College Holiday is a 1936 American comedy film directed by Frank Tuttle and starring Jack Benny, George Burns, Gracie Allen and Martha Raye.Fuller-Seeley p.238 It was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Plot A woman hotelier with an interest in eugenics invites some young men to spend the summer.
Genetic theories are satirized. The final song and dance number features some of the cast performing a blackface minstrel show.
Cast Jack Benny as J. Davis Bowster George Burns as George Hymen Gracie Allen as Calliope 'Gracie' Dove Mary Boland as Carola P. Gaye Martha Raye as Daisy Schloggenheimer Ben Blue as Stage Hand Marsha Hunt as Sylvia Smith Leif Erickson as Dick Winters Eleanore Whitney as Eleanore Wayne Johnny Downs as Johnny Jones Ellen Drew as Dancer on Train California Collegians as California Collegians
Reception New York Times reviewer Frank Nugent wrote that the film benefited from a "good-humored informality which protects the piece against too biting a review"...(the film)..."demands nothing of the beholder but unlimited patience or an appetite for the ageless rudiments of vaudeville."
In their March, 1937 edition, Modern Screen gave the film a two-star review and wrote, "Vaudeville de luxe is here offered for the price of a seat at the movies … To give you an idea, there are the following headliners: Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Martha Raye, Mary Boland, Ben Blue and Eleanore Whitney. They're all up to their familiar and inimitable tricks which, combined, almost disguise the fact that what's missing is a story." Despite this, the review concluded with the assessment : "It’s good entertainment."
Robert Osborne appeared in an Introduction & Outro for Turner Classic Movies.
References
Sources Fuller-Seeley, Kathryn. Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy. University of California Press, 2017. Michael Leannah, ed., Well! Reflections of the Life and Career of Jack Benny Irving Fein, Jack Benny: An Intimate Biography
External links College Holiday - Britannica College Holiday - blu-ray College Holiday - Hollywood Comet College Holiday (2024 reviews) - letterboxd College Holiday (synopsis and 2025 review) - Substack Metadata
College Holiday - British Film Institute
College Holiday - rottentomatoes.com College Holiday - allmovie College Holiday - Screen Rant
College Holiday - TV Tropes