Well, I'll say this for it. It zips by quickly, maybe forward pass by forward pass.
Pat O'Brien is Knute Rockne, a teacher who was so good at football that he was made Notre Dame's full-time coach. He invented a new move, called "the shift", while watching some girlie dancers in Chicago, according to this story. He invented the forward pass -- or revitalized it, I forget. He coached some of the most famous football players of all time at Notre Dame and turned the team into "The Fighting Irish." (Note: Knute Rockne, named after a Viking Prince of Denmark of Danish and Polish descent, led the fighting Irish to victory.) Pat O'Brien gives it all he's got. He delivers his lines with such celerity that it struck me with awe. I tried to duplicate the tempo of his utterances but it was physically impossible, even after three or four tries at the same line of dialog. His tone is that of a stern but fair Drill Instructor. When he is called before a board or a commission of some sort -- it's not clear why -- he has to describe his philosophy about football. He thinks it's essential to the human spirit. In effect he restates William James' idea that it's "the moral equivalent of war." Since human nature itself is so combative -- and I can't disagree with him there -- why not let them take it out on the football field? Notre Dame is also interested, though, in shifting its emphasis away from a violent sport like football to something more refined, like hockey. PSHAW, retorts Rockne. He claims that he's opposed to it because "I never trust a sport that puts a club in the hands of an Irishman." But the fact is, judging from his other comments, that he thinks any team sport other than football is for fairies.
Ronald Reagan is George Gipp, one of Rockne's early stars of the gridiron. Reagan comes, displays a shy talent for playing the game, and quickly disappears because of one of those nameless diseases. O'Brien himself grows older and suffers from phlebitis but nothing is going to keep this man down. He has himself wheeled out to games against doctor's orders and if he sees a Medico approaching he scurries away.
The clichés are lined up and shot down sequentially like the ducks in a very slow-moving shooting gallery. There's a certain reassuring quality in knowing precisely what's going to happen from one moment to the next in a movie you've never seen before. It's like going to a ritual service -- a mass in church or a funeral rite -- in which everything is properly laid out and organized. Comforting, you know. It's appropriate that the setting for this movie should be a famous Catholic university, even if it's not a Jesuit school.
It's satisfying, too, to know that today and forever, Knute Rockne is up there coaching that Big Team upstairs.
Pat O'Brien is Knute Rockne, a teacher who was so good at football that he was made Notre Dame's full-time coach. He invented a new move, called "the shift", while watching some girlie dancers in Chicago, according to this story. He invented the forward pass -- or revitalized it, I forget. He coached some of the most famous football players of all time at Notre Dame and turned the team into "The Fighting Irish." (Note: Knute Rockne, named after a Viking Prince of Denmark of Danish and Polish descent, led the fighting Irish to victory.) Pat O'Brien gives it all he's got. He delivers his lines with such celerity that it struck me with awe. I tried to duplicate the tempo of his utterances but it was physically impossible, even after three or four tries at the same line of dialog. His tone is that of a stern but fair Drill Instructor. When he is called before a board or a commission of some sort -- it's not clear why -- he has to describe his philosophy about football. He thinks it's essential to the human spirit. In effect he restates William James' idea that it's "the moral equivalent of war." Since human nature itself is so combative -- and I can't disagree with him there -- why not let them take it out on the football field? Notre Dame is also interested, though, in shifting its emphasis away from a violent sport like football to something more refined, like hockey. PSHAW, retorts Rockne. He claims that he's opposed to it because "I never trust a sport that puts a club in the hands of an Irishman." But the fact is, judging from his other comments, that he thinks any team sport other than football is for fairies.
Ronald Reagan is George Gipp, one of Rockne's early stars of the gridiron. Reagan comes, displays a shy talent for playing the game, and quickly disappears because of one of those nameless diseases. O'Brien himself grows older and suffers from phlebitis but nothing is going to keep this man down. He has himself wheeled out to games against doctor's orders and if he sees a Medico approaching he scurries away.
The clichés are lined up and shot down sequentially like the ducks in a very slow-moving shooting gallery. There's a certain reassuring quality in knowing precisely what's going to happen from one moment to the next in a movie you've never seen before. It's like going to a ritual service -- a mass in church or a funeral rite -- in which everything is properly laid out and organized. Comforting, you know. It's appropriate that the setting for this movie should be a famous Catholic university, even if it's not a Jesuit school.
It's satisfying, too, to know that today and forever, Knute Rockne is up there coaching that Big Team upstairs.