A Yank at Oxford

A Yank at Oxford (1938) is a British film directed by Jack Conway from a screenplay by John Monk Saunders and Leon Gordon. It was produced by MGM-British atDenham Studios and stars Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Vivien Leigh and Edmund Gwenn.

A Yank at Oxford pairs Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor as a romantic lead couple, a configuration repeated in the remake of Waterloo Bridge (1940). Before this film, Taylor was seen as the "romantic love interest" and thus as a 1930s equivalent to Rudolph Valentino, with men therefore starting to doubt Taylor's masculinity. His casting in this film (by Mayer) was a successful attempt to put paid to such doubts, and dramatically boosted his reputation with both men and women.

Contents

 * 1 Plot
 * 2 Cast
 * 3 Production
 * 4 Reception
 * 4.1 Box office
 * 5 See also
 * 6 References
 * 7 External links

Plot
A cocky American named Lee Sheridan (Robert Taylor) receives a scholarship to attend Cardinal College, Oxford University in 1937. At first, Lee is reluctant to go to the college owing to his father Dan's (Lionel Barrymore) limited income, but he finally does attend. Once in England, Lee brags about his athletic triumphs to Paul Beaumont (Griffith Jones), Wavertree (Robert Coote), and Ramsey (Peter Croft) on the train to Oxford. Annoyed, they trick Lee into getting off the train at the wrong stop. Lee, however, does make his way to Oxford where the students attempt to trick him again, this time into thinking that he is getting a grand reception. Seeing through the deception, he follows the prankster impersonating the Dean and after chasing him is thrown off and ends up kicking the real Dean of Cardinal (Edmund Gwenn) before retreating.

Lee considers leaving Oxford but stays on after being convinced by Scatters (Edward Rigby), his personal servant. Lee meets Elsa Craddock (Vivien Leigh), a married woman who "helps" the new campus students, and starts a relationship with Paul Beaumont's sister Molly (Maureen O'Sullivan). Lee makes the track team and just when he begins to fit in, he is hazed for pushing Paul out of the way during a track meet when asked to rest. In a fit of anger, Lee goes to a local bar and finds Paul in a private booth with Elsa. He starts to fight with Paul when Wavertree comes in and warns them of campus officials coming. Lee and Paul run and when they are almost caught by one of the campus officials Lee punches him. Wavertree tells his friends that he saw Paul throw the punch and it is Paul who gets in trouble for hitting the official. He is scorned for saying it was Lee who punched him and Lee is soon the favorite of Paul's old friends. Molly begins to see him again, but Lee still feels poor for what has happened between her and Paul.

Lee begins rowing for Oxford University Boat Club and in the bumps race for Cardinal's boat club, tries to make amends to Paul after winning a race, but Paul rejects the offer of friendship. Though his offer of friendship was rejected, Lee still helps Paul by hiding Elsa in his own room when Elsa is looking for Paul. The Dean catches the two of them together and expels Lee from Oxford. Lee's father comes for the races having not heard of Lee's expulsion from Oxford University. When Lee tells him that he had been having an affair with Elsa, Dan believes he is lying. Judging from Lee's letters about Molly he feels that Lee could not possibly have had an affair with Elsa due to the way he feels about Molly. Dan meets with Molly and the two devise a plan to get Lee back into college. Dan meets with Elsa at the bookstore and convinces her to talk to the Dean. After flirting with the Dean and telling him that Lee was only hiding her from Wavertree, Lee is allowed back into Oxford and Wavertree, who wants to be expelled for an inheritance from his uncle, receives, to his disappointment, only a minor punishment. Lee and Paul make amends and win the boat race.

