Take Me out to the Ball Game

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

So baseball pictures never make money, eh? Try telling that to MGM, which raked in a box office gross of $4 million on their 1949 baseball musical Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Set in 1906, the film concerns the adventures and misadventures of The Wolves, a champion ball club. The team's success is contingent upon the double-play combination of "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg." But while Goldberg (Jules Munshin) lives to play baseball, O'Brien (Gene Kelly) and Ryan (Frank Sinatra) would rather pursue their off-season vaudeville career. Both erstwhile song-and-dance men decide to stick around on the baseball diamond when they mutually fall in love with the Wolves' new owner, the lovely K.C. Higgins (Esther Williams). Though O'Brien wins K.C. for himself, Ryan is compensated with the aggressively affectionate Shirley Delwyn (Betty Garrett). Gambler Joe Lorgan (Edward Arnold), who has bet heavily against the Wolves in an upcoming Big Game, woos O'Brien away from the team with promises of a big role in an upcoming musical comedy. Having let down K.C. and the rest of the team, O'Brien vows to redeem himself by playing in the crucial game. Lorgan gets wind of this, and orders his henchmen to do away with O'Brien. Hoping to shield his buddy from harm, Ryan beans O'Brien with a pitched ball, thereby incapacitating the prodigal player. The crooks are vanquished, and K.C. forgives O'Brien. But upon learning that Ryan had knocked him out, O'Brien charges onto the diamond, thirsting for revenge. Believe it or not, this action results in no fewer than two winning home runs! We offer you this detailed synopsis because it's likely that you'll be too entertained by the film's musical numbers to pay any attention to the story. Outside of the title number and Gene Kelly's solo "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day," the picture's best songs are contributed by Betty Comden, Adolf Green and Roger Edens. Take Me Out to the Ball Game is so delightful as it stands that one can only wonder what the film would have looked like had MGM's first choice Kathryn Grayson--or the studio's second choice, Judy Garland--played the Esther Williams role (In a similar vein, the Frank Sinatra character was originally to have been played by real-life Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Screen: Color
• Features:
  • cc
  • Deleted music numbers "baby doll" and "boys and girls like you and me"
  • Notes on Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly
  • 3 theatrical trailers

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Frank Sinatra - Dennis Ryan
       Esther Williams - K.C. Higgins
       Gene Kelly - Eddie O'Brien
       Betty Garrett - Shirley Delwyn
       Edward Arnold - Joe Lorgan
       Jules Munshin - Nat Goldberg
       Richard Lane - Michael Gilhuly
       Tom Dugan - Slappy Burke
       Almira Sessions

• Director:

  Busby Berkeley

• Producer:

  Arthur Freed

• Screenwriter:

  Harry Crane

• Screen Story:

  Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

• Screenwriter:

  Harry Tugend, George Wells

• Cinematographer:

  George Folsey

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Adolph Deutsch

• Composer (Music Score):

  Roger Edens

• Editor:

  Blanche Sewell

• Art Director:

  Daniel B. Cathcart, Cedric Gibbons

• Set Designer:

  Henry W. Grace, Edwin B. Willis

• Costume Designer:

  Helen Rose, Irene Valles

• Makeup:

  Jack Dawn

• Special Effects:

  Warren Newcombe, Peter Ballbusch

• Choreography:

  Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

REVIEW:

• Coming between Anchors Aweigh and On the Town, Take Me Out to the Ball Game is the least accomplished of the three Frank Sinatra-Gene Kelly pictures, but it's still fun And the setting, at least, is fairly unique for a musical. It also boasts one of the busier plots of any 1940s musical -- and yet it really all adds up to just a series of connected incidents rather than a real story. This is driven home when the picture abruptly (and oddly) ends with a lyric telling the audience "the love scene must be played out/before the final fade-out" and referring to the actors by their real names rather than their character names. Still, it's mostly a fast-paced affair, and the musical sequences pack in plenty of entertainment. There's only one trademark Busby Berkeley production number, "Strictly USA," but "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg," "It's Fate, Baby, It's Fate" and "The Right Girl for Me" are all nicely done. Kelly is cocky and acrobatic, and Sinatra has his reluctant lover routine down pat. Betty Garrett bats home her one-liners like the pro she is, and even Esther Williams comes off well here. The movie also has that great, sometimes-gaudy visual sheen that one expects from an MGM musical. Although he would continue to work sporadically as a choreographer, Berkeley would direct only one more musical. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi