Learning about college from movies, radio, TV

When I realized back in the 1950s – actually mid-1950s – that a college education would be my best path forward, I did what any serious-minded young person of the time did.

I went down to our neighborhood movie theater to do my research.

I also consulted radio and TV shows.

Really, how else were kids like me in that era before guidance counselors supposed to gain insight into the huge, life-changing experience that four years of higher education (or more) would entail?

Films of the ‘50s showed little of college life itself, unfortunately, except that everybody went to the football games on Saturday and that students sat in wooden chairs with big arms so they could write stuff down while the profs lectured.

Well, at least that was something, and by assiduous viewing I was able to pick up a few more pointers.

I hunkered down in a theater seat and watched intently as freshman Tony Curtis in “The All American” tossed a campus bully into a big water fountain. You have to be tough, I realized.

The travails of Virginia Mayo in “She’s Working Her Way Through College” to transition from burlesque queen to degree-seeking student opened up yet another vista of academic life – you have to fit yourself into a whole new culture.

There weren’t a lot of college-themed movies in those days. The era of gritty dramas like “The Paper Chase” and “The Social Network” was way in the future. But I was seeking out the best I could.

The other source of information was right at home. I enjoyed the radio and later TV show “The Halls of Ivy.” The program, starring Ronald Colman, was an interesting blend of comedy and drama about life at a fictitious Midwestern college, told from the point of view of the school president and his wife.

If nothing else, I learned about campus structure – academic departments, deans of students and all that. Also, glee clubs with their massed voices sounded really great.

Overall, though, it was movies that sold me on higher ed, at least by suggesting that college-honed skill (meaning a degree) would offer an expertise that modern times valued.

What kind of movies? Well, in those days of science fiction and horror, the screen was full of creative and powerful men of science addressed as “doctor” or “professor” who played huge roles in saving people from giant grasshoppers or defending Earth from aliens packing death rays.

Fictional though they were, I concluded, that they didn’t learn their way around labs with flashing lights and steaming test tubes by accident. The back story was that these titans had obviously worked their tails off to become the experts we needed when hungry monsters or murderous space fiends were running amok.

In “The Day the Earth Stood Still” it is a mathematician that benign spaceman Klaatu visits to gain entrée to the key people of Earth. In “Earth Versus the Flying Saucers” it is intrepid scientists who develop a weapon that stops the onslaught from space.

Admittedly, I never became a renowned math wrangler or saved our planet from invaders. But I picked up an important idea while scarfing down Good & Plenty.

Whether your background is burlesque queen or class nerd and whether your goal is to guard humanity or write stuff, job number one is to survey the landscape, take a deep breath and say “OK, I’m starting today.”

And if anyone gets in your way, toss him into the campus water fountain.