Salute
Directed by John Ford
Written by James Kevin McGuinness; story by Tristram Tupper and John Stone
1929/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube
Blue of the mighty deep, Gold of God’s great sun;
Let these our colors be, Till All of time be done-n-n-ne;
On seven seas we learn, Navy’s stern call:
Faith, courage, service true, With honor over, honor over all. — “Anchors Away”, U.S. Navy Anthem
To me this is more or less a curio.
The two Randall brothers were orphaned then raised by two uncles. John (George O’Brien) becomes a cadet at West Point while Paul (William Jenney) is headed to The Naval Academy. John tries creating a love triangle with Nancy (Helen Chandler) to get timid Paul to declare himself to her. The climax of the movie is the Army-Navy football game in which the brothers compete.
First off, Stepin Fetchin is in this movie. I find him totally unfunny and an insult to his race. Unfortunately, he would go on to appear in several more of Ford’s early films with Will Rogers. So that’s a big mark against it in my book.
The fun part is that this is the first Ford movie to feature O’Brien, Ward Bond, Jack Pennick (uncredited) and John Wayne(uncredited) together. They would form part of Ford’s stock company for years. Wayne organized fellow members of the USC football team to appear in the Army-Navy Game.
It’s an OK movie but certainly not one I really would ever watch again.
Tribute to George O’Brien
