BROTHER RAT

US, 1938, 89 minutes, Black and white.
Priscilla Lane, Wayne Morris, Johnnie Davis, Jane Bryan, Eddie Albert, Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, Henry O’ Neill.
Directed by William Keighley.

Brother Rat was a play on Broadway, lasting two years, starring Eddie Albert who came to Hollywood for the film. It is the story of three buddies at a military academy in Virginia who call each other Brother Rat.

The film is something of a screwball comedy, a romance, young men getting into all kinds of difficulties, especially with military superiors.

Wayne Morris plays the devil-may-care leader of the band, always getting into trouble, putting people in difficult situations and then disowning any responsibility. Ronald Reagan in support is the more rational of the friends. Eddie Albert is the successful baseball player who is secretly married and discovers that his wife is having a baby. Jane Bryan is his wife, Priscilla Lane is the object of Wayne Morris’s devotion. Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan meet in this film – and continued, of course, as husband and wife. Henry O’ Neill is the colonel in charge of the institution.

The film is rather dated now, not particularly interesting or humorous – but an example of the kind of film that was very popular in the late 1930s, made at Warner Bros. So popular was it that there was a sequel, Brother Rat and a Baby with the same cast, released in 1940.

One for the archives.