A YANK AT OXFORD is notable for several reasons. This was MGM's first British production with Mayer in charge (co-produced by Michael Balcon who quit after a fight with Mayer). Despite Mayer's reservations, Balcon hired Vivien Leigh for one of the leads, and this was a key film in getting her noticed by Selznick for the Scarlett casting battle. Star Robert Taylor thought highly of Leigh, and they were reteamed several years later. A-level film boasted a big cast and used quite a few British actors. Besides Taylor (who did his own stunts) and Leigh, film also boasted Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Edmund Gwenn, and Griffith Jones (fairly big star in UK). Also C.V. France, Robert Coote, Claude Gillingwater, Tully Marshall, Edward Rigby, and Richard Todd as an extra. Stock footage of Oxford but film was mostly shot as Denham Studios. No idea where the boating scenes were filmed. I didn't recognize anything.What struck me about the film was that MGM had dusted off the old William Haines formula of braggart goes off to (fill in the blank) where he acts like an a-hole until he gets his comeuppance and rallies the team for a big win and becomes a true hero, In this case, film follows the general plot of Haines' BROWN OF HARVARD minus the homoerotic subtext (sort of) right down to the crewing scenes.Breezy performance by Robert Taylor in one of his best films.

This film is a humorous examination of the differences between American and British college youth just prior to WWII with an American take on the situation. Robert Taylor plays Lee Sheridan, an American who comes to Oxford to study and also to run track and field. He runs into difficulty with everything from the English driving on "the wrong side of the road" to the British valuing tradition and teamwork over rugged individualism. Not helping matters is that Lee is a swaggering over-confident albeit talented braggart by the standards of any nation. To complicate matters, Lee's chief rival on the track team is the brother of a girl (Maureen O'Sullivan) in whom Lee is romantically interested.To make such an "American fish in British waters" film just three years later after the war broke out and the US and England were allies would have been practically a precode in the eyes of the censors, even though cultural differences are always a problem, especially where boisterous youths are involved. It's an enjoyable little film featuring a young Vivien Leigh as she was waiting to become Scarlett O'Hara, and some fine character actor work from Edmund Gwenn as a dean who is still lovable as always even though he is openly contemptuous of Lee whose forward ways leave him shocked and flustered.

In 1938, when the Great Depression had ended and a World War was about to begin, it was easy for elitist British college students to make fun of a transplanted American athlete. But the romantic counterpoint to the culture clash works very well thanks to the great chemistry between Robert Taylor and Maureen O'Sullivan. A memorable quote from this enjoyable period piece needs to be acknowledged. In a morning after scene, Robert Taylor says to Maureen O'Sullivan: "Don't wipe the sleep from your eyes. It's a beautiful sleep." The scriptwriter responsible for that line was F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Taylor was entirely too old (27) and WAY too "meaty" to play a star athlete in this film. His fat legs show to disadvantage, and the scenes of him outpacing the track team are absurd. Thers is no possibility of someone of his weight beating the skinny competition shown in this film. If the character had shown some spark of humility & a desire to learn better, this would have been a much more enjoyable story. Think of Harold Lloyd in "The Freshman", where his character wants to succeed by his own efforts, and learns early-on that he can't fake it. Heart warming was that, while this is just a demonstration of a notion of Yankee Superiority and how 'We Americans' can overcome the 'Snooty Englishers'. Spare us.Taylor's character ultimately fails to win our hearts with sincerity; his "nerve" is all he has, and while that's enough to turn the story to his favor, it really isn't sufficient to make us believe he's a good egg after all.Of course, all of this is tainted by Hollywood's habit of using 25-30-35 year olds in the roles of college students (and even 40 year olds, in the case of The Nutty Professor of Jerry Lewis - several of his supposed Football Heroes were OLDER than he was, at the time of filming)