A Yank at Oxford | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Jack Conway |
Written by | Roland Pertwee John Monk Saunders Leon Gordon Sidney Gilliat Michael Hogan Angus MacPhail John Paddy Carstairs |
Screenplay by | Malcolm Stuart Boylan Walter Ferris George Oppenheimer Frank Wead F. Scott Fitzgerald |
Produced by | Michael Balcon |
Starring | Robert Taylor Lionel Barrymore Maureen O'Sullivan Vivien Leigh Edmund Gwenn |
Cinematography | Harold Rosson |
Edited by | Margaret Booth Charles Frend |
Music by | Hubert Bath Edward Ward |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Loew's Inc [1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 102 minutes |
Countries | United Kingdom United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,374,000 [2] |
Box office | $2,736,000 [2] |
A Yank at Oxford is a 1938 comedy-drama film directed by Jack Conway and starring Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Vivien Leigh and Edmund Gwenn. The screenplay was written by John Monk Saunders and Leon Gordon. The film was produced by MGM-British at Denham Studios.
A Yank at Oxford was Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor's first film appearance together; they would later appear as the romantic lead couple in the remake of Waterloo Bridge (1940). Before this film, Taylor was seen as the "romantic love interest" and thus as a 1930s equivalent to Rudolph Valentino, with men therefore starting to doubt Taylor's masculinity. His casting in this film (by Mayer) was a successful attempt to put paid to such doubts, and dramatically boosted his reputation with both men and women. [3]
A cocky American athlete named Lee Sheridan (Robert Taylor) receives a scholarship to attend Cardinal College, University of Oxford in 1937. At first, Lee is reluctant to go to the college owing to his father, Dan's, (Lionel Barrymore) limited income, but he finally does attend. Once in England, Lee brags about his athletic triumphs to Paul Beaumont (Griffith Jones), Wavertree (Robert Coote), and Ramsey (Peter Croft) on the train to Oxford. Annoyed, they trick Lee into getting off the train at the wrong stop. Lee, however, does make his way to Oxford where the students attempt to trick him again, this time into thinking that he is getting a grand reception. Seeing through the deception, he follows the prankster impersonating the Dean and after chasing him is thrown off and ends up kicking the real Dean of Cardinal (Edmund Gwenn) before retreating. This begins a contentious relationship between them when Lee reports to apologize.
Lee considers leaving Oxford but stays on after being convinced by Scatters (Edward Rigby), his personal servant. Lee meets Elsa Craddock (Vivien Leigh), a married woman who "helps" the new campus students, and starts a relationship with Paul Beaumont's sister Molly (Maureen O'Sullivan). Lee makes the track team by outpacing other runners while wearing a cap and gown. Just when he begins to fit in, he is hazed for refusing to rest during a crucial relay race at a track meet and pushing his replacement Paul out of the way in his zeal to win. In a fit of anger, Lee goes to a pub, which students are forbidden to frequent, to confront Paul, finding him in a private booth with Elsa. He starts a fight with Paul but Wavertree warns them of the arrival of the Oxford University police, the "Bullers". Lee and Paul run and when they are almost caught by one of the Bullers, Lee punches him. Paul is called before the Dean, who fines him and warns him for hitting the Buller. He is scorned for revealing it was Lee who did it, and Lee is soon the favorite of Paul's old friends. Molly begins to see Lee again, but he still feels regretful for what has happened between him and Paul.
Lee begins rowing for Oxford University Boat Club and in the bumps race for Cardinal's boat club, tries to make amends to Paul after winning a race, but Paul rejects the offer of friendship. Despite this, Lee still helps Paul by hiding Elsa in his own room when Elsa is looking for Paul. The Dean catches the two of them together and expels Lee from Oxford. Lee's father, Dan, comes for the races having not heard of Lee's expulsion from Oxford University. When Lee tells him that he had been having an affair with Elsa, Dan believes he is lying. Judging from Lee's effusive letters about Molly, he feels that Lee could not possibly have had an affair with Elsa.
