SUPERB COMBINATION

Evening Star, Issue 22955, 12 May 1938, Page 9

SUPERB COMBINATION

YOUNG, STEWART, AND RICE ‘ Navy Blue and Gold,’ coming tomorrow to the Empire, is a thrilling story of love and football at the Annapolis Academy. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sent a company to film much of the scenery on the picturesque grounds in Maryland. Other sequences were photographed at the famous Pasadena Rose Bowl, The cast is headed by Robert Young, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Florence Rice, Billie Burke, and Tom Brown, with Samuel S. Hinds, Paul Kelly, and Barnett Parker in important supporting roles. Robert Young, as a cynical young midshipman, is said to give one of his finest performances. James Stewart, in the role of a navy oiler from a battleship to gain his stripes at the academy, adds to his stature as an artist of the screen. Barrymore, of course, is Barrymore always, which is to say that his characterisation of the veteran coach is superb. Miss Rice, in the leading feminine role, is adorable, and it is easy to understand why two midshipmen would love her. The story presents three midshipmen from different stations in life who are drawn together at the academy, on the grid-iron, and as classmates. Young is a cynic with no intention of remaining in the service. Stewart is up from a battleship, trying for a commission. Brown is a scion of wealth, with a prettv sister, played by AH ss Rice._ Stewart is involved in a scandal when it is learned that he enrolled under an assumed name, owing to the fact that his father, a navy officer, had been cashiered out of the service. He clears his father’s name in a dramatic scene and is reinstated. Navy defeats army as a result, and_t.be “gob ” from the fleet wins the girl. ‘ Navy Blue and Gold ’ is entertainment for all types of motion picture patrons, because it combines romance and drama with football and fighting in a timely story.