THE DROP KICK
starring Richard Barthelmess
PHOTOPLAY
November, 1927
After "The Patent Leather Kid" we hoped Richard Barthelmess
would continue to get his much needed better stories. This is
not one of them but simply another college story with a thin trickle
of plot concerning the falsely accused football hero, the naughty
wife and the big game saved by our hero, of course, for dear old
Alma mater. Fair enough entertainment but not worthy of its star.
THE DROP KICK
starring Richard Barthelmess
PICTURE PLAY
December, 1927
College is no safe place for the young man, if the doings in "The Drop Kick" mean anything. Mostly they don't except to provide just another movie with Richard Barthelmess as a student mixed up with a vamp whose husband, the football coach, commits suicide. Suspicion fastens upon Mr. Barthelemess. He chivalrously consents to marry the widow when she tells him he is responsible for the tragedy, but his mother saves him from the siren's machinations. It is indeed a full semester for the boys and girls. Life is so crammed with melodramatics in their supposedly carefree, rah-rah days that not much could possibly happen afeer graduation.
Ten bona-fide college boys, chosen for their good looks, appear somewhere in the picture, but at such distant range that only eager mothers can recognize them.
Wth Hedda Hopper miscast as the mother of the star, it will be seen that the picture is handicapped by the undue and unconvincing means taken to emphasize the youth of Mr. Barthelmess. However, Barbar Kent, as the heroine, is a fragrantly lovely as lilac time.