richspenc I don't usually rate films from this era as low as a 5, and I more often rate 21st century movies a 5 or lower. I am not saying all 21st century stuff is bad. Movies that have come out in the 21st century that I loved and thought were great included "Black swan", "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind", "The pianist", "Girl with a dragon tattoo", "The Aviator", and "The curious case of Benjamin Buttons". I also thought the Harry Potter films were great.Generally speaking though in my opinion, old times were better, in films and in real life. My list of great films I love from The Golden Age of Hollywood is pages long. I am not saying old times were perfect, nothing is. "Varsity show" was definitely not perfect. It was one of Busby's "slump films", which were three films he made during a bad spot during his life (the bad spot was Busby having accidentally killed someone in a car wreck and he was initially tried for murder). His three slump films were "Hollywood hotel", "Varsity show", and "Gold diggers Paris". Those three films lacked the magic of his usual wonder and had some characters in them which were more weird and stupid acting than what was in Busby's normal greatness. The opening scenes I saw a familiar face in the late 1930s college crowd. A funny looking long toothed man who I had seen an older version of as a weird TV repair man in 1962 Twilight zone episode "Whats in the box". The man who voiced Whinny the pooh in the 1960s cartoon Whinny the pooh. He was about 19 here and was one of the students among others such as Johnnie Davis and pretty Rosemary Lane. Rosemary was pretty and nice, and was joined by Dick Powell who is been in almost every 1930s Busby Berkeley film. But Powell lost his touch a little here compared to his earlier stuff. "Gold diggers 37" was the first film where Powell wasn't as great as before (his first number of that film "speakin of the weather. Lighning flash!" did not have the same magic that his songs from "Gold diggers 33", "Gold diggers 35", "Dames", etc. had), although "Gold diggers 37" did have one wonderful song with the magic like in the previous films, which was the song at the party "Let's get our heads together" (even that song had one bad little spot that didn't fit with the magic of the rest of the song, and that was when two weird guys at the bar sung a line of the song in weird voices. That one tiny moment was unfortunately a preview of what was gonna happen a bit more during Busby's slump films which included "Varsity show"). "Lets get our heads together" in "Gold diggers 37" was the last wonderful piece of Busby magic until he bounced back again (due to his murder trials being acquitted) and made the wonderful Judy Garland films, starting with "Babes in arms" in 1939. Powell here in "Varsity show" was eloped with Rosemary. She was cute and nice, but she wasn't as totally amazing and heavenly wonderful like Powell's earlier partners Ruby Keeler and Gloria Stewart. Ruby was an angel, especially "I only have eyes for you", "Like a waterfall", "Pettin in the park", etc., and Gloria was an angel in "Gold diggers 35's" "The words are in my heart"."Varsity show" wasn't absolutely terrible. It was just a slump film which lacked the magic from Busby's better times, which fortunately was the higher percentage of his career. There one really miserable guy, who was a slump film style character. First, he yelled at all the kids to get out of the theater and then they just sat down and laughed. And then he got the police, but when they got there they just sat down and enjoyed the show. Then the miserable guy got the swat team, but they only joined the police to watch. Then he got the military armed forces, then the governor. They all did the same while this miserable guy's mounting frustration grew while no one else shared it. Most people knew that shows in the 1930s were nice to watch. This film was, I will call it mediocre.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . sing America's school kids exactly 22 minutes, 21 seconds into VARSITY SHOW, as Warner Bros. anticipates Betsy DeVos' amazing feat in surpassing even Kellyanne Conway for the title of "The Most Deplorable Woman in America" 80 years before the fact. "How do you handle a problem like DeVorhea?" these Warner warning singers might as well paraphrase the Mother Superior from THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Warner Bros. suggests that squatting in mass sit-ins will be the best way. When the kids take over the Fat Cat's "Stuyvesant Theatre" toward the end of VARSITY SHOW, no one can dislodge them. The regular NYPD cops fail. The Riot Squad fails. Even the rifle-toting New York National Guard fails. These scores of men ALL remember their High School Civics Classes (which Betsy DeVour, of course, would eliminate and outlaw) which taught them that their Oath to Uphold America's Constitution AGAINST DOMESTIC ENEMIES such as Pathologically Lying Fake News-Inventing Job-Killing Election-Rigging Depression-Causing Murderous Greedhead Republicans Trumps any of these Red Commie KGB Usurpers' allegedly legal orders. It's okay to Begin the Resistance with Nonviolent Sit-ins, Warner advises us here, but at the FIRST DROP of Blue Collar or Student Blood it's a case of All Hands on Deck to TAKE BACK America by Any Means Necessary!

Jimmy L. Mindless fluff, but a lot of fun all the way through. Busby Berkeley sure knew a thing or two about troop formations. This 1930s Warner Bros. musical/comedy features a fresh cast, including Priscilla Lane, Sterling Holloway, Johnnie "Scat" Davis, Mabel Todd, and Rosemary Lane as college kids. Dick Powell is an alumnus enlisted to help stage the school show, with Ted Healy along for the ride. Lots of 1930s-era college silliness, with freshman caps, fraternity pins, sorority houses, school pride and all that. Berkeley choreographs the rah-rah finale, while the "plot" is never entirely resolved. Priscilla Lane is very cute as an enthusiastic coed and older sister Rosemary Lane is very pretty as the romantic lead.

mark.waltz I'm really surprised that the students of Winfield College don't all of a sudden break into a chorus of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's "Babes in Arms" which was on Broadway the same year this came out. That's what they are, and as the group of students gather together to protest professor Walter Catlett's involvement in their campus varsity show over alumnus and troubled Broadway director Dick Powell, you expect them to start a marching song. There's the irony of Powell recalling a student he remembers being there as a junior when he was a freshman which is the writer's way of indicating that they know there are a few 30-somethings there. Real-life sisters Rosemary and Priscilla Lane who played rivals in "Hollywood Hotel" and then sisters in "Four Daughters" and its two sequels, are among the students who appear to be more ready for the New York nightclub scene than a small town college classroom.Johnnie Davis, the comic singer who introduced "Horray For Hollywood", actually passes for college age, singing "Old King Cole" with energetic aplomb as if he stepped off the stages of the Cotton Club as their only Caucasian performer. Buck and Bubbles give the much-needed energy to their dancing numbers, fast-moving legwork that is quite impressive. Ever-ageless Sterling Holloway provides much humor, his sly wisecracks indicating he's a bit worldly beyond his supposed college aged years. Ted Healy gives a Lionel Stander like cynicism to his performance as Powell's manager. Powell doesn't sing much here, and other than the lavish finale, there aren't any other big production numbers. When the students march into a vacant Broadway theater and start rehearsing against the ranting wishes of theater manager Edward Brophy, the eyes will start to roll. Even in 1937, it doesn't seem at all believable that a Broadway house would be as available to do something like that.Then, there's the BIG, BIG, BIG finale, a lavish spectacle that is far taller than it is wide. The camera keeps scrolling down to the various acts which start with a great bit by Buck and Bubbles before moving to the ensemble of the students. Then, nasal voiced Mabel Todd begins tossing a football to the chorus to open them up to indicate various Ivy League colleges as they create the various logos and sing the campus theme songs. It's all hokey yet undeniably fun. The film lacks in romantic subplot, and at times, seems more like a musical revue than a musical comedy.