The Iron Major (1943) User Reviews

A Poor Man's Knute Rockne

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 20 September 2004]

One must remember that this film came out in the middle of World War II and Hollywood was busy churning out propaganda flicks like they were going out of style. Frank Cavanaugh was a noted football coach pre and post World War I and in that war he enlisted and became a wounded hero.

Pat O'Brien had left Warner Brothers a few years earlier and signed with RKO. One of his last films there was Knute Rockne - All American which was probably his most famous part. I've listened to recordings of Rockne who was famous for his locker room pep speeches and in truth he does sound like Pat O'Brien which made O'Brien such a felicitous choice in casting.

So O'Brien was stereotyped, he played fast talking press agents, managers, reporters etc., in most of his films so he had it down pat. (pun intended) The only time O'Brien slowed down was when he played priests.

It's not that the Iron Major is a bad film, but it broke no new ground. I don't know if the real Frank Cavanaugh was like, maybe he was like Pat O'Brien. I got the impression that O'Brien was just feeling like he'd done this all before.

One thing that truly annoyed me though was, why were they so mysterious about the disease that killed him. We know he was wounded in World War I, he apparently developed some complications that killed him in the mid-thirties, but RKO chose for whatever reasons to be purposely vague about it.

I asked someone I know who's two generations removed from me to watch the film. He was a high school football player and that kind of film left him cold. So I suppose Frank Cavanaugh if people remember him now will await a better biographical film.

Pat O'Brien as the world's oldest living college freshman...

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 15 May 2016]

... because from the time he appears on screen as an adult Frank Cavanaugh at age 20 at a William Jennings Bryan rally at college, he looks every bit of his 44 years. But he is not alone. Leon Ames as one of his contemporaries and a college buddy looks a little younger than O'Brien - maybe his thirties - although he is actually 40 - but throughout the years, even at Cavanaugh's deathbed when Frank is 57, Ames' character looks like he hasn't aged a day in over 35 years.

Now I know RKO was always a minor player in Hollywood - not quite poverty row but not in the big leagues either - plus I know this is basically a rework of O'Brien's Knute Rockne character adapted for a lower budget and for wartime audiences to boost morale, but I would think the make-up department would pay more attention to detail than they did.

The film starts out with seven of Cavanaugh's nine children joining the military and then looks back on his entire life. Unlike Rockne, he didn't spend his entire career at Notre Dame. He moved around from school to school, not because he was fired, but life circumstances would change. At one point he decided to go into law, so he left one coaching job. When he decided coaching really was his first love he went back to yet another school. Then along came WWI, and here is where the patriotic part comes in as a wartime audience morale booster. At first Cavanaugh is annoyed that before the U.S. even enters the war that player after player is joining up with the British or French forces, and then finally one of his ex players who has become a priest (Robert Ryan) goes overseas. This gets him to thinking about how he has everything a man could want - home, wife, family - and how he feels sometimes you have to fight for that family. So when America joins the war, even though he is in his 40s - and by now his age HAS caught up to his looks -he joins up even though he is way past the age of induction, plus he has six kids.

After war and a close brush with death on the battlefield, it is back to coaching at yet another school. Then he gets the bad news. At 50 he has just five years to live. Actually, he had seven. Thus he changes schools again, going to Fordham for a bigger salary so he can build some kind of nest egg for his family. He goes blind at the end, and though it isn't said I assumed it was from his wartime head injury, and this ends his coaching career about a year before his death. In truth, Cavanaugh was broke and blind when he died, and even urged younger men to not go into coaching.

I'm not sure why RKO picked Cavanaugh for an autobiography just three years after "Knute Rockne", using the exact same star in exactly the same type of role when the part was too young for him for most of the film. I looked up Cavanaugh's record and it wasn't extraordinary, but it wasn't bad either - 145–48–17. He did leave every team with a winning record, better or no worse than he found them, and he did find some of them in terrible shape, especially his last assignment at Fordham University. Maybe his whole life is just emblematic of the American who struggles against the odds and wins, and that's what audiences needed in 1943.

Robert Ryan has a small role here. He pops up from time to time when Frank Cavanaugh needs an ear. He is authentically genial and likable and very un-Ryan like when you think about his later roles, but he shows great promise here, and maybe the RKO studio heads noticed.

My final verdict - I'd say it is probably worth your while if it comes your way. It is part sports drama, part romance, part war story, and overall a life story of somebody not well remembered who perhaps should be.

Football, war and law, and not necessarily in that order!

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 13 August 2012]

This is a rather simplistic drama of the life of a hero-to his family, in the courtroom, on the field, and in battle. It has great intentions and it sweetly done, but seems to be a retread of "Knute Rockne, All American" without the magic. Pat O'Brien plays basically the same part, sincerely and simply, so it is not really a challenge. The beautiful Ruth Warrick is always great to see, but no matter how lovely she was in real life, the movie camera always made her seem harder than she really was. Untilmately, the film really isn't any more fetching than a picture postcard, well intended by its author, but nothing that makes its impact long lasting.

It is interesting to note that O'Brien's on-screen parents seem old enough to be his grandparents, a cliché in many old movies. As long as kids were young, their on-screen parents seem more of a realistic age but how many 20 somethings in these movies have parents that seem to be in their 60's? Another interesting (more positive) note is how O'Brien runs his army troop like a football team and his football team like an army troop.

