Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

dougdoepke Pretty funny take on the perennial college conflict between football and scholars. The bookish Turner (Fonda) fumbles around trying to keep wife (de Havilland) from old flame and ex- football star Joe Ferguson (Carson). But, Turner's really in trouble since the big game is on and everybody's talking football. I love that pep rally, more like a tribal event than the eve of a sporting event ("fight", "fight" gets chanted over and over). And catch that roaring bon-fire in the background, big enough for a human sacrifice. So what's poor skinny Turner to do when it's the muscles that reign.Fonda is perfect as the dithering husband and professor. Ditto, Carson as his egotistic rival who never does figure out where the disappearing teacup went. Their little dust-up is a hoot of physical comedy, but then Turner has picked a battleground where he's bound to lose. That's because he thinks he should do what males of the animal world do, a world where unfortunately the strongest win and he loses. Good thing he's drunk when he challenges Joe, otherwise we might wonder how he got to be a teacher in the first place.It's also a good thing for the professor that there's a more serious side to the film. And that's the realm of ideas, Turner's true battleground where he's got the muscles. The trouble is that college trustees (Palette) don't want him flexing them by reading to his class from the pages of notorious anarchist Vanzetti. In fact they threaten to fire him if he does. But Turner stays strong and defies the agents of censorship. In the process, he also wins the undying affection of a now unconflicted wife. For she recognizes there is a different kind of strength that only humans have—the strength of commitment to ideas, in this case, a respect for eloquence whatever its source. (Too bad the screenplay fudges by making the Vanzetti quote harmlessly bland in content.) So brains wins out over brawn after all and makes a good point at the same time. The movie's adapted from a James Thurber play, so some of the snappy lines along with the story's moral should not be surprising. All in all, it's an entertaining 90-minutes, both funny and thoughtful, including a good glimpse of 1940's youth (unfortunately, on the eve of a great war).

theowinthrop James Thurber is best recalled for his wonderful cartoons (mostly printed in The New Yorker magazine in the 1920s through 1950s) and his remarkably fine short stories and essays. He recently got an ultimate accolade (posthumously) by having a volume of his prose and cartoons published in "The Library of America" series. The two longest pieces of writing that he created that people remember are his short story, turned into a film, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", and his other short story turned into a television dramatization, "The Greatest Man in the World". Also his writings were the basis of a wonderful television series (in 1969 - 1970) "My World And Welcome To It" starring William Windom. Quite a bit of mileage for Thurber's work.He only (as far as I know) wrote one play. He collaborated with Elliott Nugent on THE MALE ANIMAL, a comedy set on a college campus, that dealt with the limits of free speech and academic freedom on a college campus. Tommy Turner (Henry Fonda), and English professor in a mid-western college, is happily married to Ellen (Olivia de Havilland) when two disasters hit him in one weekend. One of his students, Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson), is the editor of the college newspaper, and he writes an article praising Turner's outspokenness and encouragement of democracy, and mentioning that Turner is going to conclude a course on great epistolary (letter) writing with the final letter of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the convicted anarchist murderer(?) / martyr. This turns out to be unwelcome publicity to Tommy. Secondly it is timed for the alumni weekend, when the arrivals include the bullying head of the Board of Trustees Ed Keller (Eugene Palette) and Tommy's former rival for Ellen, Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson).Sex and the battles of the sexes play as much a role in the play as does political correctness and censorship. First off, Michael/Anderson apparently wrote the article because of his disappointment concerning his floundering romance with Patricia Stanley (Joan Leslie), who has been showing interest in the football hero of the campus Wally Myers (Don De Fore). This younger triangle mirrors the older one of Fonda, de Havilland, and Carson. Fonda is a fine teacher, but he was giving a pep talk to the disheartened Anderson. That was why he wanted to show his appreciation in writing his piece in the paper.Everyone on campus is upset by Fonda's choice of literary example. Carson (now a successful car salesman, whose marriage is rocky and he can't understand why), feels it's wrong. So does de Havilland, who can't understand why Fonda would jeopardize his job by reading that anarchistic trash. And Palette is livid - a prime example of super capitalism triumphant, he has no use for those trouble-making lefties like Vanzetti. And since Palette is the head of the Board of Trustees, his anger can't be simply brushed aside.The play has many nice moments in it - Carson and Palette reliving football glories of the past, with the winning "Statue of Liberty" play, that Fonda manages to simply reduce to absurdity that Carson is left wondering what happened when he is literally ball-less. The pep talk that Palette gives regarding messages from various people who can't come in that weekend - and how banal the messages from all of them are. The attempts by Fonda to protect De Havilland with an unsuspecting (and surprisingly honorable) Carson in case Fonda's future is over. And the climax, when the letter is read to the entire school body.It is still quite an effective movie, though not thought of among Fonda's or de Havilland's leading performances. Interestingly enough, the letter (while still a masterpiece of English prose) is now known to have been ghost written between Vanzetti and a news reporter who befriended him. But that does not take away from it's effectiveness. As a study in the pros and cons of free speech and academic freedom, you could not do wrong starting out with this film.

aromatic-2 The parallels of the Fonda-DeHavilland-Carson triangle with the younger Anderson-Leslie-DeFore triangle are played against each other to good advantage in this well-scripted and well-acted farce. DeHavilland is at her best, never losing her poise, and De Fore's scenes are hilarious. This is a movie to be enjoyed, not analyzed.

Neil Doyle Debate over whether a professor should be allowed to read a controversial letter to his class forms the subject for this spirited football vs. academics comedy originally a stage play by Elliot Nugent and James Thurber. The screen version moves briskly but it's all played at a "full steam ahead" kind of tempo popular at Warner Bros. Henry Fonda is excellent as the mild-mannered professor resentful of his wife's ex-boyfriend (a football jock) and Olivia de Havilland is radiant as his supportive wife. Jack Carson is ideally cast as the ex-football player still in love with Fonda's wife and his bombastic approach to comedy serves him well in this role. Joan Leslie is a little too coy as de Havilland's sister (a role played on the stage by Gene Tierney). It passes the time but is little more than a mildly entertaining comedy with too many dull stretches to make it truly satisfying. Fonda and de Havilland later played husband and wife again on Broadway in 'A Gift of Time' (1962). Elliot Nugent's direction is brisk but it still seems rather stagebound. Nugent himself played the role of the professor on Broadway.