tadpole-596-918256 Review of Knute Rockne All American

Knute Rockne All American (1940)

Pat O'Brien should have been elected president . . .

[9/10 · 3 February 2013]

. . . since my dad said this movie was the main reason Ronald Reagan was. This movie is a good history lesson about old-timey football, if you overlook the fact that it created a myth which haunts us to this day. Any little scrawny guy who finagles his way into a ND uni is likely to have a flick made about him--just look at RUDY. George Gipp was from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, for gosh sakes. NOBODY lives there except moose and black flies. Gridders from there don't play for Alabama or Auburn--they go to Ferris State, Hillsdale College, and Notre Dame. But even with the best prayers money can buy, they still pass on at the drop of a hat: the all-night drinking and womanizing across the border at the Baron Lake Supper Club was enough to give George a fatal cold! Why should playing this loser qualify Reagan to be president? His tenure was full of Iran-Contra and other rule breaking, just like the real Gipper's! If anyone should have been elected prez based on this movie, it was Pat O'Brien. He portrayed someone who bamboozled sports writers into creating the Four Horsemen myth, which propelled the so-called "Fighting Irish" into a media juggernaut plaguing us right up to this year, with the mismatch between ND and the Crimson Tide. At 6-6, Michigan State would have been more competitive than the smoke-and-mirrors team led by Te'o and his imaginary friends. FDR was already failing in 1940, when he won an illegal 3rd term. If Pat O'Brien was elected instead, maybe he could have used the tricks he learned in this movie by becoming Knute to fake the Nazis out of their jockstraps and end WWII with no loss of American life. In order to understand either American college football OR the U.S. presidency, you MUST watch this gripping, seminal film!!