Opening Day: Take Me Out To The Ball Game

by Jason McGensy

I’ve never been much of a baseball fan. Oh sure, I’ve been a supporter of the Yankees for years, but I’d never really call myself a fan. Fans live and die with their teams, I mostly field the sneers and jeers of others who are fans of teams other than the Yankees with courteous aplomb, because I don’t really care all that much either way. I’ve got nothing against baseball, and I do enjoy going to the occasional game at the ballpark, but since I never played it growing up I just never got into it. In fact, my favorite thing about baseball is that it spawned baseball movies. Baseball is beautiful on the big screen. The pitcher-batter duel is inherently dramatic, and the geometric design of the field is much more visually appealing than the rectangular spaces where football and basketball compete.

And so, on this opening day of the 2014 MLB season and opening day of Esther Williams Week here, I’d like to offer up a double play, one of my favorite baseball movies and one of my favorite Esther Williams movies: Take Me Out To The Ball Game.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game stars Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as a superstar baseball duo who spend the season chasing the pennant and the offseason chasing girls in between sets as a song-and-dance duo in a touring vaudeville show.

Sinatra plays the naif second baseman Ryan, Kelly’s the skirt-chasing shortstop O’Brien. Their dance numbers are filmed simply by director Busby Berkeley, known primarily for his visual flourish in staging elaborate dance numbers in the 30s. He exercises stylistic restraint here, letting his stars do the heavy lifting. When you’ve got Sinatra and Kelly, you just sit back and let the magic happen.

Their team owner dies and bequeaths the team to a distant relative, one K.C. Higgins. The team manager, Slappy, goes to pick up K.C. at the train station, expecting to find a man, instead he bumps into a woman with Higgins on her luggage, but puts it together too late and she’s already in her car before he can stop her. Turns out this K.C. Higgins is none other than Esther Williams (we come to discover the K is for Katherine and the C is also for Catherine. Her parents couldn’t decide on a spelling so they used both). She beats Slappy back to the team hotel, so she waltzes in unannounced. Kelly, not knowing who she is, tries to woo her, but she knows exactly who he is and plays him for a chump.

Nice try, Gene.

She shows up at the ballpark for practice the next day. Unimpressed by Gene Kelly’s form at the plate, she steps in and begins giving batting tips and even scooping an errant ground ball. Sinatra is smitten. He’s a sucker for a dame who can field a hot grounder.

Sinatra and Kelly are joined by Jules Munshin on a couple of song and dance numbers (turns out they are part of a  superstar infield trio: O’Brien to Ryan to Goldberg)

The fellas are locked down at night during spring training so they sit in the room and plot ways to escape. They look out the window and what do they see? Why it’s Ms. Higgins having a late night swim! Esther’s not letting this being a baseball movie keep her out the pool.

The boys convince Sinatra to go down and try to woo her, in hopes that she’d take them all out on the town. He’s shy but figures he’ll give it a shot. He works up his nerve and Esther ends up serenaded by Sinatra in the moonlight. The song is played in a pair of 2-shots, without cutting in for close-ups. We see them relating to each other during the song, we see Esther staring into the ol blue eyes instead of us doing it, so when we do eventually get a close up we understand the emotion and relationship between them.

Because he’s no Casanova, he eventually gets into a pantomime game of pitch and catch with her and eventually she shuffles off to her  bedroom. After seeing Sinatra strike out, Kelly climbs up to her balcony and tries to get her to go out with him and the fellas. He’s a little more polished at this sort of thing and she appreciates the attempt (“Why, you’re very poetic for a shortstop.”) but politely says no, and amusedly levies a fine on him for being out past curfew.

We cut to a training montage as Sinatra tries to put on weight (there are numerous jokes about him being a slight fella) and the start of the season. The Wolves are favored to win the pennant. Teddy Roosevelt even shows up at their first game, seen here with his proverbial big stick.

Bully!

Also present at the team’s first game is Shirley, who turns into something of a stalker for Sinatra. (Shirley is played by Betty Garrett, who would also hound him in On the Town later in 1949).

Run Frankie Run

The Wolves win the first game despite Esther getting tossed out for arguing with the ump.

Lady, I can’t take you seriously in that get up.

