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Javawoman and I watch a lot of old movies on TCM. The other day they showed this "one-reel wonder" about a fictitious Clipton College, which is about to have its big game against Beardsley College. Only thing is, these are barber colleges, despite which, all the "collegiate" trappings typical of period films are gloriously in evidence: bonfires, letter sweaters, big games, and a laboratory (where one Prof. Demetris Cavoris) is busy inventing a shaving cream that tastes good.
The crisis of the moment is that Cavoris evidently is the football coach in addition to his other duties, and the dean
warns him that if they don't win the next game, he's through. Anxiety is intense, for some of his star players are in danger of failing his upcoming midterm. On the day of the midterm, someone steals Bob's--the star player's-- paper and hides it while the exams are being turned in.
Game day arrives, only it turns out not to be a football game, but a barbering competition. This doesn't dampen the enthusiasm of the 75000 fans who have packed the Rose Bowl to see this clip-off. The Beardsley defense marches in singing a song about how they've let their beards grow to make things tougher for the Clipton team. In the field are about a dozen barber chairs set up. The Beardsley "players"
take their seats and the Clipton student barbers go to work.
They're losing badly, when someone recovers the stolen exam paper and shows it to Prof/Coach Cavoris. Bob can now join the game, where, in an almost superhuman display of tonsorial prowess, he shaves eight hirsute men in less than a minute.
Javawoman and I found this so unbelievably ridiculous that it was actually funny. To be frank, at times it seemed like a bizarre dream; at others times it reminded me of my days as a college student in the 1970's, getting high while watching SNL and Second City!
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04-09-2001, 11:32 AM
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