The Drop Kick (1927)

Information from IMDb

Plot Summary
College football player Jack Hamill finds his reputation on the line
when he pays an innocent visit to a woman whose husband kills himself.

Full Cast
Richard Barthelmess
Jack Hamill
Barbara Kent
Cecily Graves
Dorothy Revier
Mrs. Eunice Hathaway
Eugene Strong
Brad Hathaway
Alberta Vaughn...Molly
James Bradbury Jr. ...Bones (as James Bradbury)
Brooks Benedict
Ed Pemberton
Hedda Hopper
Mrs. Hamill
Mayme Kelso Mayme Kelso ...Mrs. Graves
George C. Pearce ...The Dean
Bill Elliott ...Aggressive Student at Dance (uncredited)
Al Hill... Jack's Buddy at Dance (uncredited)
John Wayne...Football Player / Extra in Stands (uncredited)

The Drop Kick (also known as Glitter in the UK) was a 1927 silent film
directed by Millard Webb written by Katherine Brush
about a college football player (Richard Barthelmess)
who finds his reputation on the line when he pays an innocent visit
to a woman whose husband kills himself.
It was one of the early films of John Wayne who was only aged 20 in the film.
He too played a college footballer.

In this silent film, Richard Barthelmess was the star.
This movie also had a football setting.

Richard Barthelmess, star of The Drop Kick (1927),
was a very popular leading man in the late 1910s and throughout the 1920s.
However, he seems a little mature at age 32 to be playing a college student
in this tawdry example of a popular subgenre of the 1920s, the college picture.

Young Duke Morrison was really on the swing gang
of glorified furniture removers,
when he was selected as one of 10 college players,
during a nationwide film test.

Richard Barthelmess, was also in Central Airport,
which Duke appeared in,
but is better known to us, as Bronco Kid Farrow
in The Spoilers

This film co-starred Alberta Vaughan
who later was to star with Duke,
as Sandy Rogers, in the Lone Star Western
Randy Rides Alone

User Review
The 20 Year Old John Wayne
2 September 2003 | by Single-Black-Male (London, England)

Quote

All of these early silent films that John Wayne appeared in equipped him
with the stamina and skills that he would apply in his later films.
In this film, he trained as an American football player which put him
in good stead as a coach in 'Trouble Along the Way' 24 years later.

Handsome Richard Barthelmess as football hero
31 January 2004 | by overseer-3 (Florida) – See all my reviews

Quote

If you like movies about football then you might give this silent film a try, though most of the football scenes are near the end of the film. The plot of The Drop Kick is predictable but any film with the wonderful actor Richard Barthelmess in it is worth watching.

Jim,
thanks for these,
you will notice that the screenshot
was posted before,
but thanks for the poster shot

I. “Drop kick, the (First National 1927)… Duke and Pexy were grandstand extras in this football picture, neither received billing”

II. “Wayne was one of ten college football players (from Stanford, USC and UCLA), selected to appear as stand-ins and extras in the grandstands . . .”

III. “Duke and other members of the USC football team were hired for drop kick.”

IV. “There is evidence to suggest the tireless young professional worked at other studios while being employed at Fox. We know of his appearance in “THE DROP KICK,” a Richard Barthelmess college picture in which young Wayne is clearly visible as a spectator in the crowd at the big Shoreham-Central game. When the hero misses a critical kick, Wayne can be seen hooting and giving cat calls.” Vol VI, No 1, June 1989

With thanks to Elly
John Wayne Before Stagecoach