grade Movie Reviews

• Reviewed by Boba_Fett1138 grade 8 / 10

  In my opinion one of the better MGM musicals.

  There are a couple of reasons why this movie is in my opinion better than the average MGM musical movie.One is the story. Of course it features a love-story but the movie takes an original approach and takes a couple of nice turns with the love-story. Who is falling in love with who always remains a surprise in the movie.Another reason is an obvious one; Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. Not only are they great genre actors but they're also great together. Especially Kelly delivers one fine performance. The female cast is also impressive by the way, with Esther Williams as the female lead.Another important reason why this movie is so great is the cheerfulness of the whole movie. The songs are cheerful and never really too sappy or just plain awful. The movie has some great comedy moments and is also definitely helped by its fun main characters.The movie sort of pays a great homage to the early days of baseball in America. The settings and premise work out fine for the genre and make the otherwise still somewhat formulaic storyline still come across as original.The production values are also good and everything combined makes sure that this is a good pleasant bright musical comedy that is perfect to kill some time with and have a good time with at the same time.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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• Reviewed by funkyfry grade 7 / 10

  Fun baseball musical with Sinatra, Kelly and Williams

  Pleasant turn of the century story of 2 baseball player/vauldevillians (Sinatra and Kelly) whose soft lives are shaken up when go-getter Williams inherits their franchise and takes up an active, controversial, management. Solid story packed with good jokes and believable, if broad, characterizations. Kelly comes with some very impressive dancing as always, and Sinatra croons some pleasant tunes. Williams and Garrett are great as the boys' love interests -- here many of the good jokes are typified by Sinatra's dry speech on the agressive methods he's used to catch Garrett -- when in fact the audience has seen HIM relentlessly pursued by hellcat Garrett! Good show.... but lacks substance (this would be one of the last musicals not to show the influence of Rodgers and Hammerstein's more highbrow tone).

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• Reviewed by bkoganbing grade 8 / 10

  Baseball and Vaudeville

  Gene Kelly took this idea to Arthur Freed about an original musical which would combine two big loves of his, baseball and the dance. The story would be based on Al Schacht and Nick Altrock who played ball during the regular season as pitcher and catcher and then in the off season toured in vaudeville. So Take Me Out to the Ballgame was born. In fact the song Take Me Out to the Ballgame was written during that era of Theodore Roosevelt.But instead of a battery, the story revolved around a double play combination of Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin. Right in the same Teddy Roosevelt era the famous double play combination of Tinkers to Evers to Chance was doing great things for the Chicago Cubs. So it seems natural that a nice novelty number of O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg seemed in order for this film.Vaudeville and baseball are not complete strangers either. During the previous century Michael 'King' Kelly, colorful star catcher and base stealer for the Cubs toured in vaudeville. Rube Marquard the number two pitcher for the New York Giants in the second decade of the last century married musical comedy star Blossom Seeley and toured with her as part of her act before they broke up.In fact the original idea in Take Me Out to the Ballgame was to have Leo Durocher play the Jules Munshin part. Of course it would have been a lot different role then. Durocher hung out with a lot of show business types, one of his best friends was George Raft. That got him in some trouble, but that's a story for another film.Kelly and Sinatra essentially play the same roles they did Anchors Aweigh. Sinatra doesn't get as many good numbers as he did in that film, but he does have a very nice ballad, The Right Girl for Me who he thinks might be Esther Williams as he sings it to her. Of course Betty Garrett gets in the picture and she has some different ideas.Esther Williams was not kind to Gene Kelly in her memoirs. She gets only one brief dip in a pool in a one piece bathing suit that was just being popularized at the time of this film by Annette Kellerman. Of course Esther later played Annette Kellerman in another film. She had a lot of trouble with the dance numbers because as she explained it, the muscles one develops for swimming are not the same as those needed for dance and she was really as she describes cruelly razzed by Kelly and Stanley Donen. She grew to dislike him intensely.Kelly's best number is The Hat Me Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day, a nice Irish jig number that he does with style. Busby Berkeley directed the film, but the kind of mammoth musical number that typifies his work is only seen in the ensemble song, Strictly USA. The plot involves some gamblers trying to fix the pennant race against the heavily favored Brooklyn Wolves, Kelly and Sinatra's team. Edward Arnold is the number one fixer. As we well know, gambling and baseball weren't strangers back in the day. Players were hardly paid what they are today and in the days before Kennesaw Mountain Landis became the first Commissioner, fixes were talked of in hushed tones. Kelly gets tricked and tempted.Take Me Out to the Ballgame, the first good musical film on baseball, a harbinger for Damn Yankees and nice entertainment.

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