Fourteen months after his feature film debut in Paramount’s College Rhythm during the Thanksgiving holiday of 1934, Joe Penner’s sophomore effort for the archway studio finally hit the theatres. A great deal had changed in his life in that time.

He’d taken a long vacation. He’d moved from New York City to Hollywood. And he’d quit his radio show, less than two years after his seemingly overnight success.

The full story of his exit from the airwaves – or at least as full a story you could get in those studio controlled days – wouldn’t begin to surface until mid-1936, after he’d signed on the dotted line with RKO Studios for three pictures a year and with Cocomalt – an Ovaltine-esque powdered beverage mix – for a new radio show on a new network.

According to the reports of the day, the story was simple. Penner was tired of doing gags, tired of canned scripts by a team of writers, but most of all, he was tired of selling ducks. A fan of comedians such as Jack Benny, he longed for the sort of radio program he enjoyed listening to…what we now refer to as a situation comedy, with plenty of room for ad-libbed gags. He’d even hired scribe Harry Conn, who’d written for Benny. The program, The Park Avenue Penners, would premier in the fall on CBS.

But when Collegiate premiered on January 22, 1936, all of that was in the future.

Lynn Overman, Ned Sparks, Frances Langford and Joe Penner

Joining the top-billed Penner for a cinematic tour of yet another Paramount college campus was the affable Jack Oakie, cast this time around as a ne’er do well playboy who inherits a girls school from his aunt. Penner plays an amnesiac who winds up bankrolling Oakie’s scheme to turn the unisex, hallowed halls into an all-singing, all-dancing charm school.

Riding in the rumble seat for this “light, diverting filmusical” (Daily Variety) were Ned “Laughing Boy” Sparks (who gave Buster Keaton a run for his money in the droll expression department) and Lynn Overman. Frances Langford provided the femme flavor (along with a young Betty Grable, in an early role), and songwriters Mack Gordon and Harry Revel played themselves.

Betty Grable in an early featured role

The New York Times reported a near-riot by a crowd of several hundred who fought their way into the Paramount Theater, much to the chagrin of critic Frank Nugent (whose love-hate relationship with Penner will be obvious to anyone reading his cumulative reviews in chronological sequence), who wished in print that he could have exited through the lobby in the other direction. I quote:

“Perhaps we are wrong about Mr. Penner’s cosmic appeal, but, to our mind, the simplest way of summing up his new picture would be to echo the remarks made by Ned Sparks fairly early in the film. Mr. Sparks, more mournful than ever, says, ‘I’ve seen enough. Let’s forget the whole thing – and go on relief.’”

Daily Variety took more issue with Oakie’s “Paul Whitemanesque avoirdupois” (21st Century Translation: “fat”) in his umteenth role as a collegiate than with anything regarding Penner’s performance. The film, however, was lacking the same punch of Penner’s previous outing, and the campus hijinks scenario had already begun to wear thin for Oakie and Paramount.

There were several bright moments, however. Hit songs from the film included “You Hit the Spot” and “I Feel Like a Feather in the Breeze,” and Penner was allowed to cut loose with “Who Am I,” which Variety casts in a favorable light. It was also clear from the picture’s box office that Penner had not worn out his welcome with the ticket-buying public. However, out of a sense of fairness, let’s allow Nugent a final word:

“Mr. Penner is a farceur with the mannerisms of burlesque. With or without his duck or rocking hat, he is a pantaloon and a buffoon, not a humorist. That in itself is quite all right and no one — we least of all — has any right to say that he change his style.”

Joe Penner and Jack Oakie cut-up at the "Collegiate" cast party

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"Collegiate" was loosely based on "The Charm School," a story and play by author Alice Duer Miller. It was filmed previously in 1921 and starred Wallace Reid.