Next, we get another nice montage mixing shots of the team on the train, game footage, scoreboards, newspaper headlines. It’s cinematically economical, compared to, say, showing each of these actions one at a time.

Shirley invites the whole team to a clambake! (editor’s note: I have no idea what a clambake is, and the one they go to has no sign of clams.) At said clambake, we get our big Busby Berkeley musical number, the unabashedly patriotic anthem, Strictly USA…because America. Everyone is having a great time and all the antagonism and drama of the plot is suspended for a moment of pure jubilant Americana.

Almost everyone is having a good time. That old no-goodnik Edward Arnold shows up with a couple of goons, plotting and scheming in the shadows.

We’re a couple of swells.

Esther is starting to fall for Gene even if he doesn’t know he’s falling for her too. She finally gives Sinatra the brush off (last time that ever happened!) so he settles for Stalker Shirley, who is more than happy being the silver medalist.

I suppose you’ll do.

An overlong St. Patricks Day number follows pretty much right on the heels of Strictly USA for some reason. It eventually turns into a solid Kelly solo number, but it takes a while to get there and seems out of place.

Not to mention Kelly hams it up for the camera so much when the dance steps are not challenging him.

Turns out Edward Arnold has a big bet on the Wolves not winning the pennant and they’re too close for comfort, so he makes his pitch (pun intended) to  Gene: He offers him a spot in a new vaudeville show he’s opening. He can give up baseball and chase his showbiz dream. Gene says no thanks. So Arnold offers him a better deal, play ball during the day, work on the show at night. He agrees and tries to keep it secret. (as an aside, I wish Edward Arnold wasn’t always a heel in the movies, but he really is a perfect villain.)

Another great montage, this time showing the team losing, Kelly blowing it on the field, working on the song-and-dance show at night, newspapers bemoaning the losing streak. It’s a nice visual rhyme to the earlier montage of the team winning.

You may have to squint, but in that frame grab you can see the scoreboard showing that the team can’t score, you can see Kelly and his manager discussing his issues, and you can see Kelly working with the chorus girls all within this one dissolve.

The fellas think he’s lost his mojo because of Esther. They think know he’s into her and want her to admit she’s into him too. She pretends she doesn’t like him, “I’m only interested in his batting average.”

I’m sure I don’t know what you boys are talking about.

Gene calls to say he’s quitting the vaudeville act but Edward Arnold isn’t gonna let him get away that easy. He gets his goons and says they’re going to pay him a visit. Meanwhile, Esther and Gene finally have “the talk” and admit their mutual affections. The scene is beautifully played in a single two shot that gradually pushes in as they come into a clinch.

Just as they’re getting somewhere, Edward Arnold comes along and spills the beans about why Kelly’s been playing so poorly. Esther is irate and dumps him from the team (and from her life!), so Arnold dumps him from the show, since all he wanted was him out of the lineup anyway to win his big bet against the Wolves.

Take a hike, pal.

Kelly’s world has been rocked, he’s rudderless, he endures the dark night of the soul. He watches young kids playing stick ball in the streets, reminisces about Esther, and regains his mojo. He comes up with a plan to get back in the game. He gets all the neighborhood kids calling for him at the ballpark, the crowd begs him to get back in the game.

Look at all those hats.

 

Esther says no, but eventually concedes to let him play. Shirley finds out about Edward Arnold’s big bet and begs Sinatra not to let Kelly play, lest the goons come-a-callin’. He hits him with a bean ball in their pre-game goof around, knocking him out.

Stick around, folks, we need to talk about these hats.

Arnold’s goons pretend to be doctors and keep him locked down in the locker room and won’t let anyone have a look at him. Esther demands to see him and Shirley recognizes them as Arnold’s goons and sics the team on them.  Gene comes to, gets in the game, hits the game-winning home run, Wolves win the pennant!

We go home with a literal show-stopping reprise of Strictly USA with Sinatra, Gene, Esther, and Stalker Shirley Betty Garrett. What could be more American?

Welcome back, baseball.

And stay tuned for Esther Williams related posts here all week.

 

P.S. Because it’s the turn of the century (the movie takes place in 1908) Esther is especially elaborately costumed. And there are SO MANY HATS. I want to know what the hat budget was for this movie. In fact, K.C. Higgins may be the most meticulously, ridiculously hatted movie character I’ve ever seen.