Coach Frank Cavanaugh returns to college football after World War I, then gradually goes blind.Coach Frank Cavanaugh returns to college football after World War I, then gradually goes blind.Coach Frank Cavanaugh returns to college football after World War I, then gradually goes blind.
Kirk Alyn
- John Cavanaugh
- (uncredited)
Robert Andersen
- Minor Role
- (uncredited)
Steve Barclay
- Football Player
- (uncredited)
Brandon Beach
- George - Dartmouth Alumnus
- (uncredited)
Brooks Benedict
- Dartmouth Alumnus
- (uncredited)
Dean Benton
- William Cavanaugh
- (uncredited)
Robert Benton
- Football Player
- (uncredited)
Robert Bice
- High School Coach
- (uncredited)
Louis Borel
- French Officer
- (uncredited)
Bonnie Braunger
- Baby
- (uncredited)
Virginia Brissac
- Mrs. Ayres
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThrough the latter stages of the film it is shown that Cavanaugh was losing his sight. However, a fact not revealed is that when he died he was also broke. According to "Tales from the Boston College Sideline" (Reid Oslin) he warned former player Joe McKenney (later a coach) to "get out of coaching while you can - the end of every coaching career is disaster."
- GoofsIn the Fordham=NYU game the announcer reports that Fordham scores a touchdown, putting them ahead 13-0. Watching the visual image, however, clearly shows that the player is stopped 3 or 4 yards short of the touchdown, and the crowd does not respond to any touchdown.
- Crazy creditsRKO Pictures wishes to gratefully acknowledge the gracious cooperation of ... and Major Frank Cavanaugh's legion of friends and admirers.
- SoundtracksAcademic Festival Overture Op. 80
(1880) (uncredited)
Written by Johannes Brahms
In the score during the acknowledgement of college cooperation
Featured review
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.
** 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.
- Michael_Elliott
- Nov 26, 2009
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime1 hour 25 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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