Return to Campus

In 1971, a notice in Daily Variety announced that Harold Cornsweet was ready to make a film called Return to the Campus. A former Hollywood actor and distributor (he brought Claude Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes (1960) to the U.S. in 1966 through his company, Harold Cornsweet Films), the Ohio native was returning home to shoot a sports comedy inspired in part by his own life. Born and raised in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, Cornsweet had played for the Ohio State University football team as a place kicker until he left school to fight in World War II. The film, eventually released as Return to Campus (1975), jumps off from that premise into the fictional story of a 55-year-old widower named Hal Norman who returns to OSU to get his diploma and fulfill his dream of rejoining the college football team as a specialty place kicker. Cornsweet raised the money from former classmates at Shaker Heights High School and Ohio State University and was ready shoot in Ohio with Aram Katcher in the lead and Alan Factor in the director's chair. Two years later, when shooting began in Shaker Heights in October of 1973, Cornsweet had taken over as director as well as writer, producer and editor and had cast local Cleveland actor Norman Finson as Hal Norman. By the time shooting ended in November, the lead had been recast once again, with Earl Keyes (another Cleveland native) as the middle-aged college student who makes headlines with his record-breaking field goal kicks. The film was shot entirely in the state of Ohio, largely in Shaker Heights and Cleveland. John Caroll University stood in for the OSU campus and gridiron scenes were staged at Shaker Heights High School, which were intercut with crowd shots and sports action that Cornsweet photographed at a real college football game at Ohio State University. Cornsweet cast the film locally for the most part--most of the actors had no experience on a professional film production--and he reported that he had to fire three actors during production and reshoot their scenes at a cost of nearly $7,000. There is one familiar name in the production, however. Longtime character actor Jesse White, whose credits stretch from the classic James Stewart comedy Harvey (1950) to the Maytag repairman in scores of TV commercials, is never seen onscreen but his voice can be heard calling the play by play over the football stadium loudspeakers. Return to Campus had its gala World Premiere screening at the Graceland Cinemas in Cleveland on October 8, 1975, with former Hollywood actor and California Governor Ronald Reagan in attendance. The G-rated film was picked up for distribution in 1976 but Cornsweet never had the opportunity to make a follow-up feature. He passed away in 1977, and the film disappeared for years until VCI released it on DVD under the alternate title The World's Greatest Kicker. The film was also released under the name The Buckeye Bomber's Return to Campus. Sources: "Rain steals the show in 'Return to Campus'," Tony Mastroianni. Cleveland Press, October 1, 1973. AFI Catalog of Feature Films IMDb By Sean Axmaker