Overlooked Classics: All-American Co-Ed (1941)

In many ways All-American Co-Ed is a perfect example of a B movie musical comedy. There is nothing in this movie that tries to be anything more than silly escapist entertainment and the film successeds marvelously at providing just this. Of course helping this was that the film was made at the Hal Roach Studio (Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Charley Chase), which was one of the best studios for this type of entertainment.

A college fraternity likes to dress and drag and put on musical shows. A female college is offering a dozen free scholarships for “unusual girls”. The winners would be showcased in a big musical extravaganza. However the advertisement for this contest makes fun of the fraternity and bans them. The boys however send one of their own, a young man named Bob Shepard (Johnny Downs) to infiltrate this contest disguised as a girl. This becomes complicated when he falls for a girl he meets there (Frances Langford).

This may be a simple film, but there is a lot to recommend it. The humor is often really funny, the musical numbers are fantastic, the performances are great and the 49 minutes just flies by. Johnny Downs is delightful as the lead and completely believable and it is tons of fun to watch Frances Langford on screen here. However one performance that especially stands out is Harry Langdon as a newspaperman. Though Harry Langdon was one of the greatest comedians in silent film, most of his sound work is disappointing. This movie is a delightful exception. Harry brings some fantastic laugh out loud moments and just great comic energy to this film, and he shows that the old timer still had it. All in all this movie is one for which if you just turn your mind off there is plenty to enjoy.

This movie was directed by LeRoy Prinz. Prinz as a director mostly directed musical short subjects. This was one of the only two feature films he directed (the other being Feista (1941)). He is better known and more prolific as choreographer. He choreographed such famous films as Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Road to Singapore (1940), The Ten Commandments (1956) and South Pacific (1958). 

A review in Photoplay was not very complimentary stating “Frances Langford sings – which is very easy to take, but it’s a non-entertaining little musical.” A review in The Exhibitor was much more positive stating “Langford and Downs carry the big load in this entertaining ‘streamliner’, which has a snappy production and tuneful songs.” A review in The Independent Exhibitors Bulletin stated, “’All American Co-Ed’ has one of the funniest openings we have ever seen in a motion picture. For ten minutes thereafter it is one of the most amusing shows we have ever seen on screen. Thereafter it was permitted to go to pieces, so badly in fact that at the preview the audience openly derided its puny efforts to get laughs.”

This film was nominated for two Academy Awards. One was for Edward Ward’s score and another was for the song Out of the Silence (Written by Lloyd B. Norlin)


-Michael J. Ruhland