Starring: George O'Brien, Helen Chandler, Joyce Compton, William Janney, Stepin Fetchit, Frank Albertson, David Butler, Lumsden Hare, Clifford Dempsey, Ward Bond, John Wayne (uncredited)
Writer: James Kevin McGuinness (based on the story by Tristram Tupper & John Stone)
Cinematography: Joseph H. August
Editor: Alex Troffey
B&W, 1h 24m. 1.20:1 ratio.
Released on: September 1, 1929 by Fox Film Corporation
My experience: Internet Archive
It's a tad frustrating going through this period in John Ford's filmography, as there are some flashes of brilliance in certain films (Four Sons, The Black Watch), and yet others can't seem to hit their mark. This is true especially for ostensible comedies (The Blue Eagle, Riley the Cop). I don't know if Ford was in the doghouse at this time, or whether the masculine, very American bonding sport that is college football held a sort of attraction for him, but this is definitely not the sort of film you would expect to see John Ford making. It's like watching Steven Spielberg make a movie about video gamers. On second thought, hmmmm ....
Our protagonist is Paul Randall (William Janney), a young man who descends from a long line of military and sporting heroes. His father, Rear Admiral John Randall (Lumsden Hare) and uncle Major General Somers (Clifford Dempsey) are at or near the top of their respective divisions, and his brother John Randall (George O'Brien) is a star football player at West Point (for the uninitiated, Annapolis is the Navy training college and West Point holds the same place in the Army). Family friend Marian Wilson (Joyce Compton) tends to play each brother off the other, adding to the friendly rivalry between the two siblings.
Attended by his family's butler/servant/racist stereotype Smoke Screen (Stepin Fetchit), Paul heads to Annapolis and immediately befriends one Albert Edward Price (Frank Albertson) and begins a slow flirtation with local lass Nancy Wayne (Helen Chandler, whose claim to fame would be playing Mina Harker in the 1931 Dracula). He gets into trouble with upperclassman Harold (Ward Bond) and his two sidekicks (John Wayne & Ben Hall). This was Wayne's first speaking role -- though uncredited -- in a Ford film. He would have many more in the future, especially after his star-making turn in Stagecoach ten years later. Some hijinks at a dance ensue, and the undersized Paul tries out for the football team (the coach is played by David Butler, a one time silent film stalwart who became a serviceable musical comedy director in Hollywood's golden age; this was one of his last roles before transitioning). Will he be able to get into the game, and make a name for himself in sport? Have you ever seen a film?
That's pretty much it, as there's not much of a story, more a series of vignettes. Paul is shy and hesitant, his brother John is a confident go-getter. A young but recognizable John Wayne is ordered by a visibly younger and near-unrecognizable Ward Bond to throw a pie at Paul. Stepin Fetchit rambles around muttering gibberish while being patronized. Ward Bond is the comedic highlight of the movie during the dance scene, which takes up almost a quarter of the 84-minute film ("My sister Susan). Character actor Lee Tracy shows up in his first role (uncredited) as a football announcer. And the last 15-20 minutes are devoted to a football game in which you can't tell either team apart, and Paul pulls a Rudy nineteen years before Daniel Ruettiger was even born.
This movie was released on September 1, 1929. In less than two months, Black Friday would send the world spiralling into the Great Depression. Thus, Salute occupies an interesting place in history, not necessarily film history but American cultural history. It is set between the interwar years, in which the United States, after playing a key factor in helping the Allies win the Great War, had retreated into a very isolationist foreign policy. The American military, therefore, was very much an afterthought in the minds of the general public, who were much more focused on having fun after the horrors of the previous decade. When you think of the 1920s you think jazz, flappers, the Charleston, college spirit, sporting events, and odd novelty fads like playing the ukelele and flagpole sitting. Even though Prohibition was in effect, the alcohol and good times were flowing, and speculation in the stock markets was running rampant, as people borrowed on credit with money they didn't actually own in order to finance their pleasures and dreams. This would all come crashing down, of course, but at the point in time where Salute sits, it was a very "sky's the limit," optimistic time. There's an innocence and unbridled joy that flows through the film, a pervading attitude that gives it a somewhat old-fashioned charm, which through the lens of history is tinged with a melancholy for what would soon follow.
Ford uses newsreel footage of parades and games (potentially ten minutes out of the runtime was borrowed by the master to tell his story), and it's impressive seeing the crowds of people turning out in the stands, and the amount of marching bands on the field. Also pretty cool was seeing the cheerleaders of the time, who were actually spirit squads comprised of men to pep up the audiences at a game (the football cheerleading squads as we know them today were actually only introduced during the 1940s, when the majority of American men were overseas in World War II).
Where there is good, there is often bad, and the most egregious portion of this film is Stepin Fetchit. I get that his character is supposed to fill the role played by the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear, i.e. a seemingly stupid person who actually knows more than the other characters do, but it's cringingly embarrassing to watch his performance nowadays. There are a few things from classic Hollywood movies that are outdated now, but most classic movie fans are able to put themselves back in time and accept the conventions for what they are. Not so for racial "humour" such as this. Lincoln Perry (Stepin Fetchit's real name) made a career for himself playing this type of character, and eventually became a millionaire doing so. It's just a shame that the culture and prevailing attitudes of the time encouraged this type of portrayal of non-whites in films for a very long time.
A less passionate gripe I have is with the way John Ford chose to end the football game. I understand that, being pretty much the Michael Bay of his time (although better respected by film critics!), he didn't want to upset any portion of the American military, and thus chose to end the game in a tie between the Army and Navy. As a viewer, however, we have been following Paul's story (George O'Brien, while top billed, is really only a supporting character in the film; his lead credit is due to the fact that he was the only major movie star in the cast at the time). Thus, the ending of the game was a bit of a letdown, as the viewer has been preconditioned to cheer for the underdog Paul and his Navy teammates. Also, is Helen Chandler the only woman on campus? Not quite sure if she's the daughter of the dean or some higher-ranked official (we may have been told, but the explanation flew right past me if we were), but outside of the dance, or whenever Joyce Compton decides to show up, she's literally the only person onscreen without a Y chromosome. Just found it odd, that's all.
Salute is intermittently entertaining. While it's amusing to see a young John Wayne and Ward Bond throw pies at young recruits and make wisecracks like the kids they portray, and the atmosphere of the film leaves a strong impression, cinematically it could have been directed by anybody, and the vignette-style type of storytelling is a whole lot of episodic claptrap that ultimately leads to nothing of any consequence. As a historical capture, it's quite interesting, but as a film, this falls short of the goal line.
Four pigskin punters out of ten.
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