meredith), to leave college before graduation and get on that ship to Russia - and he'll be leaving just *before* the dance. Dear oh dear.
The plot of this film really just had nothing to hold my interest and most of the actors seem a bit long in the tooth to be realistic as college students. The only thing that saves this movie at all is some of the acting, especially by some of the character actors, which is pretty well-done. I like Joyce Compton as Sally, man crazy blonde who only comes to college for the weekend dances, and Sterling Holloway as a Yale man, who seems to mainly hang about in the girl's college dorm lobby. And, well, Lew Ayres does look kind of cute in his polka dot pajamas in one scene. All in all, though, this movie is really just plain dumb.
The plot of this film really just had nothing to hold my interest and most of the actors seem a bit long in the tooth to be realistic as college students. The only thing that saves this movie at all is some of the acting, especially by some of the character actors, which is pretty well-done. I like Joyce Compton as Sally, man crazy blonde who only comes to college for the weekend dances, and Sterling Holloway as a Yale man, who seems to mainly hang about in the girl's college dorm lobby. And, well, Lew Ayres does look kind of cute in his polka dot pajamas in one scene. All in all, though, this movie is really just plain dumb.
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