The Sport Parade (1932)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Major Disappointment

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Blistering performances.

Not a lot of depth to "The Sport Parade". Truth be told, nowadays the theme would be called 'threadbare and hackneyed', nowadays being 85 years later. Two college athletes are bosom buddies bur take different paths after graduation. Johnny (William Gargan) has a reliable, steady job lined up and Joel McCrea plays Sandy, the grasshopper, who is pre-occupied with women and money. He signs up with a shady sports agent who indulges him and gets him into debt. Johnny comes to the rescue with a job, which Sandy takes, along with Johnny's girl friend.But they are buddies, and the movie points up the camaraderie and good feeling between the two. If it begins to sound familiar, it is - you've seen something similar before. You can see a youthful Joel McCrea, long and lean, and lovely Marian Marsh who may be unfamiliar to modern audiences. You can also get a glimpse of life in grandpa's time, with spectators in raccoon coats and straw hats, as well as long-gone manners and mores of polite company.My star rating is in the heading as the website no longer prints mine.

We see a lot of Joel McCrea wearing very little in this entertaining movie. First as a football player in the showers, getting snapped with a towel by buddy William Gargan. McCrea has a very good build, though not that of a football player. He is a little unconvincing as a boxer, too, later on.Marian Marsh is appealing as the female love interest.Gargan and McCrea are Ivy league players. Gargan takes the high road but McCrea is lured by promises of fame and wealth. They stop being friends. Can you guess whether they make up again? Joel McCrea is one of my favorite actors in movie history and he does a fine job here. It's a different sort of role from any he played elsewhere and he does well by it.

Bill Gargan and Joel McCrea are a pair of former college athletes now sportswriters. They have a friendship which is put severely to the test over a woman, Marian Marsh. When it founders, McCrea takes up pro-wrestling and goes to work for crooked promoter Walter Catlett.As the old saying goes when you lie down with dogs you come up with fleas. It's guilt by association for our intrepid hero and McCrea has to save his reputation.Joel McCrea is probably the most moral decent hero the cinema ever produced. But his persona in the wrong director's hands and a bad script, he can venture over into Dudley Doo-Right territory. Unfortunately he does that here. But if you want to see Joel McCrea stripped to the waist in his twenties than you have some incentive to see this movie.

This had to be schlocky, even for 1932. Two four letter athletes at Dartmouth graduate, and head down separate paths, one successful, one not. They meet again, wind up working at the same job, and fighting over the same chick. Are you snoring yet ? I am. The only reason to watch this one is to see early Joel McCrea, but he made better ones than this in his early career. Nuts to the "Sport Parade". This one probably didn't make the '32 "Hit Parade".