1941 1-2-3 Go! (Tertiary) Directed by Edward Cahn. Written by Hal Law and Robert McGowan. Produced by MGM. Starring Barbara Bedford, Margaret Bert, Robert Blake, John Dilson, and James Gubitosi. While playing baseball, Mickey (Robert Blake) runs into the street to catch a fly ball and is struck by a car. When the gang visits him in the hospital, they are appalled to find the ward populated by many children injured in automobile accidents. The Our Gang resolves to do something about the problem, and thus the "1-2-3-Go Safety Society" is born.
1941 Lovable Trouble (Primary) Directed by Del Lord. Written by Harry Edwards and Al Giebler. Produced by Columbia Pictures. Starring Andy Clyde, Esther Howard, Ann Doran, Luana Walters and Vernon Dent. Andy (Clyde) invests the money his wife gave him to pay the bills into a sure-fire money-making scheme, a girl's softball team made up of out-of-work chorus girls.
1941 Meet John Doe (Secondary)
Directed by Frank Capra. Written by Richard Connell and Robert Presnell Sr..
Produced by Frank Capra/Warner Bros. Starring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck,
Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, and Spring Byington.
A Frank Capra film about a naïve, but promising baseball pitcher (Long
John Willoby) whose career is on hold until he can have a career-restoring
surgery. Willoby as John Doe is made into the heroic leader as a publicity stunt
for a national goodwill drive benefiting a corrupt politician. Cooper pitches
and Brennan catches in a pantomime game of baseball with gloves but no ball. The
scene has an umpire calling fictional strikes and balls and a fan who often
needs the plays explained to him. In selecting a down and out derelict for what
starts out as a newspaper scam, Barbara Stanwyck says “He’s a ballplayer,
what could be more American than that!” Later, when Cooper wants out of the
scam, he notes, “Baseball’s my racket and I’m sticking to it.”
The sound track uses “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” as part of the
opening overture and as a melodic theme introduced from time to time.
1941 Mr. Dynamite (Tertiary) Directed by John Rawlins. Written by Stanley Rubino. Produced by Marshall Grant/Universal Pictures. Starring Lloyd Nolan, Irene Hervery, J. Carrol Naish, Robert Armstrong, and Ann Gillis. Nolan plays a major league pitcher who is slated to pitch in the World Series between St. Louis and Brooklyn. He ends up involved in an international spy ring and murder.
1941 Remember The Day (Secondary) Directed by Henry King. Written by Frank Davis and Phillip Dunning. Produced by William Perlberg/20th Century Fox. Starring Claudette Colbert, John Payne, Shepperd Strudwick, Ann E. Todd, and Douglas Croft. Elderly schoolteacher Nora Trinell, waiting to meet presidential nominee Dewey Roberts, recalls him as her student back in 1916. He was a star pitcher for the Auburn Grammar School team and would read a book by Christy Mathewson on how to pitch rather than his textbook. A slide into third base ruins his baseball career hopes, but he does end up as a presidential nominee.
1942 Blondie Goes to College (Tertiary) Directed by Frank R. Strayer. Written by Lou Breslow. Produced by Columbia Pictures. Starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake. Dagwood decides to go back to college and Blondie follows. Dagwood tries out for most sports, including baseball, and fails humorously.
1942 Brooklyn Orchid (Secondary) Directed by Kurt Neumann. Written by Clarence Marks and Earl Snell. Produced by Hal Roach Studios/United Artists. Starring William Bendix, Joe Sawyer, Marjorie Woodworth, Grace Bradley, and Richard “Skeets” Gallagher. Taxicab company owners Tim McGuerin (Bendix) and Eddie Corbett (Sawyer) rescue Lucy Gibbs (Woodworth) from a suicide attempt and she insists on placing her life and destiny in the hands of her two rescuers. From there, the two men try to keep their guardianship of the young blonde rescuee from Tim's socially ambitious wife, Sadie McGuerin (Bradley), and Eddie's fiancée Mable Cooney (McKinney.) The first of three “streamliners,” films designed to be shown as a companion feature to a full-length motion picture, featuring Bendix as a baseball loving taxi cab company owner.
