#736) Knute Rockne, All American (1940)

#736) Knute Rockne, All American (1940)

OR “Reagan’s Song”

Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Robert Buckner

Class of 1997

The Plot: Pat O’Brien IS Knute Rockne, the famed football coach that led Notre Dame to five undefeated seasons and three national championships in the 1920s. Emigrating to America as a child from his native Norway, Rockne grows up in Chicago, eventually enrolling at the prestigious University of Notre Dame. While playing on their football team The Fighting Irish, Rockne successfully uses the rare forward pass play to win in an upset over Army at West Point, giving the team newfound popularity. After graduation, Rockne works as the Fighting Irish’s assistant coach, and then as their head coach, shepherding the aforementioned championships and training several promising athletes, including tragic wunderkind George Gipp aka The Gipper (Ronald Reagan). The life of an extraordinary man gets run through the Hollywood wringer and comes out a sanitized, saintly biopic.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives an overview of Knute Rockne and the film, calling it “less a factual document than a loving tribute”. And of course, the film’s connection to Ronald Regan’s later political career gets a mention (see “Legacy”).

But Does It Really?: “Knute Rockne, All American” is the kind of crowd pleasing “cradle to grave” biopic that, while noteworthy in its day, has been all but forgotten. Apart from some hardcore football fans or Notre Dame alumni, I don’t think people remember Knute Rockne, making this film’s cultural relevancy an uphill battle. The film’s by-the-numbers approach to its subject matter doesn’t help, and its uber-patriotism seems out of place in a modern viewing (think “Yankee Doodle Dandy” without the songs). Thanks to one line of dialogue, delivered by an actor whose biggest professional achievement would be 40 years later in another arena, “Knute Rockne” has maintained just enough of a pop culture footprint to warrant NFR induction (at least by 1997 standards).

Title Track: This film went by several working titles before settling on “Knute Rockne, All American”. Let the record show that despite his countless honors and memorials, Knute Rockne has never been officially named a College Football All-American, a designation bestowed on players, not coaches.

Seriously, Oscars?: No nominations for “Knute Rockne”. Warner Bros.’ big Oscar contenders in 1940 were two Bette Davis vehicles: “All This, and Heaven Too” and “The Letter”. And although Pat O’Brien never received an Oscar (or a nomination) in his 50-year showbiz career, he did receive an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1981 alongside, you guessed it, Ronald Reagan.

Other notes

“Knute Rockne” began production with director William K. Howard at the helm, but Howard was replaced during production due to creative differences. Allegedly the differences came over a scene where Rockne converts to Catholicism which, while not depicted in the final film, did happen in real life. Howard was replaced by Lloyd Bacon, a mainstay of Warner Bros. who directed in a variety of genres, including two backstage musicals on the NFR: “42^nd Street” and “Footlight Parade”. It is unknown how much (if any) of Howard’s footage remains in the final cut.
The opening credits mention the screenplay as being “Based upon the private papers of Mrs. [Bonnie] Rockne and the reports of Rockne’s associates and friends”, so you know going in this will be a favorable, lionized portrayal of Knute. The credits also thank the University of Notre Dame for their “gratuitous cooperation”. Did they mean “gracious” cooperation?
Despite my apprehension about this film’s historical accuracy, my research shows it skews close to Knute’s real story. A few dramatic liberties here and there, but for the most part this is how it all went down. It just goes to show how even the most interesting life can be doused in the artificiality of the Hollywood biopic.
I hate to say it, but Pat O’Brien is just okay in this. He goes to great lengths to look and sound like the real Knute Rockne (including prosthetic makeup that allegedly took three hours to apply), but ultimately, I didn’t buy his performance. There’s a couple of factors at play here; for one thing the movie version of Rockne isn’t a dimensional human but rather a Mr. Smith-esque series of ideals, which is tough for any actor to play. The other factor: While I’ve enjoyed Pat O’Brien’s other NFR performances, he’s always best as a supporting player or co-lead; He just can’t carry this whole movie by himself. Also, and I don’t know if this is true to how the real Knute Rockne spoke, but O’Brien talks way too damn fast in this. At times he sounds like he’s doing an impression of his buddy James Cagney, who was coincidentally also considered to play Rockne.

