Sweetheart of the Campus (1941)
Director:
Edward Dmytryk
Writers:
Robert Hardy Andrews (screenplay), Edmund L. Hartmann
Stars:
Ruby Keeler, Ozzie Nelson, Harriet Hilliard, Gordon Oliver, Don Beddoe, Charles Judels
Ruby Keeler made her final screen starring appearance in the Columbia musical Sweetheart of the Campus. Keeler plays Betty Blake, lead vocalist for Ozzie Nelson's orchestra. While performing a one-night stand at a college campus, Betty vows to prevent a hostile takeover of the establishment by puritanical trustee Minnie Sparr (Kathleen Howard). To this end, Betty, Ozzie and his entire band enroll as college students. The best musical number finds star Keeler tap-dancing to a boogie-woogie rhythm, while cinematographer Franz Planer indulges in all manner of innovative camera angles and process trickery. Also in the cast as co-ed cutie Harriet Hale is Harriet Hilliard, real-life wife of costar Ozzie Nelson.