1942 How to Play Baseball (Primary) Directed by Jack Kinney. Produced by Walt Disney/RKO Radio Pictures. This Disney animated short features Goofy explaining baseball and playing all eighteen positions. Selected by Samuel Goldwyn to be shown with The Pride of the Yankees.
1942 It Happened In Flatbush (Primary) Directed by Ray McCarey. Written by Harold Buchman and Lee Loeb. Produced by Walter Morosco/20th Century Fox. Starring Lloyd Nolan, Carole Landis, Sara Allgood, William Frawling, Robert Armstrong, and Jane Danwell. Frank “Butterfingers” Maguire (Nolan), a former ballplayer, is given the opportunity to coach the Brooklyn Dodgers. All is well until he is distracted by love (Landis). A petition to remove Nolan redirects his energies and he leads the Yankees to win the pennant.
1942 McGuerins From Brooklyn, The (Secondary) (a.k.a. Two Mugs from Brooklyn) Directed by Kurt Neumann. Written by Clarence Marks and Earle Snell. Produced by Hal Roach Studios/United Artists. Starring William Bendix, Grace Bradley, and Max Baer. This is a film in a series of three “streamliners” (about 45 min.) The ads claim that this film “Bats Out Laughs Like the Dodgers Bat Out Runs.” The misadventures of two semi-pro baseball players who are framed by mobsters (Mote).
1942 Moonlight in Havana (Primary) Directed by Anthony Mann. Written by Oscar Brodney. Produced by Allan Jones/Universal Pictures. Starring Jane Frazee, Marjorie Lord, William Frawling, and Don Terry. A musical about an American baseball player during spring training in Havana who discovers his musical talents (but only when he has a cold). He is torn between baseball and singing.
1942
Pride of the Yankees, The (Primary)
Directed by Sam Wood. Written by Paul Gallico and Herman Mankiewicz. Produced by
Sam Goldwyn. Starring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Babe Ruth, Walter Brennan, and
Dan Duryea. This biography is the
story of Yankees star Lou Gehrig (Cooper) who has to say good-bye to his fans in
1939 because of his terminal disease. The film traces Gehrig’s life from
childhood through his Hall of Fame career to his emotional farewell speech. It
received an Oscar for best editing.
1942 Smart Alecks (Secondary) Directed by Wallace Fox. Written by Jack Dietz and Harvey Gates. Produced by Jack Dietz and Sam Katzman/Monogram Pictures. Starring Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, and Gale Storm. An East Side Kids comedy in which the kids revert to “crime” to get cash for baseball uniforms.
1942 Talk of the Town (Secondary) Directed by George Stevens. Written by Sidney Harman and Dale Van Every. Produced by Fred Guiol and George Stevens/Columbia Pictures. Starring Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Coleman, Edgar Buchanan, and Glenda Farrell. Leopold Dilg (Grant) is accused of arson and murder when the lumber yard he worked for burns down. Dilg, who is really innocent, escapes from jail and finds a house to hide in just outside of town. He breaks in to the house and Nora (Arthur) defends herself with a baseball bat. He doesn’t harm her but hides in her attic using the same bat to defend himself against anyone who might be looking for him. That night, the new tenant of the house who was expected the next day shows up. Dilg challenges the professor to a day of the average man, which he accepts. Dilg gets him tickets to a local baseball game where the professor sits next to the judge hearing Dilg’s case. The professor goes through a transformation and after the ballgame, Michael Lightcap (Coleman) says “A great thing, this baseball. It gets the legal cobwebs out of the brain.”
