Popular reviews

• 

  Review by sakana1 ★★★ 3

  Dancing Co-Ed is a slog until Lana Turner's Patty Marlow decides it's time to take charge, and from that point on it's Turner's show entirely. Just eighteen when the film was made, she is a marvel: confident, magnetic, and utterly effortless in her easy control over every scene in which she appears.

  Patty is a perfect role for Turner at this point in her career, because they're both irrepressible, unable and unwilling to hide their lights under a proverbial bushel simply for the comfort of those around them. Both the character and the actress are magnificent, unflagging in their belief in themselves, and casually proud in a manner rarely seen in young women in the movies of the late 1930s.…

• 

  Review by Kari ★★★½

  A fun, romantic comedy set on a college campus. Lana Turner was really sweet in this one and so beautiful. Ann Rutherford was lovely, too. Richard Carlson was good as Turner's love interest and Leon Errol was great as her "Pops".

• 

  Review by Craig Lumley ★★★½

  A movie studio is in trouble! We open with news that their top movie star has been inflicted with pregnancy! This info spreads through the airwaves and we whip pan from radio to radio and tracking different reactions like we're in a Scorsese montage. Pepper in some Sorkian walk and talk and we're rolling!

  GET HOT! GET HAPPY!

  Lana Turner, who gives me Stendahl syndrome, is a studio plant in a nationwide contest to find a college girl to replace the star on her newest film. But love and journalism gets in the way. We got some screwball schemes n' goofs, quick dialogue, wild dancing, and The Artie Shaw band playing a few tunes. Folks, I love the zane.

  If…

• 

  Review by Moriah ★★★★½

  This picture truly showcases the talent Lana Turner had from the start. She’s witty, soft, emotional, can dance her butt off and her comedic timing almost feels unintentional at times, making jokes land even more perfectly. Her stuff with Leon Errol is some of my favorite scenes ever.
   I truly just love this picture a whole lot and Lana’s potential is boiling over. To show that to the world and have them take it seriously, I wish so much for that.

• 

  Review by matnol9 ★★★ 2

  A mild MGM rom/com with some light Collegiate free-styling mashups to some cool swinging musical tunes...has Lana Turner only 18 and a redhead as the main attraction...yep, she’s one of those early film stars who really attracted my attention to have me start seeking out her films...here she plays a professional vaudeville performer in a father Leon Errol  & daughter act, is picked as a replacement dancer, and is used as a ‘plant’ in a rigged college dancing contest publicity stunt. Lana manages to rise above a drab script...the highlight scene for me would be the fake father’s sketch.

  Roscoe Karns  as the talent agent who nearly gets fired for letting nature take its course...Richard Carlson as Pug the hard-pressed student journalist runs a full…

• 

  Review by biLLy GoMeZ ★★½

  Lana asking a man to drive her where she needs to go and when he says he doesn’t have a car, she says, in a flustered tone, how she wishes he was a horse. 1930’s adorable.

  Also, loved that line when she shows up to the party looking unbelievable and Pug compliments her by saying it looks like she swallowed the sunset. Lovely. 

  Pug, the guy who’s supposed to be a college student but looks forty, takes Lana Turner out for dinner. A dinner that was drive-through and consisted of hot  dogs and coffee, which is one the worst pairings ever. AND, she eventually marries him. Just NO. Hot dogs and beer, maybe. But NO. JUST NO.

• 

  Review by Moriah ★★★★

  This one is definitely a cute little number and I enjoy myself immensely every time I watch it. Lana Turner really was such a gem from the very beginning. I also so adore that this movie showcases a bit of her dancing skills, which is something she so loved to do and you can tell because she can't help but smile every time she dances.

  I would also say this film also shows the comedic timing Turner had, I think she is a lot more known for her dramatic work, but she had a knack for comedy as well. You will find she is quite the endearing little character here.

  Ann Rutherford also makes me smile my whole way through this picture too. Rutherford and Turner side by side for most the picture really is such a treat, along with the music and the schemes that ensue throughout.

• 

  Review by David Pousak ★★★½

  Plot is pretty ridiculous even for a B movie, but this is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. Lana Turner is really charming in an early lead role, and makes the plot a lot more tolerable. Some great dance sequences are thrown in, too... as expected from a title like that...

• 

  Review by PUNQ ★★½

  My God, was the 18 year old Lana Turner an amazing beauty. I'm falling more and more in love with her! In 1939 she was getting these college films and she takes them by storm regardless how silly the plot seems to be.

  
  Also June Preisser is becoming a favorite. She's the acrobatic blond. I noticed her in Babes in Arms (1939) where she was doing some weird body rolls. Here again she twists her body in cool fashion before being forced into exhaustion under the catchy tunes of Artie Shaw and His Orchestra in this energetic comedy.

• 

  Review by emily ★★½

  no plot needed! just pretty people dancing to artie shaw please!

• 

  Review by hayley ★★★½

  Lighthearted and fun is everything I wanted and it’s exactly what I got. Lana Turner was delightful and her dancing was an absolute pleasure to watch. I think this is one of those hidden gems that you can just dig out when you feel like smiling and having an all round good time.

• 

  Review by Brenda Lane ★★★★

  This is my first Lana Turner film and I'm on the floor??? She's so stunning and this movie was so wonderful and funny and it made me so happy wow