Grande chérie

Cute early musical starring Nancy Carroll as a chorus girl who inherits a men's college where her ex-boyfriend (Stanley Smith) is a star football player. She tries to sabotage his career until she gets school spirit. An original musical for the screen, SWEETIE boasts a good cast and some solid tunes.

Helen Kane co-stars as the troublemaking Helen who boop-a-doops through "He's So Unusual" and does a mean "Pep Step" with Jack Oakie, a brash hoofer who follows Carroll to college and enrolls. William Austin is the silly college dean, and Stu Erwin is a dumb-blond football player who is usually the target of Kane's pop gun.

Carroll and Smith sing a few songs, but it's Oakie's "Alma Mammy" that flows through the film as a theme song after Oakie is told that alma mater is Latin for dear mother, which he converts into a Jolson-like MAMMY song.

Nancy Carroll was Paramount's top musical star in early talkies, and she's stunning, but this film belongs to Helen Kane and Jack Oakie.