Spring Fever
About Spring Fever
Jack Kelly, a shipping clerk, breaks a window at Waters and Company with a golf ball and is fired. His boss, Mr. Waters, is so taken with the shot that he brings Jack to Oakmont Country Club to teach him the game. Jack courts Allie Monte while pretending he belongs there. Club champion Johnson courts her too. Jack and Allie marry in a rush. She tells people he is a millionaire, learns he is not, and throws him out, then refuses an annulment. He wins the tournament, comes into money, and they get back together.
Cast & crew
More about Spring Fever
Edward Sedgwick directed. Frank Davis and Albert Lewin wrote the screenplay, Ralph Spence the titles, and Hugh Cummings worked as gag man, from Vincent Lawrence's 1925 play Spring Fever. Ira H. Morgan photographed. Frank Sullivan edited. Cedric Gibbons and David Townsend designed the settings. MGM released it in New York on October 22, 1927. Golf scenes were shot at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades. It was the second Haines-Crawford film and their first romantic pairing. MGM remade it in 1930 as the musical Love in the Rough, with Robert Montgomery and Dorothy Jordan, directed by Charles Reisner.
Themes
Making
The joke starts in the shipping office, where one broken window gets Kelly onto a private course. Sedgwick then plays the rest of the courtship between tee shots, a balcony climb, and the tournament.
Reviews
Variety wrote that Haines was "a likable personality and should travel far," but that "this picture, however, will not help him much." The review said the players and Ralph Spence's titles were fine and that Sedgwick "could not cope with a weak theme." Of Crawford it said she "manages to make her presence felt, and looks lovely as usual," in what it called a walk-through role.
Audiences
The film did well enough that, the next year, fans mobbed William Haines when he appeared at a professional golf tournament.
Look
Ira H. Morgan shot the office, the Oakmont rooms, and the golf at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades.
Music
William Axt is the credited composer. The 2008 Turner restoration uses a score by Darrell Raby.
Preservation
Turner Entertainment restored a print in 2008. Warner Archive released it on DVD in March 2009. A digital copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- William Haines plays Jack Kelly, Joan Crawford plays Allie Monte, George Fawcett plays Mr. Waters, and George K. Arthur plays Eustace Tewksbury.
- Eileen Percy plays Martha Lomsdom. Edward Earle plays Johnson, the club champion. Bert Woodruff plays Pop Kelly. Lee Moran plays the caddy Oscar.
- Allie's father has lost his money by the time Jack proposes, which knocks down Jack's plan to marry a rich girl and stay at the club.
- The year after the release, fans mobbed Haines at a personal appearance during a professional golf tournament.
- Turner Entertainment restored the film in 2008 with a score by Darrell Raby. Warner Archive issued a manufactured-on-demand DVD in March 2009.
Scenes
- Kelly's drive smashes a window at Waters and Company, and the boss hires him as a golf teacher.
- Jack climbs into Allie's room to apologize after their quarrel.
- He wins the tournament after she has thrown him out for not being rich.
Influenced by
- Spring Fever, the 1925 play by Vincent Lawrence
Influenced
- Love in the Rough (1930)
Also available
- Warner Archive Collection DVD (March 2009)
- Wikimedia Commons (Spring Fever (1927).webm)
