Friends Hermie (an aspiring artist), Oscy (a jock), and Benjie (a nerd) graduate high school in the Spring of 1944, under the looming threat of World War II. At a post-graduation party, Hermie and Oscy are startled when Benjie tells them that he's enlisted in the Marines. While Hermie and Oscy spend the Summer working at a loading dock, Benjie goes to basic training; at Summer's end, they see him off on his way to fight in the Pacific Theater.
At their fathers' behest, Oscy and Hermie go to college. Much of the film consists slice of life vignettes depicting college life during wartime, with the effect of the war on the home front as a constant recurring theme.
While Hermie is serious about his studies, Oscy primarily sees it as an opportunity to pick up girls. On the campus newspaper staff, Hermie meets and falls in love with Julie, a well-to-do coed. At her suggestion, Hermie and Oscy join a frat and successfully pass through the requisite hazing rituals. Shortly after moving into the frat house, though, Oscy is expelled for bringing girls to his room, and Hermie finds himself saddled with an annoying roommate. Oscy, seeing no other alternative, enlists in the army.
Hermie and Julie have a falling out after Julie tells him she intends to go out on a non-romantic date with an old boyfriend coming into town on shore leave. Hermie expresses his distrust for Julie and they break up. Back at the frat house, Hermie receives a phone call from his mother that his father has died unexpectedly. Returning home for the funeral, he's reunited with Oscy, who has passed basic training and is now a typist on Governor's Island. Oscy takes Hermie out for a night of drinking in his father's memory, culminating in a bar room brawl. Back at Hermie's house, a drunk Hermie voices his inability to accept his father's death before passing out. Oscy stays up through the night, watching over Hermie.
Hermie returns to college and is about to call for a cab at the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad train station when Julie arrives in her car. She tells him that Hermie's mother told her about his father's death, and that she's come to reconcile with him. Julie further tells Hermie that she's learned he passed his final exams for the semester and his successfully completed his Freshman year. Hermie and Julie reconcile and climb into the back seat of Julie's car as the film ends.
Who was serious in studies?
Hermie