The Rose Bowl Story

The Rose Bowl Story is a 1952 American romance film directed by William Beaudine and starring Marshall Thompson, Vera Miles and Richard Rober, featuring a young Natalie Wood. The film was made in Cinecolor. It follows the relationship between a college football player and his girlfriend. Plot Qualifying to play in the illustrious Rose Bowl football game on New Year's Day, a Midwestern college's quarterback, Steve Davis, is not as happy as he should be because playing football does not excite him, but his teammate Bronc Buttram is thrilled. Their coach, Jim Hadley, is equally pleased because his ill wife has gone to warmer Glendale, California for her health, so he will now be able to spend more time with her. Steve perks up in Pasadena while meeting the Rose Bowl's committee and particularly the tournament's queen, Denny Burke, a beauty in a fur coat. Steve believes she is wealthy as well as beautiful and manages to get her telephone number. He cannot get through, however, because Denny's younger sister Sally is always tying up the phone. Finding her house, Steve learns she is a middle-class girl whose dad, "Iron Mike" Burke, once played in a Rose Bowl game himself. Denny takes exception to Steve's disappointment that she is not rich and to his blasé attitude toward the Rose Bowl, a tradition her family loves. The self-involved Steve develops a guilty conscience.