West Point

All William Haines movies are the same. He plays a college student/cadet who behaves like an obnoxious prankster treating his girls like crap and his friends worse. Then he gets knocked down a notch or five, and he reforms. It was apparently a formula that worked, which is why Haines was one of the highest grossing stars of the silent era. And they follow the same formula with West Point (1927), and the girl he treats like shit is a young short haired Joan Crawford!

one of the earliest adaptations of the now tired wrong-kind-of-guy-joins-the-military-and-it's-kind-of-funny-and-uplifting-at-the-same-time trope. it's not all that, but i'll be damned if joan crawford wasn't hot in the 20's.

Had some regular laughs and a nice amusing tone for the first half, second half was ok but more bland. Haines' character would probably get on my nerves if I had to actually hear him, but he manages to balance sympathy and obnoxiousness pretty well here.