Fair Bio Drama

[Michael_Elliott · 27 November 2009]

Iron Major, The (1943)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

By the numbers bio pic from RKO features Pat O'Brien in the role of William 'Frank' Cavanaugh, a top football coach who gave up his career to enter WWI where he became a hero. After the war he went back to coaching where he ended up having one of the best winning percentages in football history. There are some nice things about this bio pic but in the end there's just too many familiar items to make it a complete winner. You can also clearly see that RKO didn't have too much money to spend because there's way too much stock footage from either earlier silent movies or just newsreels. This is an extremely big problem when we're watching one of the footballs games and we're suppose to be caught up in what's going on but we're just seeing stock footage with cutaways to O'Brien sitting on the sideline. This certainly takes one out of the action and this also happens during the war scenes. Some of the war scenes contain actual footage and these moments are among the best in the film as O'Brien does a very good job at motivating his men before going into battle. These speeches are also very well handled by the actor in terms of the football talk as he easily films the coach role as he did earlier in COLLEGE COACH and of course KNUTE ROCKNE, ALL American. He's fine in the role as is Ruth Warrick and Robert Ryan in their supporting roles. The film moves along at a pretty good speed but one can't help but feel there's no real direction going on as the film is all over the place in what it's trying to do. At one point it wants to be a football film. The next minutes a complete bio of the man. The next minute it's hyping up the patriotic tone, which is understandable considering what was going on when the movie was originally released. None of the three things really come together and in the end we're left with a movie that offers nothing new to the genre.

Too much stock footage!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 13 February 2018]

Copyright 27 October 1943 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Globe: 31 October 1943. U.S. release: 23 October 1943. Australian release: 4 May 1944. Length: 7,918 feet. 88 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Pat O'Brien plays the legendary coach, Frank Cavanaugh. Raising a family of 10 children and coming home from WWI a major, Cavanaugh believed in three things - "love of God, country, and family." Needless to say, Cavanaugh consistently took his teams to victory, otherwise Hollywood would not have bothered to make rhe film at all, no matter how much he loved God, country and family.

COMMENT: A marvelous music score by Roy Webb (directed by C. Bakaleinikoff), is not altogether smothered by Ray Enright's dull direction and the jingoistic screenplay concocted by Aben Kandel and Warren Duff from an original story by Florence E. Cavanaugh herself.

Although production values are otherwise good, liberal use is made of stock footage. This footage is used very effectively in a number of montage sequences, but it is disconcerting to find the climactic football game entirely composed of stock. Perhaps money ran out and it had to be done on the cheap. In any event, the first half of the film is far superior to the second half. Even rabid football fans are likely to be disappointed by the penny-pinching climax and ordinary fans will likewise be irritated by the script's dated message "to get out there and fight!"

Still, Roy Webb's music score is absolutely terrific.

Been there, done that...

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 16 February 2009]

Pat O'Brien made at least three films where he played a college football coach. The first, COLLEGE COACH, was amazing because O'Brien stood for the exact opposite of his character in KNUTE ROCKNE. Instead of clean living and sportsmanship, in COLLEGE COACH, O'Brien emphasized that you should do anything to win...anything!! While this message was simply awful, the film was so vile in its message that you can't help but watch. Later, with KNUTE ROCKNE, the image was now squeaky clean and the film went on to become an iconic classic. So with these two films under his belt, why would anyone want to make yet a third film--especially when it is essentially KNUTE ROCKNE all over again?! Yep, the reason must be money! It can't be because the story in the IRON MAJOR is compelling--because frankly it isn't. In fact, I can't think of a single reason for O'Brien to have made what is essentially "KNUTE ROCKNE II" other than the money!

The film purports to be the story of one of the winningest coaches in college football history. Frank Cavanaugh had an incredible .731 winning percentage and did a lot to improve the game in the early 20th century. But to base an entire film around the man was a mistake, as his life story wasn't that interesting or unique. Plus, throughout the film, I couldn't help but notice that Cavanaugh couldn't keep a job--bouncing from school to school. If he was so great, why did he coach for six different programs? His nobility (which Warner Brothers tried so hard to point out) didn't seem so great and he never really was an institution at any of the schools. And, as a consequence, he's all but forgotten today. And, with KNUTE ROCKNE getting so much attention, THE IRON MAJOR is also pretty much forgotten today.

Watchable but frankly (get it?), you'd be better off watching one of O'Brien's other football films instead.

Come on Hollywood -- don't insult us!

[[e-mail] · 5/10 · 14 November 2009]

I understand that after the success of Knute Rockne, O'Brien had a monopoly on playing beloved yet star-crossed football coaches. But here he is supposedly a Darmouth undergrad and O'Brien is a ripe old 48 -- with a hairline to match his age. With all the makeup magic available in Hollywood -- even in 1943 -- couldn't they have done something to make him look a little younger? The only answer is that the producers felt they didn't have to change anything -- that our affection for O'Brien would allow us to accept him in any role. That's a lack of respect for your audience -- and for the actor, who with a little bit of fake hair would have been fine.

I am an admirer of O'Brien's work -- who wouldn't be -- and I understand he was just doing his part as an employee. But the studio really let him -- and us -- down this time.