College Lovers (lost Pre-Code comedy film; 1930)

Film poster.

Status: Lost

College Lovers is a 1930 Pre-Code film about a romance on a college campus. The film was released by Warner Bros. under the subsidiary of First National Pictures and was directed by John G. Adolfi. The film was based on the story of the same name by Earl Baldwin, a man who wrote over fifty screenplays throughout his lifetime.

Tiny Courtley, a star football player, leaves Sanford College after discovering that his girlfriend eloped with another man. Frank Taylor, the student manager of the college's athletic association, knows that they need Williams to help them win an important football game against a rivaling college. He makes a plan with his girlfriend to help get Williams back into the college to win the game.

The film was initially planned to be a full-scale musical comedy. However, due to audiences growing tired of musicals, a majority of the numbers were cut from the movie. Advertisements and trailers claimed that there was music in the film and that Jack Whiting, who played Frank Taylor, was a singing comedy star; however, there was no singing in the film at all. The cuts that happened accounted for the film's very short running time of 61 minutes.

No traces of this film are known to survive, but it is possible that the soundtrack, which was recorded on Vitaphone, could survive in private hands. Wikipedia claims an alternate version of the film was released outside the United States that contained the cut musical numbers, as there was still international interest in musicals; however, there is no evidence that such a cut was ever made, and if it was, it is now similarly lost.

External Link

• Reference-less Wikipedia page for the film, which contains the unsourced claim. Retrieved 15 Mar '16