Cast[edit]

 * Robert Taylor as Lee Sheridan
 * Lionel Barrymore as Dan Sheridan
 * Maureen O'Sullivan as Molly Beaumont
 * Vivien Leigh as Elsa Craddock
 * Edmund Gwenn as Dean of Cardinal
 * Griffith Jones as Paul Beaumont
 * C.V. France as Dean Snodgrass
 * Edward Rigby as Scatters
 * Morton Selten as Cecil Davidson, Esq.
 * Claude Gillingwater as Ben Dalton
 * Tully Marshall as Cephas
 * Walter Kingsford as Dean Williams
 * Robert Coote as Wavertree
 * Peter Croft as Ramsey
 * Noel Howlett as Tom Craddock
 * Ronald Shiner as bicycle repairman (uncredited)
 * Jon Pertwee as extra (uncredited, his first film)

Production[edit]
A Yank at Oxford was MGM's first British production, with MGM head Louis B. Mayer taking a personal interest in casting.[3] He visited the set several times. British playwright Roland Pertwee was one of several uncredited writers, and F. Scott Fitzgerald also spent three weeks working on the script, touching up rough points and adding bits of dialogue. Mayer and Balcon later got into a fight on set, within earshot of Vivien Leigh and Maureen O'Sullivan, that led to Balcon resigning as the producer.[4]

To the surprise of other actors, Taylor was able to do all of the physical scenes himself, especially running and rowing.[5] He had competed in track and field as a student at Doane College.[6]

At first, Mayer was reluctant to cast the then little known Vivien Leigh in the role of Elsa Craddock, until persuaded by Michael Balcon, who stated that she was already living in Britain and it would cost much more to fly someone else out to England.[7] During the filming of A Yank at Oxford, Leigh gained a reputation for being "difficult" to work with. According to her biographer Alexander Walker, Leigh felt judged by Maureen O'Sullivan, whom she had befriended years earlier at school, because O'Sullivan was happily married and Leigh was in the midst of an affair with Laurence Olivier and awaiting word of a divorce from her first husband, Leigh Holman. Therefore, the relationship was "strained." Also Leigh had developed a foot problem whereupon she asked to go to London to seek treatment. As Leigh was preparing to leave, the wardrobe department cut a hole in her shoes so that her toe would be at ease.[8]

According to Leigh, she was forced to pay for her own shoes and demanded that MGM help her make some of the payments. On the other hand, MGM said that they bought all of Leigh's shoes and she didn't have to pay a penny on the film. Due to the dispute, her manager, Alexander Korda, sent Leigh a message stating that if her behavior did not improve, he would not renew her contract. Leigh's behavior did shape up and her contract was renewed.[9]

Some film historians believe A Yank at Oxford was instrumental in getting Vivien Leigh noticed by David O. Selznick for Gone with the Wind.[10] Regardless of her prior behavior, Leigh managed to make her way through the filming of A Yank at Oxford without much additional acrimony and made an impression on her costar, Robert Taylor.[11] Taylor returned to Hollywood talking about the great English actress he had worked with and suggested to Selznick, who was still searching for his Scarlett O'Hara, that they ought to look at her.[12]

Reception[edit]
A Yank at Oxford was reviewed by Frank S. Nugent in The New York Times as a "pleasant spoof." He noted, "... [it] turns out to be an uncommonly diverting show. It can't be the story, for we've read the one about the old college spirit before. ... It must be the accents, the caps and gown, the cycles and the remarkably credible chaps Metro hired to play dean and tutor, scout and students. When the camera turns upon them you can jolly well smell the fog, you know."[13]

The film review in Variety concentrated on Taylor's appeal. "Robert Taylor brings back from Oxford an entertaining rah-rah film which is full of breathless quarter-mile dashes, heartbreaking boat race finishes and surefire sentiment—Metro's first British-made film under Hollywood supervision and with Hollywood principals and director."[14]

A Yank at Oxford and its sequel, the 1942 A Yank at Eton, portrayed the British in a mainly positive light, and set the scene for other films that were popular in both the United States and the United Kingdom during the war years.[15] The film was later parodied in the Laurel and Hardy film A Chump at Oxford (1940) and remade as Oxford Blues (1984).

Box office[edit]
According to MGM records the film earned $1,291,000 in the US and Canada and $1,445,000 elsewhere resulting in a profit of $513,000.