The Male Animal: A great film for Ohio State fans

I recently watched a 1942 film called The Male Animal because it was based on a Broadway play by Buckeye alum James Thurber. Thurber's writing partner Elliott Nugent also went to Ohio State. The play, of the same name, was first performed in 1940 and was very popular. is about a college professor caught up in a controversy over his supposed communist sympathies, on the weekend of a big football rivalry game on campus. I will pretty much read or watch anything Thurber had a hand in, so I wanted to give The Male Animal a try. Having written the play together, Thurber and Nugent also collaborated on the film. The film sticks close to the play and is well-acted and very entertaining.

Henry Fonda plays the lead role (you may remember him from The Grapes of Wrath, How the West Was Won or On Golden Pond). He was a gifted actor and plays the role of Professor Tommy Turner perfectly. Olivia de Havilland plays his wife Ellen. De Havilland also acted in Gone with the Wind and They Died with their Boots On.

Because they wanted to use a football-crazy university setting for The Male Animal, Thurber and Nugent use Ohio State as the template for the school in the film. They call it "Midwestern State University" and the big football rivalry game is against University of Michigan. I thought this was interesting, but did not think about the OSU connection until the students sing, "We don't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan . . . now or evermore." It made me laugh out loud to hear it - they took the tune and lyrics right from Ohio State. They also sing, to our very own tune, "and when we win the game, we'll buy a keg of booze and we'll drink to old Midwestern till we wobble in our shoes." There is no mistaking Ohio State as the basis for the school in the film.

Students in The Male Animal singing "We Don't Give a Damn for the Whole State of Michigan." The "M" on the sweaters is for Midwestern State University.

Thurber and Nugent also drew from Ohio State for the plot of the film, in which there is a lot of tension between the academics and the football team. The professors see the football players as idiots and refer to them as "stadium-builders." This has always been the case at Ohio State. There was a movement to scrap the football program in 1901, Wes Fesler promoted academics and good personal conduct over wins on the field as head coach, and the faculty voted to decline the Rose Bowl in 1961 due to football's huge popularity at OSU. Nowadays, the football program is more beloved.

The film shows a few plays in the Michigan game, which Midwestern University rallies to win by one point. While Midwestern is losing, one of the boosters says, "We build them a new stadium and they can't even beat Michigan in it." This was actually true for a while, since we began playing in Ohio Stadium in 1922 and went on a six-year losing streak to Michigan. The football game scenes are interesting to watch, they show the players in leather helmets, lined up with the ends in tight, in a full-house T formation.

Midwestern State's marching band entering the rally before the Michigan game. Don't those uniforms look familiar?

The film's story centers on Tommy Turner, a young English professor. A heroic football player, "Whirling" Joe Ferguson, returns to town and drives Professor Turner crazy. He can't stop talking about football and hitting on Turner's wife. Turner also has to deal with allegations that he is a communist, which could get him fired. During the Michigan game, he gets drunk at home with one of his students and hilariously reasons that he should fight Joe Ferguson, because of a primal instinct to protect his manhood. He attempts to fight Joe, then goes to bed and sleeps through Sunday. When he wakes up Monday morning, he has to face the faculty and argue that he is innocent of communism. It is quite funny and the acting is great.

If you are wondering about Ohio State football at the time, the year The Male Animal was released, we won our first national title.

Find the film and watch it some time, if you are a Buckeye fan, it will entertain you. Here is the trailer: