MartinHafer "The Sport Parade" is strictly a quick B-movie and since Joel McCrea was pretty new to the film industry, it's not surprising he made a few cheapo films. When the story begins, Sandy Brown (McCrea) and Johnny Baker (William Gargan) are star athletes at Dartmoth. They are multi- sport heroes and their future looks grand. Johnny dreams of working for a newspaper and Sandy simply wants to get rich. What follows is a Horatio Alger-type story where Sandy eventually learns that his way is not the healthy way...and he repeatedly makes an idiot of himself until he eventually does the right thing.Overall, a mildly interesting film...at best. About the only interesting things that stand out are seeing McCrea and seeing a lot of male skin, as it's a pre-code film and titillation was big back in the day.

Michael_Elliott The Sport Parade (1932)** (out of 4) Boring sport film with a silly love story thrown in. Best friends Sandy (Joel McCrea) and Johnny (William Gargan) go through their college years as football stars at Darmouth but after their playing days they go in separate directions. Johnny gets a legit job at a newspaper while Sandy falls in with a crooked manager who tries to exploit what fame his name carries. Soon the friends are fighting over a girl (Marian Marsh) while Sandy gets into deeper trouble when he gets into wrestling. THE SPORT PARADE might have an attractive cast but this is certainly "C" movie material as the screenplay never gives us much to care about. The entire sports angle really isn't all that interesting because we're simply not given anything we haven't seen countless times before. This material was already boring by 1932 standards so it doesn't help that everything is just one cliché after another. The stock footage used for some of the sports certainly doesn't help and neither does the obvious body double during the wrestling scenes. Another major problem is that the love story is so rushed that it really does seem forced and it's hard to take it very serious. The performances are the one saving grace with McCrea doing a pretty good job in his role and I thought he was really effective during the scenes where his character realizes that he's being taken advantage of. Gargan is good as the best friend and Marsh makes good support as the love interest. We also get a nice performance by Walter Catlett as the agent and we even get Robert Benchley playing a radio announcer. THE SPORT PARADE really doesn't have much going for it so it'll only be of interest to fans of McCrea or those who never realizes that wrestling was staged.

Zipper69 The movie is no great shakes but the images of a 1930's New York are to be treasured. Six Day Bicycle Races at Madison Square Garden, the pseudo Cotton Club with "native" dancers with huge Afros and feather headdresses (no bones through the nose, fortunately), audiences for wrestling matches all in formal evening wear...magic! McCrea gives his usual sterling performance, he could show integrity with a steely glance and does well as a former Dartmouth letterman lured into pro wrestling for the easy money. Robert Benchley steals the too few scenes he is in and there is a nice contrast between the "straight arrow" world of Dartmouth and the murky world of pro-wrestling. The final match itself where McCrea is scheduled to throw the bout but instead grapples to win is poorly handled, too many shots are undercranked to make them appear more flowing and violent but succeed only in giving a Keystone Kops-like manic quality to them. Although McCrea clearly does a number of the action sequences there are also several shots where a body double takes the falls and whose shock of dark hair compares poorly with McCrea's blond locks.Since there is no Discussion Board for this movie I'll ask here - the black trainer in McCrea's corner has "Satchmo" stitched onto his sweater and he has a certain resemblance to a young Louis Armstrong, he's not credited, but COULD it be him?

marcslope It is, after all, a very Hawksian landscape -- men's men, sports, best friends vying for the same woman, a vague homoeroticism beneath. (The film historian Richard Barrios has suggested it's a heavily disguised gay fantasy, with Marian Marsh there just for convention's sake.) But Dudley Murphy, with David Selznick's blessing, goes in for terrible artsy cinematic transitions, needlessly elaborate camera-work, and an odd obsession with Harlemites (a pseudo-Cotton Club sequence that makes for highly uncomfortable viewing today). You do get the appeal of the young Joel McCrea, one of the most unassuming and likable of leading men, and there are nice, seemingly improvised bits by Robert Benchley, doing sportscaster variations on his famed "Treasurer's Report" routine. Walter Catlett pitches in, too, playing a sort of sub-Don King with his well-practiced brand of cynicism and breathless delivery. But the pacing's sluggish for an under-70-minute programmer, and the happy ending's awfully forced: Aside from the inexplicably quashed romantic rivalry, wouldn't a sequel show the mob gunning down McCrea for not throwing the fight?