... because from the time he appears on screen as an adult Frank Cavanaugh at age 20 at a William Jennings Bryan rally at college, he looks every bit of his 44 years. But he is not alone. Leon Ames as one of his contemporaries and a college buddy looks a little younger than O'Brien - maybe his thirties - although he is actually 40 - but throughout the years, even at Cavanaugh's deathbed when Frank is 57, Ames' character looks like he hasn't aged a day in over 35 years.
Now I know RKO was always a minor player in Hollywood - not quite poverty row but not in the big leagues either - plus I know this is basically a rework of O'Brien's Knute Rockne character adapted for a lower budget and for wartime audiences to boost morale, but I would think the make-up department would pay more attention to detail than they did.
The film starts out with seven of Cavanaugh's nine children joining the military and then looks back on his entire life. Unlike Rockne, he didn't spend his entire career at Notre Dame. He moved around from school to school, not because he was fired, but life circumstances would change. At one point he decided to go into law, so he left one coaching job. When he decided coaching really was his first love he went back to yet another school. Then along came WWI, and here is where the patriotic part comes in as a wartime audience morale booster. At first Cavanaugh is annoyed that before the U.S. even enters the war that player after player is joining up with the British or French forces, and then finally one of his ex players who has become a priest (Robert Ryan) goes overseas. This gets him to thinking about how he has everything a man could want - home, wife, family - and how he feels sometimes you have to fight for that family. So when America joins the war, even though he is in his 40s - and by now his age HAS caught up to his looks -he joins up even though he is way past the age of induction, plus he has six kids.
After war and a close brush with death on the battlefield, it is back to coaching at yet another school. Then he gets the bad news. At 50 he has just five years to live. Actually, he had seven. Thus he changes schools again, going to Fordham for a bigger salary so he can build some kind of nest egg for his family. He goes blind at the end, and though it isn't said I assumed it was from his wartime head injury, and this ends his coaching career about a year before his death. In truth, Cavanaugh was broke and blind when he died, and even urged younger men to not go into coaching.
I'm not sure why RKO picked Cavanaugh for an autobiography just three years after "Knute Rockne", using the exact same star in exactly the same type of role when the part was too young for him for most of the film. I looked up Cavanaugh's record and it wasn't extraordinary, but it wasn't bad either - 145–48–17. He did leave every team with a winning record, better or no worse than he found them, and he did find some of them in terrible shape, especially his last assignment at Fordham University. Maybe his whole life is just emblematic of the American who struggles against the odds and wins, and that's what audiences needed in 1943.
Robert Ryan has a small role here. He pops up from time to time when Frank Cavanaugh needs an ear. He is authentically genial and likable and very un-Ryan like when you think about his later roles, but he shows great promise here, and maybe the RKO studio heads noticed.
My final verdict - I'd say it is probably worth your while if it comes your way. It is part sports drama, part romance, part war story, and overall a life story of somebody not well remembered who perhaps should be.
Now I know RKO was always a minor player in Hollywood - not quite poverty row but not in the big leagues either - plus I know this is basically a rework of O'Brien's Knute Rockne character adapted for a lower budget and for wartime audiences to boost morale, but I would think the make-up department would pay more attention to detail than they did.
The film starts out with seven of Cavanaugh's nine children joining the military and then looks back on his entire life. Unlike Rockne, he didn't spend his entire career at Notre Dame. He moved around from school to school, not because he was fired, but life circumstances would change. At one point he decided to go into law, so he left one coaching job. When he decided coaching really was his first love he went back to yet another school. Then along came WWI, and here is where the patriotic part comes in as a wartime audience morale booster. At first Cavanaugh is annoyed that before the U.S. even enters the war that player after player is joining up with the British or French forces, and then finally one of his ex players who has become a priest (Robert Ryan) goes overseas. This gets him to thinking about how he has everything a man could want - home, wife, family - and how he feels sometimes you have to fight for that family. So when America joins the war, even though he is in his 40s - and by now his age HAS caught up to his looks -he joins up even though he is way past the age of induction, plus he has six kids.
After war and a close brush with death on the battlefield, it is back to coaching at yet another school. Then he gets the bad news. At 50 he has just five years to live. Actually, he had seven. Thus he changes schools again, going to Fordham for a bigger salary so he can build some kind of nest egg for his family. He goes blind at the end, and though it isn't said I assumed it was from his wartime head injury, and this ends his coaching career about a year before his death. In truth, Cavanaugh was broke and blind when he died, and even urged younger men to not go into coaching.
I'm not sure why RKO picked Cavanaugh for an autobiography just three years after "Knute Rockne", using the exact same star in exactly the same type of role when the part was too young for him for most of the film. I looked up Cavanaugh's record and it wasn't extraordinary, but it wasn't bad either - 145–48–17. He did leave every team with a winning record, better or no worse than he found them, and he did find some of them in terrible shape, especially his last assignment at Fordham University. Maybe his whole life is just emblematic of the American who struggles against the odds and wins, and that's what audiences needed in 1943.
Robert Ryan has a small role here. He pops up from time to time when Frank Cavanaugh needs an ear. He is authentically genial and likable and very un-Ryan like when you think about his later roles, but he shows great promise here, and maybe the RKO studio heads noticed.
My final verdict - I'd say it is probably worth your while if it comes your way. It is part sports drama, part romance, part war story, and overall a life story of somebody not well remembered who perhaps should be.