Before “Animal House” made the University of Oregon campus famous back in 1979, there was…“Ed’s Co-Ed: the Campus Movie.”
During the summer break of 1928, University of Oregon student Nelson Carvel worked in Pendleton, Oregon on the Fox picture “City Girl”, starring Charles Farrell and directed by F.W. Murnau. After returning to college that fall, Carvel and his best friend and roommate James Raley, decided to produce and direct a full length feature film of their own, a comedy spoofing college life.
“It wasn’t a frivolous enterprise,” writes former UO archivist Keith Richard. “These kids had to be presumptuous as hell. It took tremendous effort. It’s interesting to me that students at that time could dream so large and follow through on their dreams.”
Realizing they needed professional advice, Carvel and Raley were brash enough to ask help from Hollywood powerhouse director Cecil B. DeMille who actually instructed his personal cameraman, James F. McBride, to travel to Eugene to shoot the picture. DeMille also threw in a state-of-the-art Bell & Howell 35-mm camera.
Financing was difficult for the movie which was originally budgeted at $3,000. That money came from people involved with the film itself, other students or family members. Screen tests were conducted at the basketball arena, “the Igloo,” in February 1929, with 531 students and three house mothers trying out for the coveted parts, and actually paying the producers 50 cents each for the privilege.
Acting as co-directors, Carvel and Raley began principal photography on the University of Oregon campus on March 30, 1929. An unexpected snowstorm interrupted shooting in April, and by mid-June, school was letting out with two weeks of shooting still to go. Scenes were rewritten to accommodate the loss of some of the cast, crew, and extras, and the filming finally wrapped on the last day of June.
Two weeks after the stock market’s “Black Friday”, the movie was premiered to a sold-out crowd at Eugene’s brand-new McDonald Theatre. It was November 15, 1929, and the local crowd went wild. The house sold out again the next night. Later, the film’s stars were featured in a “Photoplay” magazine article.
Here are some other production details:
According to contemporary accounts, Raley was in charge of story, script, personnel, and shooting schedules. Carvel oversaw procurements and logistics.
The “production staff” consisted of sixteen students, six of whom were women.
Seven student actors received “player” recognition. Interestingly, the sophomore “Joanne Windsor” character received top billing, played by Dorothy Burke. Newly-arrived freshman Ed Williams, who from the title one would assume to be the star, played by Verne Elliott, received lesser billing. Bill Haywood, Oregon’s track coach from 1904-1947, as well as John Staub, Dean of Men from 1878-1925, also appear in the film along with then-Director of University Relations George Godfrey.
The movie’s “souvenir” program has a “movie makers” section that lists the directors in second position behind the “technical superintendent,” James F. McBride, possibly the first cameraman to covet and receive higher billing that a director.
On November 11, 1968, Carvel Nelson, one of the directors, wrote a letter to Ken Metzler, Editor of the “Old Oregon.” Nelson acknowledges that McBride “did the camera work, directed the action, managed reflector lighting, soothed hurt feelings, improvised and built reflection, filters and other needed equipment, ‘rewrote’ script on set to accommodate weather conditions, tantrums and no-show actors.”
As for the tone of the film, Carvel states “to call Ed’s Coed an ‘authentic interpretation of University life in the 1920’s’ is a bit like calling a Marx Brothers movie an ‘authentic’ interpretation of life in a city during the 1930’s and ‘40’s. The story and situations are as hackneyed and corny as a stock western movie and certainly portray nothing of the average student experiences at Oregon.” On the other hand, Carvel credits the movie for accurately portraying the dress and style of the day, as well as the faculty and “campus customs, traditions and spring activities.”
The hazing of freshmen as depicted in the film is accurate. Upper-class students enforced rigorous rules about what clothing freshmen could wear, where they could sit, walk or smoke on campus. Only seniors were permitted to wear cords or grow a mustache or relax on the concrete benches outside certain buildings. Freshmen were required to wear a beanie, which was burned in the spring. All students were strictly forbidden to step on the University of Oregon seal. Failure to observe the rules resulted in public paddlings for men in front of the library, and public dousings for women in the lily pond.
The music score is lost (presumably it was never recorded), so a score written by Art Maddox of Pleasant Hill was added to the silent movie’s new video version.
In his letter from 1968, Nelson Carvel concludes: “That the ‘Campus Movie’ didn’t come up to expectations either as a spoof or a profit maker was disappointing but not particularly shattering. We were young then!”
None of those involved in “Ed’s Co-Ed” appear to have continued to make their living in the business after the film’s release.
“Ed’s Co-Ed” has a place in history, not only from its status as the first student film, but also because it was one of the very last silent films. The advent of sound and the Great Depression made “Ed’s Co-Ed” an undiscovered treasure until it was found again decades later.
As the real Phyllis Van Kimmel said before she died at the age of 93, “Those were some of the best days of my life.”
