THE FOOTBALL FOLLIES?

One of the biggest hits of the 1927 Broadway season was ‘Good News’, a musical that was the quintessential 20s rah-rah football celebration. As an artifact, the 1930 film adaptation is priceless due largely to the poor quality of the filmmaking. As you’ll see above in the show’s most famous song ‘Varsity Drag’, the stone-age flat style of shooting enables us to fully immerse ourselves in what it was like to be in the 46th Street theater watching a Broadway musical in 1927. Yes, there’s one showy camera crane move (and a very strange bit of animation) but the high view we briefly get gives us a sense of sitting in the balcony. We are watching preserved evidence of what theatergoing looked and felt like one-hundred years ago. Though the film is in black and white there apparently was a color finale. Alas, that reel is lost. So, apparently, is the reason why Harry Earle steps out of a garbage can at the end of the number. You’ll have to watch it to know what the hell I’m talking about…

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