Start Cheering (1938)

Fed up with movie life, film star Ted Crosley quits pictures to enroll in Midland College, much to the horror of his manager Sam Lewis and his stooge-friend Willie Gumbatz. Ted wishes to enroll in school under an assumed name but Sam, hoping to nip his school plans in the bud, tips off the school and the press. En route, Ted has met and fallen in love with Jean Worthington, daughter of Dean Worthington, who is counting on Ted's enrollment to save his job. As the hero of many college and football films, Ted gets a royal welcome when he arrives. In an effort to make the Midland football team a bigger draw and pay off the stadium debt, Ted is put on the varsity team--where his exploits don't match those he had on screen, and he is actually a liability. He soon incurs the enmity of Biff Gordon, the school's football hero and Ted's rival for Jean. Biff sets Ted up with a fake fraternity initiation, wherein Ted passes on the tin fraternity ring, taken from a candy box, to Jean. Suspecting unjustly that Jean was part of the hoax, Ted quits school and signs a big radio contract. When the school learns of the hoax, it suspends Biff and the entire team on the eve of the big game. Ted hears about it and his loyalty to the school prompts him to return and square the team with the faculty, and they win the big game. Ted, still believing that Jean was in on the trick, boards a train back to New York. Jean learns that Ted is about to lose his radio contract because he can't get back in time, and suggests to Sam that he arrange with the school for Ted to broadcast from the stadium, using the college band and glee club.