'We've Never Been Licked' -- An Appreciation

When "We've Never Been Licked" (WNBL) was first made available on VHS format, a newspaper friend asked James Reynolds '75 for a light-hearted review of the videotape. Reynolds did some homework and composed the following. 

WNBL is probably THE best-loved (but really bad) movie ever committed to celluloid. (I actually got to watch it at The Grove as a fish... one of the final couple of times it was shown there.) In the hearts and minds of every Aggie, the very finest movie ever produced was Walter Wanger’s 1943 epic saga of Aggieland, “We’ve Never Been Licked.”

WNBL was a World War II cast-of-thousands propaganda-on-the-side-of-right piece about a misfit Texas Aggie named Brad Craig (Richard Quine). Young fish Craig, son of an Old Ag named Colonel Cannonball Craig, came to A&M from the Philippines in the fall of 1938. A failed connection had made him about a month late, and the fall semester was well underway when he finally arrived by train from Dallas. The delay, however, proved fortunate in that Brad met Nina Lambert (Anne Gwynne) en route – along with a traveling salesman portrayed by William Frawley (Fred Mertz of “I Love Lucy” TV renown).

Nina was a student at A&M’s sister school, the Texas State College for Women in Denton. She was the daughter of Pop Lambert (Harry Davenport), an A&M chemistry professor and stalwart campus icon. Upon arrival they met fish Cyanide Jenkins (Noah Beery Jr.), who was to be Brad’s fish old lady. In a pivotal major plot revelation that innocuously elapsed in less than two seconds, fish Jenkins asserted that “a fellow’s just not an Aggie if he isn’t in love with Nina Lambert.”

Also introduced was a sophomore – “wethead” was the term the Hollywood censors allowed – named Panhandle Mitchell (Robert Mitchum). And we met a couple of fish from Japan, enrolled at A&M for its excellent scholastic and military programs. There followed the traditional trials and tribulations of being a fish in the Corps. Brad wrestled with quitting, calling the Corps of Cadets a “kindergarten.” He wrote a letter of resignation to his father, but Pop Lambert charmingly convinced him to stay. Also, Brad had fallen in love with Nina.

Additional plot details would utterly ruin this fascinating film adventure for those who’ve not seen it, thus no more will be revealed. Nonetheless, there are myriad points of interest to explore, and it’s possible they could be highlighted in a future HBO “The Making Of ‘We’ve Never Been Licked" documentary. For example:

Brad and Cyanide entered A&M in the fall of 1938, which placed them in the Class of ’42. I have carefully scrutinized the Directory of Former Students, and there is no trace of anyone from that class who could have been Brad Craig or Cyanide Jenkins. According to Fred Mertz on the train, Brad’s father, Col. Cannonball Craig, was “the best football player ever to come out of Texas A&M.” The colonel had graduated 21 years before Brad arrived at the campus, which would have put the elder Craig in the Class of 1917 – presumably May 1917. We all remember, of course, that the Texas Aggie football team was undefeated, untied and un-scored-upon in the autumn of 1917 and again in 1919 – but since Craig graduated before the 1917 season began, those two magnificent seasons evidently took place without the "best football player ever to come out of Texas A&M."

Col. Jason (Cannonball) Craig was portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds, who also played George Bailey’s father in “It’s A Wonderful Life.” (WNBL indeed was a springboard vehicle to stardom for almost every member of the cast!) If Col. Craig had graduated 21 years before Brad’s fish year, the colonel likely would have been in his mid-40s during Brad’s A&M days. Col. Craig, however, looked about 68 in his brief battle-scene appearances – which, as a matter of fact, was Samuel Hinds’ age at that time, he having been born in 1875.

The WNBL story opens with a live mid-day radio broadcast from Kyle Field in College Station. Simultaneously, we see characters taking brief breaks from their WWII battles all over the world to listen to the program – and it’s also mid-day all over the world, in every single time zone. For all that Col. Craig had previously told Brad about life in the Corps – “Gosh Dad, Final Review is everything you ever said it would be,” he wrote to the Old Man – Brad was remarkably arrogant, uncooperative and ignorant of Aggie customs and traditions when he first arrived.

The film’s alternate title, possibly intended to attract a more cosmopolitan ticket-buying audience, was “Texas To Tokyo.” During the filming, an extra was killed when a horse-drawn caisson overturned.

Nina (Anne Gwynne) proudly proclaimed that she was born on the A&M campus. The quackshack (hospital) that I recall, which was the same one in use when Nina experienced maternity, certainly wasn’t the sort of place any woman would go to have a baby – unless she was simply determined that the child be born on the A&M campus. The Aggie family definitely has members who manifest that degree of zeal. Anne Gwynne’s initials spell “Ag.” Anne Gwynne and WNBL female co-star Martha O’Driscoll appeared, respectively, in the movies “House of Frankenstein” and “House of Dracula,” both of which starred Lon Chaney Jr. – who as “Lenny” in “Of Mice And Men” was paired with Burgess Meredith. Meredith was in “Grumpy Old Men” with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, both of whom were in “JFK” – which also starred Kevin Bacon.

In the scene where the Corps is marching to Sbisa, we see the Aggie Band with a dozen bass horns in the rear rank – and an instant later, there are only two bass horns in the rear rank. Additionally, the parade route taken by the Band that day was incredibly circuitous. They evidently had to march all over the campus, merely for their evening meal. Obviously, the caliber of film editing in 1943 was not what it is today.

During one vignette, some upperclassmen harassed "fish sergeant" Craig by staging an apparently fatal fight, using ketchup for blood. The scenario was orchestrated by sophomore Panhandle Mitchell, and the seniors on hand obsequiously followed Panhandle's brusque instructions. In my own experience, Corps seniors just didn’t behave that way. And they certainly never followed orders issued by a, uh, wethead.

In one scene where Brad rings Pop Lambert’s doorbell, Brad (who is an embooted senior student at that time, not yet graduated) is properly wearing his Aggie ring with the point of the shield facing toward him. This film’s attention to authenticity obviously was unparalleled in cinema history – except that none of the student characters even once said “howdy” to anyone.

Just after everyone sings “The Twelfth Man” at Brad’s and Cyanide’s senior Bonfire, we hear a brief snippet of the Band playing the “wildcat” sequence that follows not “The Twelfth Man,” but the “War Hymn.”

One of the WNBL legends, which various sources have affirmed and denied, is that Robert Mitchum, appearing on a national TV talk show (this was the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson) during the prime of his career, was asked what movie was the worst he had ever made. His alleged reply: “I can’t remember its name, but it was about some cow college down in Texas.” Whether or not this is true, Tom Wisdom ’60, who was instrumental in bringing WNBL to videocassette for home viewing, advised that Mitchum no longer allowed himself to be billed as “Bob Mitchum” following WNBL. Robert Mitchum likely did that in homage to the tradition that you never again wear your senior boots after you graduate.

Another of the WNBL legends, flatly denied by Tom Wisdom '60 who performed the title search, was that Robert Mitchum bought ownership rights to the film and donated them to A&M, with the stipulation that it never be shown anywhere but on campus. That did not happen.

Richard Quine, who portrayed Brad Craig, apparently realized he had achieved his zenith as a film actor in this treasured once-in-a-lifetime role. Quine then turned to directing films, and he gave us “Bell, Book and Candle,” “Hotel,” “How to Murder Your Wife,” “Sex and the Single Girl,” and “The World of Susie Wong.” Among the stars Quine directed were James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Lauren Bacall, William Holden, Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood.