1936's "Rose Bowl" is no different from other football-oriented campus programmers popular from the 20s to the 50s. Cheers Reynolds (Eleanor Whitney) is the center of a romantic triangle between star player Ossie Merrill (Buster Crabbe) and substitute quarterback Paddy O'Riley (Tom Brown), all hailing from Bellport Ohio. Ossie goes off to California's Sierra College, while Paddy stays closer to home at Green Ridge, hitting it off with fullback Dutch Schultz (Benny Baker), who's got a thing for actress Florence Taylor (Priscilla Lawson). Florence goes along with a scheme to build up publicity for Green Ridge to represent the East against Sierra in the Rose Bowl, where coach Soapy Moreland (William Frawley) has to work without an injured Dutch and suspended Paddy. Top billed Eleanor Whitney was at least a native of Cleveland Ohio, but her short career lasted just three years. Small unbilled roles for Joe Sawyer as an announcer, Milburn Stone as the Green Ridge band member holding a clarinet, Ellen Drew, Dennis O'Keefe, and among the football players, Robert Paige and Lon Chaney. An earlier Paramount, "Hold 'Em Yale," had Chaney as an uncredited extra sitting on the bench with several other football players, while here he actually gets to share a scene with Buster Crabbe 64 minutes in, a fellow member of the favored Sierra team, boasting about Paddy O'Riley's absence from the big game: "O'Riley never was a threat anyway, you stop that sideline gallop of his and you stop O'Riley!"
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