Queer Cadet
(originally posted on IMDb 25 September 2018)

Straightforwardly, "West Point" is a cliché-ridden, formulaic vehicle for star William Haines: jackass on campus learns the errors of his ways, wins the big game and gets the girl. Plus, it's a feature-length patriotic commercial for the United States Military Academy. The only way I find this interesting is in considering it in relation to Haines in real life being gay; not only because of the irony this adds to this piece of chauvinism celebration for what at the time was an officially-homophobic institution, but also because the narrative seems to call for a queer reading.

Haines plays cocky and flamboyant cadet Brice Wayne, who doesn't conform to the "spirit of the Corps" at West Point. He doesn't do anything quite right by that standard (about-facing, horse riding and generally making a mockery of the straight-laced institution), except playing American football. He's a natural punter and excels at breaking through the physical defenses of other men. He rooms with and is followed around by Tex McNeil, a smaller man who admires him, with his stronger physique, and who Wayne identifies as "My boy-friend." This relationship is more pivotal to the plot than even Wayne's nominal heterosexual love interest played by Joan Crawford, who wasn't yet a star at this point. Wayne outs himself in a newspaper interview, which he refuses to deny when confronted about it by his team. He's subsequently shunned as an outcast, with fellow cadets turning their backs to him when he approaches, and they threaten to "silence" him with an Honor Committee meeting. Tex, who, as Brice also claims "is scared of army officers," begs Wayne to apologize and to convert to the "spirit of the Corps," promising him that he'll "feel different" after winning the big game and the girl. Thus, beyond the generic college comedy-turned-melodrama plus Army commercial, "West Point" relies upon the subtext of gay bashing, just as the Army did at the time--and just as Hollywood did, too. In real life, Haines refused to deny his homosexuality and accept Louis B. Mayer's ultimatum of a lavender marriage and, instead, was silenced from the screen.

Otherwise, "West Point" is a dumb comedy-drama, full of jokey intertitles early on that would make for a script better suited to a talkie. Plus, they're not funny. For instance, one of Haines's quips is, "How are you, Mr. West ....how's your Point?" And what's with all the "Mammy" jokes--digs at Al Jolson? Title writer Joseph Farnham won the only Academy Award for this category, perhaps partially based on the kind of work he did here. His intertitles serve a similar purpose in another college comedy from the same year, "The Fair Co-Ed," with Marion Davies playing a similar role to the one Haines plays here, except she played basketball. Sure, "West Point" would've likely lost some of the flowing camerawork and its brisk pacing were it an early talkie, but this is hardly an outstanding picture in these respects for an era when silent film had achieved a new pinnacle in the art form. As it stands, a bit of a training montage and shots of marching stand out, and the game is edited relatively well between documentary and staged scenes in an attempt to conceal that they didn't actually play football in a packed stadium. Both Davies and Haines would shortly hereafter fair better in "Show People" (1928), with an intelligent scenario and the direction of King Vidor, who besides being a visually-competent filmmaker, made a self-referential film that's more compelling than the homophobic parallel seen here.