Dan meets with Molly and the two devise a plan to get Lee back into college. Dan meets with Elsa at the bookstore and convinces her to talk to the Dean. After flirting with the Dean and telling him that Lee was only hiding her from Wavertree, Lee is allowed back into Oxford and Wavertree, who has spent the entire story trying to be expelled so he can come into an inheritance, receives to his disappointment only a minor punishment. Lee and Paul make amends and win the boat race.
A Yank at Oxford was MGM's first British production, with MGM head Louis B. Mayer taking a personal interest in casting. [4] He visited the set several times. British playwright Roland Pertwee was one of several uncredited writers, and F. Scott Fitzgerald also spent three weeks working on the script, touching up rough points and adding pieces of dialogue. Mayer and Balcon later got into a fight on set, within earshot of Vivien Leigh and Maureen O'Sullivan, that led to Balcon resigning as the producer. [5]
To the surprise of other actors, Taylor was able to do all of the physical scenes himself, especially running and rowing. [6] He had competed in track and field as a student at Doane College. [7]
At first, Mayer was reluctant to cast the then little known Vivien Leigh in the role of Elsa Craddock, until persuaded by Michael Balcon, who stated that she was already living in Britain and it would cost much more to fly someone else out to England. [8] During the filming of A Yank at Oxford, Leigh gained a reputation for being "difficult" to work with. According to her biographer Alexander Walker, Leigh felt judged by Maureen O'Sullivan, whom she had befriended years earlier at school, because O'Sullivan was happily married and Leigh was in the midst of an affair with Laurence Olivier and awaiting word of a divorce from her first husband, Leigh Holman. Therefore, the relationship was "strained." Also Leigh had developed a foot problem whereupon she asked to go to London to seek treatment. As Leigh was preparing to leave, the wardrobe department cut a hole in her shoes so that her toe would be at ease. [9]
According to Leigh, she was forced to pay for her own shoes and demanded that MGM help her make some of the payments. On the other hand, MGM said that they bought all of Leigh's shoes and she didn't have to pay a penny on the film. Because of the dispute, her manager, Alexander Korda, sent Leigh a message stating that if her behaviour did not improve, he would not renew her contract. Leigh's behaviour did shape up and her contract was renewed. [10]
Some film historians believe A Yank at Oxford was instrumental in Vivien Leigh being noticed by David O. Selznick for Gone with the Wind . [11] Regardless of her prior behavior, Leigh managed to make her way through the filming of A Yank at Oxford without much additional acrimony and made an impression on her costar, Robert Taylor. [12] Taylor returned to Hollywood talking about the great English actress he had worked with and suggested to Selznick, who was still searching for his Scarlett O'Hara, that they ought to look at her. [13]
A Yank at Oxford was reviewed by Frank S. Nugent in The New York Times as a "pleasant spoof." He wrote that the film "turns out to be an uncommonly diverting show. It can't be the story, for we've read the one about the old college spirit before. ... It must be the accents, the caps and gown, the cycles and the remarkably credible chaps Metro hired to play dean and tutor, scout and students. When the camera turns upon them you can jolly well smell the fog, you know." [14]
The film review in Variety concentrated on Taylor's appeal. "Robert Taylor brings back from Oxford an entertaining rah-rah film which is full of breathless quarter-mile dashes, heartbreaking boat race finishes and surefire sentiment—Metro's first British-made film under Hollywood supervision and with Hollywood principals and director." [15]
A Yank at Oxford and A Yank at Eton (1942), portrayed the British in a mainly positive light, and set the scene for other films that were financially successful in both the United States and the United Kingdom during the war years. [16] The film was later parodied in the Laurel and Hardy film A Chump at Oxford (1940) and remade as Oxford Blues (1984) .
According to MGM records, the film earned $1,291,000 in the US and Canada and $1,445,000 elsewhere resulting in a profit of $513,000. [2]
Vivien Leigh, styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich (1963). Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th-greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema.
