Originating the Notre Dame shift at the burlesque show and the forward pass at a bathing beach, pat O'Brien, with nose pushed left, gives an entertaining but not convincing performance as "Knute Rockne--All-American." Only Ronald Reagen sparks the picture as George Gipp, Rock's greatest player. His sincere death bed histrionics make the flabby sentimentality of the last quarter of the picture worse by comparison.
Of course, biographical pictures of loved figures always tend to be maudlin. But for the first forty minutes director Lloyd Bacon resisted to such trite tricks as courtroom orations and ectoplasmic figures in the stadium, he fumbled badly in showing Rockne the man. This latter part of the picture is endurable solely because it is thoroughly punctuated with some of the best football shots on celluloid, including three defeats of Army, which may be a happy omen.
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