Always Kickin': A scrappy, weirdly fun look at gridiron grit

Is it worth your time?

If you're a fan of vintage sports flicks, sure. It’s got that raw, dusty energy of movies like God's Country and the Woman, where the story feels like it's being made up five minutes before the cameras roll. Don't expect a masterpiece. Just expect a lot of guys yelling about football and kicking things.

The whole thing feels like a collection of clips held together by sheer willpower. Bill Spaulding plays himself, which is always a weird choice because, well, he’s an athlete, not an actor. He has this look in his eyes like he’s trying to remember if he left the stove on back home. It's oddly endearing. 🏈

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Always Kickin' (1932) through its definitive frames.

Little things that stuck out

• There’s a scene where the ball goes through the uprights, and you can practically hear the director screaming "cut" before it even hits the grass.
• The extras in the background look like they’re having a better time than the actual cast.
• The lighting in the locker room scenes is... dark. Like, 'can-you-even-see-the-players' dark.

Watching this made me think of the tone in The Bar Cross War, mostly because both movies feel like they’d rather be doing something else than sitting in a studio. They just want to get to the action. For this movie, that means more kicking. And more running. And a fair amount of aggressive staring.

I caught myself getting distracted by the jerseys. They look like they’re made of heavy wool and bad intentions. You can almost feel the sweat through the screen. It’s not exactly the polished look you see in modern stuff, but it’s real, I guess. Or as real as a 1930s sports movie gets.

There is no grand message here. Nobody learns a lesson. Nobody finds themselves. They just win or lose, and then the movie ends. It’s almost refreshing. Almost. It feels a bit like Obey the Law in how quickly it rushes through its own logic. One minute they’re in a huddle, the next they’re celebrating, and the pacing is just… wild. It’s not a great movie, but it’s definitely a movie that happened.