This post gave me an excuse to go down a Notre Dame research rabbit hole. My grandpa (he of my “Public Enemies” story) got his BA in journalism at Notre Dame (Class of 1947), so I enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about the school. Among my findings: “Knute Rockne” is one of only two movies that has been allowed to film on the Notre Dame campus; the other is perennial favorite “Rudy”. Also, the full name of the school is “University of Notre Dame du Lac”, or “Our Lady of the Lake”. And while the school was founded by French missionaries, the American faculty and students started pronouncing it “note-er daym” as opposed to the French “no-tra dahm”, leading to this Americanized pronunciation bleeding over into France’s Notre Dame de Paris. This is why the French hate us.
Speaking of pronunciations, prior to this viewing I had only heard Knute’s name pronounced as one syllable with a silent k (like “newt”). This movie says his name with two syllables and the k (as in “Ka-newt”). I’m told both are acceptable, but I’m sticking with the latter going forward.
If you’re a football novice like me you can still get through “Knute Rockne” without any problems, although I had to look up what exactly a forward pass is. Where’s John Facenda when you need him?

Several pivotal games in the movie are between Notre Dame and their rivals at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. While the West Point team is officially the Army Black Knights (aka Army Cadets), everyone in this movie just calls them Army, which makes it all sound like “Arrested Development”. “These are my awards, mother. From Army.”
I knew Ronald Reagan was in this, but I didn’t know it was such a brief episode. He shows up as Rockne’s golden boy, gives a nice loud Chekhov’s cough in his next scene, and then it’s straight to his deathbed monologue urging Rockne to “Win just one for the Gipper”. It’s also hard to separate Reagan’s performance from his later political career: when Reagan first appeared on screen, I booed.

Side note about “Win one for the Gipper”: Due to a dispute with the Gipp family, this scene was cut from some of the film’s TV airings and home video releases. I don’t know what exactly the dispute was over, but I guess the Gipp estate and Warner Bros. settled their differences because the uncut film has been available for the last 20 years.
Towards the end, we get cameos from four of Rockne’s fellow college football coaches: Howard Jones, William Spaulding, Alonzo Stagg, and Glenn “Pop” Warner (no relation to the Warner Brothers). All of them are very stiff non-actors, which I’m sure was a source of entertainment and ridicule for many of their former students. Fun Fact: Alonzo Stagg spent his last years coaching football in my hometown of Stockton, California. I used to live right by the high school named after him.
Everyone in this movie who isn’t Knute Rockne or George Gipp gets, forgive me, sidelined. Despite thanking the real Bonnie Rockne in the opening credits, her movie counterpart and the rest of the Rockne family are just set decorations. In fact, I’m convinced Rockne’s kids stay the same age throughout the movie, despite the decade-plus time jump. Also completely wasted here is Donald Crisp as Father John Cavanaugh. Come on, give him something to do; he’s Donald friggin’ Crisp! At least he’s got “How Green Was My Valley” to look forward to after this.
Knowing nothing about Knute Rockne going in, I was blindsided by this film’s ending covering Rockne’s fatal plane crash in 1931. I thought the references to Knute’s phlebitis were set-up for a premature death, but then we spend so much screentime on him boarding a plane to California I started getting “La Bamba” flashbacks. Damn those Fokkers. Side note: While the film depicts Rockne as flying to California to defend college football at a hearing on scholastic favoritism, in reality he was flying there to serve as technical advisor for the 1931 movie “The Spirit of Notre Dame”. Perhaps Warner Bros. didn’t want to remind people that the movies played a part in Rockne’s death, or just didn’t want to give Universal the free publicity.

Legacy

While “Knute Rockne” was a critical and commercial hit upon its initial release, in the ensuing decades it started to fade from public consciousness, with its cultural footprint solely resting on the line “Win one for the Gipper”. In 1980, Ronald Regan, who had left acting in the 1960s to pursue politics, was elected President of the United States, which led to renewed interest in his filmography. “Knute Rockne” reaped the benefits of this revival, with several journalists referring to Reagan in print as “the Gipper”, a nickname that stayed with Reagan for the rest of his life. And that’s all I really want to say about the Reagan administration at this time.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the “Win one for the Zipper” parody speech given by Leslie Nielsen in “Airplane!”, complete with Notre Dame fight music. “I don’t know where I’ll be then…but I won’t smell too good, that’s for sure.”