David Copperfield is a 1935 American film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer based upon Charles Dickens' 1850 novel The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger.
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in Grand Hotel (1932), as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934), and his title role in The Champ (1931), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 films during a 36-year career. His contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stipulated in 1932 that he would be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio. This made Beery the highest-paid film actor in the world during the early 1930s. He was the brother of actor Noah Beery and uncle of actor Noah Beery Jr.
The year 1938 in film involved some significant events.
Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was an Irish actress who played Jane in the Tarzan series of films during the era of Johnny Weissmuller. She starred in dozens of feature films across a span of more than half a century and performed with such actors as Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo, Fredric March, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, the Marx Bros. and Woody Allen. In 2020, she was listed at number eight on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Robert Taylor was an American film and television actor and singer who was one of the most popular leading men of cinema.
Sir Michael Elias Balcon was an English film producer known for his leadership of Ealing Studios in west London from 1938 to 1955. Under his direction, the studio became one of the most important British film studios of the day. In an industry short of Hollywood-style moguls, Balcon emerged as a key figure, and an obdurately British one too, in his benevolent, somewhat headmasterly approach to the running of a creative organization. He is known for his leadership, and his guidance of young Alfred Hitchcock.
Edmund Gwenn was an English actor. On film, he is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe and another Academy Award nomination for the comedy film Mister 880 (1950). He is also remembered for his appearances in four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
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Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic historical romance film adapted from the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell. The film was produced by David O. Selznick of Selznick International Pictures and directed by Victor Fleming. Set in the American South against the backdrop of the Civil War and the Reconstruction era, the film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, following her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes, who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, and her subsequent marriage to Rhett Butler.
Elephant Walk is a 1954 American drama film produced by Paramount Pictures, directed by William Dieterle, and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Andrews, Peter Finch and Abraham Sofaer. It is based upon the 1948 novel Elephant Walk by "Robert Standish", the pseudonym of the English novelist Digby George Gerahty (1898–1981).
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A Yank at Eton is an American comedy-drama film directed by Norman Taurog for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Mickey Rooney, Ian Hunter, and Peter Lawford. Released in 1942, it is a kind of junior thematic sequel to MGM's British-made film A Yank at Oxford (1938). Edmund Gwenn, who played a school official in the earlier film, has a similar role in this one. A Yank at Eton was filmed entirely in the United States.
Stand By for Action is a 1942 American black-and-white U.S. Navy war film from MGM, directed by Robert Z. Leonard, and starring Robert Taylor, Brian Donlevy, Charles Laughton, Walter Brennan. Marilyn Maxwell made her film debut in this feature. Suggested by a story by Laurence Kirk, and with an original story by Captain Harvey Haislip and R. C. Sherriff, the film's screenplay was written by George Bruce, John L. Balderston, and Herman J. Mankiewicz.
And One Was Beautiful is a 1940 American romantic drama film directed by Robert B. Sinclair and starring Robert Cummings, Laraine Day, and Jean Muir. It is based on the story of the same name by Alice Duer Miller. Two sisters are attracted to a rich playboy. One runs over and kills a man, and lets the playboy take the blame.
The Bishop Misbehaves is a 1935 American comedy crime film directed by E. A. Dupont and starring Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Sullivan and Lucile Watson. It was based on the 1934 play of the same title by Frederick J. Jackson. Dupont made the film after signing a one-film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, having made his first American sound film the year before with Universal Pictures. It is also known by the alternative title The Bishop's Misadventures.
Things Are Looking Up is a 1935 British musical comedy film directed by Albert de Courville, produced by Michael Balcon for Gaumont British and starring Cicely Courtneidge, Max Miller and William Gargan. It was made at Islington Studios by British Gaumont, an affiliate of Gainsborough Pictures. The film's sets were designed by Alex Vetchinsky. The film was distributed by Gaumont British Distributors.
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