Directed by Charles Walters with a screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green that was based on a play by Lew Brown, Lawrence Schwab, Frank Mandel, Buddy DeSylva and Ray Henderson, this remake of the 1930 college Musical features the Academy Award nominated Song "Pass That Peace Pipe" and a cast that includes: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Patricia Marshall, Joan McCracken, Ray McDonald, Mel Torme, Robert Strickland, Donald MacBride, Tom Dugan, Clinton Sundberg, Loren Tindall, and Connie Gilchrist (among others). It's 1927 and the guys are called Sheiks and the gals are called Flappers.Set on the Tait campus, the story involves college football (action), dating and other romantic plights among several different students like hard working (class) librarian and teacher's aide Connie Lane (Allyson), football captain Tommy Marlowe (Lawford), perky Babe Doolittle (McCracken) who's interested in weakling Bobby Turner (McDonald) though she's being pursued by jealous football star Beef (Tindall), who vows to kill anyone that comes near his sweetheart, and others like Danny (Tormé, whose character sings and dances without otherwise being involved in the plot). The drama starts when a new girl, Pat McClellan (Marshall) joins the sorority. She's a gold digger that speaks (fakes) a bit of French; naturally, her first interest is Peter Van Dyne III (Strickland), who's worth millions, in lieu of playboy Tommy, who makes all the other girls swoon but initially puts off Pat. To entice her, Tommy learns a bit of the foreign language from Connie, who quickly falls for him, and the feeling is somewhat mutual.But Tommy's French doesn't impress Pat, who's only interested in Peter's money, until Connie's best friend Babe, unaware of the new romance and wanting Tommy to be happy so that he'll do well in the pending big game, tells Pat that the football captain is son of a Pickle magnate. Once Tommy's within Pat's clutches, his performance on the gridiron and in the classroom suffers to a point of concern for his frantic Coach Johnson (MacBride), the trainer Pooch (Dugan), and the rest of the students who fear that Dean Griswold (Morris Ankrum) will keep Tommy from playing in the next big game. Ironically it's the French professor Burton Kennyon (Sundberg), for whom the love abandoned Connie works, that gives Tommy his only failing grade. She's then asked to tutor him for the good of the team, which she does reluctantly especially because Tommy and Pat are to be engaged after the game, that is until Connie and Cora (the sorority's housekeeper) conspire to turn gold digging Pat onto now injured Beef, which has the added benefit of freeing Babe to be with Bobby.Of course, Tommy and Connie are the rage, a stirring dance number (the climactic prom) ends the picture.

I just watched this film today. I have it on a disc called June Allyson & Peter Lawford. I love- love-love this film.I have read comments about the way the hair was styled and the types of clothes the main characters wore-- complaints they were too 'modern.' But what I thought was more of an anachronism was that the songs seemed to have a very 40s feel to them-- like they would be songs that one would have heard on the radio at that time. The music did not seem to be in the style of compositions from the late 20s.I can overlook this and even the hairstyles and clothing, because the rest of the picture is sublime.I think the only way around these minor problems is if they had framed it with an opening sequence where kids in 1947 were looking at yearbooks from twenty years earlier and decided to put on a show about 1927. So it would have been a story within a story, and their using modern day fashions and music would have been forgivable.

I loved this movie when I was 4 years old. My parents bought me the records so that I could sing all the songs. I must have seen it at least 4 to 5 times during the year I was 4. I memorized all the songs and dance routines. I have seen it every once in while since then. I agree with all the reviewers who think it is underrated as a musical. The varsity drag number was great...I still can do it myself, even now. It made me fall in love with musical comedies. There is so much to like about this movie as a musical that it is a shame that it is not better known. It also made me want to go to college. I could not wait... Every parent who wants their child to go to university should let their child see this at the age of 3 or 4 years of age.... ie when the silliness of the plot is lost, but the pull of the university life seems magical.

Good News is one of the most underrated MGM musicals from the '40s I've ever seen from that era. While leads June Allyson and Peter Lawford are no Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney (who ironically, were the original considered leads for this movie version years ago), they sing and dance entertainingly enough for one to not notice after a while. Another underrated talent showcased here is one Joan McCracken who shines in the opening number and the later made-for-film specialty "Pass That Peace Pipe", which was eventually nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song. And dig the "Velvet Fog" Mel Torme in his younger days crooning here! Excellent debut for director Charles Walters and screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green makes this one of the most spectacular musical comedies I've seen yet! P.S. Among the extras on the DVD are two numbers from the 1930 film version of Good News, the title number and "The Varsity Drag", both performed energetically and athletically by a young woman named Dorothy McNulty, later to be known as Penny Singleton from the Blondie movies. All of the above are well worth checking out!