Plot
A cocky American named Lee Sheridan (Robert Taylor) receives a scholarship to attend Oxford University. At first, Lee is reluctant to go to the college owing to his father's limited income, but he finally does attend. Once in England, Lee brags about his athletic triumphs to Paul Beaumont (Griffith Jones), Wavertree (Robert Coote), and Ramsey (Peter Croft) on the train to Oxford. Annoyed, they trick Lee Sheridan into getting off the train at the wrong stop. However, Lee does make his way to Oxford where the students attempt to trick him again, this time into thinking that he is getting a grand reception. Seeing through the deception, he follows the prankster impersonating the Dean and after chasing him is thrown off and ends up kicking the real Dean of Cardinal (Edmund Gwenn) before retreating.
Lee considers leaving Oxford but stays on after being convinced by Scatters (Edward Rigby), his personal servant. Lee meets Elsa Craddock (Vivien Leigh), a married woman who "helps" the new campus students, and starts a relationship with Paul Beaumont's sister Molly (Maureen O'Sullivan). Lee makes the track team and just when he begins to fit in he is hazed for pushing Paul out of the way during a track meet when asked to rest. In a fit of anger, Lee goes to a local bar and finds Paul in a private booth with Elsa. He starts to fight with Paul when Wavertree comes in and warns them of campus officials coming. Lee and Paul run and when they are almost caught by one of the campus officials Lee punches him. Wavertree tells his friends that he saw Paul throw the punch and it is Paul who gets in trouble for hitting the official. He is scorned for saying it was Lee who punched him and Lee is soon the favorite of Paul's old friends. Molly begins to see him again, but Lee still feels poor for what has happened between her and Paul.
Lee begins rowing and tries to make amends to Paul after winning a race, but Paul rejects the offer of friendship. Though his offer of friendship was rejected, Lee still helps Paul by hiding Elsa in his own room when Elsa is looking for Paul. The Dean catches the two of them together and expels Lee from Oxford. Lee's father, Dan Sheridan (Lionel Barrymore), comes for the bump races having not heard of Lee's expulsion from Oxford University. When Lee tells him that he had been having an affair with Elsa, Dan believes he is lying. Judging from Lee's letters about Molly he feels that Lee could not possibly have had an affair with Elsa due to the way he feels about Molly. Dan meets with Molly and the two devise a plan to get Lee back into college. Dan meets with Elsa at the bookstore and convinces her to talk to the Dean. After flirting with the Dean and telling him that Lee was only hiding her from Wavertree, Lee is allowed back into Oxford and Wavertree (much to his disgust for he has been trying to get expelled for an inheritance from his uncle) is let off with a slap on the wrist. Lee and Paul finally make amends and win The Boat Race.
Read more about this topic: A Yank At Oxford
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)