This is a nice little boxing flick with a lot of familiar faces.  Robert Taylor plays boxer Tommy "Killer" McCoy.  His dad is played by Frank Morgan.  The gambler who buys his contract is Edward Arnold.  The boxer's love interest is Maureen O'Sullivan.  Maureen's school chum is Jane Wyman.  The gambler's competition is Nat Pendleton.  The trainer is played by Lionel Stander, whom I know as "Max" from Hart to Hart.

Spring Madness with Maureen O'Sullivan, Lew Ayres, and Burgess Meredith.  Sam Thatcher (Lew Ayres) and his college roommate, 'The Lippencott' (Burgess Meredith), plan to continue their education after Harvard by living and working in Russia for two years, studying the economy and perhaps writing a book on the "youth movement".  The fly in the ointment is the whirlwind romance Sam has had with Alex Benson (Maureen O'Sullivan) over Easter break of their senior year.  Sam has not broken the news to Alex that their relationship has no future because he is leaving the country immediately after graduation.  Alex attends the nearby New England College for Women where romances are made official by parading the beau at the spring dance.  When the freighter on which Sam and Lippencott have booked passage must leave two weeks early, Sam must break the news to Alex that he will be leaving for Russia and will not even be able to attend the dance.  Or will he?

The supporting cast carried this movie, with eye-catching performances by Meredith as Lippencott and Ruth Hussey (Jimmy Stewart's photographer sidekick in The Philadelphia Story) as one of Alex's college friends.

Familiar faces:  Sterling Holloway as a Yale man on the prowl at the girls college; Willie Best as a train porter; Thurston Hall (the embezzling Dad from Women Are Like That) as a college friend's father; Frank Albertson (Sam Wainwright from It's a Wonderful Life) as another Harvard buddy.

"Sam Wainwright" and Burgess Meredith

A Yank at Oxford with Robert Taylor, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Vivien Leigh.  Lee Sheridan (Robert Taylor) is the star athlete of his local college and the celebrated hero of his small hometown (in no small part because his father owns the newspaper and prints headlines of his every accomplishment).  He is given the opportunity to continue his education at Oxford where he has no doubt he will again be in the athletic spotlight.  At Oxford he presents himself as overweening and arrogant and immediately becomes the target of scorn and practical jokes by the indigenous students.  To their dismay, he is as good an athlete as he claims and soon becomes their best track team member and "stroke" on the rowing team. His refusal to adopt a proper Oxford attitude eventually leads to a long standing animosity with one of his fellow athletes, Paul Beaumont (Griffith Jones).  Things are also complicated by Lee's romance with Paul's sister Molly (Maureen O'Sullivan) and Paul's illicit affair with Elsa Craddock (Vivien Leigh), the wife of a local bookshop owner.

Sheridan is quite the ladies' man.  Upon first meeting Molly he asks her if she ever finds the time to "fling woo".  He also flirts a bit with Vivien Leigh, although she flirts a bit with every man in this movie.  Vivien Leigh steals every scene she is in, and her character was a little racy for these 1938 movies.  She is a married women unashamedly on the prowl to fling some woo with the students of Oxford.  In the end her husband finds out about her affairs with students and decides to move his bookshop to Aldershot, home of the British army, where they will be convenient to the officer's club.

Also in this movie: Lionel Barrymore and Edmund Gwenn.

Vivien Leigh: "I believe you're pulling my leg" 


Robert Taylor: "Well, I'm restraining myself as best I can." 

Hold That Kiss with Maureen O'Sullivan, Dennis O'Keefe, and Mickey Rooney. Junie Evans (Maureen O'Sullivan) and Tommy Bradford (Dennis O'Keefe) are both working class stiffs who cater to society clientele. Junie works for a couturier and Tommy is a salesman for a travel agency. They meet at a society wedding ball where Junie is helping the bride with her honeymoon ensemble and Tommy is hand delivering cruise tickets. They both pretend to be invited guests and each believes the other, aided by the fact that the absent-minded host also mistakes them for guests. Tommy has memorized countless tour descriptions ("When night falls and the shadows start to lengthen in glamorous old Singapore, one is taken back to the romantic days of Marco Polo...") and can pass himself off as a world traveller even though he has never been "east of the Statue of Liberty". Each is impressed that the other is more down to earth than the society snobs he (or she) usually encounters. They start to date, taking pains not to reveal their real social standing. In searching for a date venue that is inexpensive but still "society", Tommy decides to take Junie to the dog show, where they somehow end up as owners of the Saint Bernard that won Best in Show. Eventually the charade falls apart, and after initial anger at the mutual deception and some payback pranks, the couple plus dog ride off together. Mickey Rooney plays Junie's clarinet playing younger brother, Chick.

Someone in the movie once mentions the "Four Hundred" and once Tommy introduces himself as "T. Van Rensselaer Bradford". This is a reference to elite New York society in the late 1800's. It was said that there were only 400 people who mattered in New York society, and the Van Rensselaer family was part of this. A good article about "The Four Hundred" can be found here: http://edwardianpromenade.com/?p=839. Also in the movie they twice use the phrase "soup and fish" to refer to formal wear (once saying "a tux is no good, it's gotta be soup and fish!")