1942
Woman of the Year (Secondary) Directed by
George Stevens. Written by Ring Lardner, Jr. and Michael Kanin. Produced by
Joseph L. Mankiewicz/MGM. Starring Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Fay Bainter,
Reginald Owen, and Minor Watson. Spencer
Tracy is a sports writer on the same newspaper as the sophisticated,
globe-trotting international reporter, columnist, and radio commentator
Katherine Hepburn. The movie is noted for the clever scene at the ball park on
their first date when Tracy introduces her to the game and how ordinary people
live. She’s a quick study and the dialogue about the game is quite clever and
funny.
1943 Guadalcanal Diary (Tertiary) Directed by Lewis Seiler. Written by Richard Tregaskis and Lamar Trotti. Produced by Islin Auster and Brian Foy/20th Century Fox. Starring Preston Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bendix, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn, and Richard Jaeckel. WWII action film about the U.S. Marines fighting for a vital base in the Pacific. Bendix plays a Marine, Taxi Potts, a Brooklyn cabbie. According to the ad put out by 20th Century Fox, “All he wanted was to be back in Brooklyn watching them beautiful Bums.”
1943 Hitler’s Children (Secondary) Directed by Edward Dmytryk and Irving Reis. Written by Emmett Lavery and Gregor Zeimer. Produced by Edward Golden/RKO Radio Pictures. Starring Tim Holt, Bonita Granville, Kent Smith, Otto Kruger, and H. B. Warner. This propaganda piece starts in 1933. Prof. Nichols' American school in Berlin is next door to a school for the Hitler Youth. Karl, from the latter, is attracted to German-American Anna, but events lead to their separation. Later, at the outbreak of war in Europe, Anna is removed from Nichols' school on presumption of German citizenship. Nichols becomes obsessed with finding her, as Anna undergoes a rather lurid odyssey through the Nazi nightmare. Kent Smith, teaching at an American school breaks up a fight between two groups of children. One group are members of the Hitler Youth organization and the other group, symbolizing a free America, were playing baseball.
1943 Happy
Birthdaze (Tertiary)
Directed by Dan Gordon. Written by Carl Meyer. Produced by Famous
Studios/Paramount Pictures. A Popeye cartoon. It is Popeye's birthday, and Olive
manages to get enough rationed sugar to bake him a cake, so she invites him
over. Shorty is suicidal because he never gets any mail; Popeye invites him,
too. Shorty decides Popeye needs to play some games, so they play baseball,
golf, and hockey in Olive's living room, all ending disastrously for Popeye.
1943 Ladies’ Day (Primary) Directed by Leslie Goodwins. Written by Robert Considine and Edward C. Lilley. Produced by Bert Gillroy/RKO Radio Pictures. Starring Lupe Velez, Eddie Albert, Patsy Kelly, Max Baer, and Jerome Cowan. Eddie Albert falls in love with Lupe Valez. Albert can pitch winning games as long as he’s not distracted by love. The film is the story of trying to keep the two love-birds apart long enough to win the World Series.
1943 Taxi,
Mister
(Secondary) Directed by Kurt Nuemann. Written by Clarence Marks and Earl Snell.
Produced by Fred Guiol and Hal Roach Studios/United Artists. Starring William
Bendix, Grace Bradley, Joe Sawyer, Sheldon Leonard, and Joe Devlin. Bendix as
Tim McGuerin and Sawyer as Eddie Corbett are two rough around the edges owners
of a Brooklyn taxi company. Part of a series of three “streamliners” (about
46 minutes), featuring the baseball loving Bendix
and Sawyer who pitch and catch for their sandlot team in Flatbush. Of the
three films in this series (Brooklyn
Orchid, Taxi, Mister, and The
McGuerins from Brooklyn), this one has the most baseball.
1943 Whistling In Brooklyn (Secondary) Directed by S. Sylvan Simon. Written by Wilkie C. Mahoney and Nat Perrin. Produced by George Haight/MGM. Starring Red Skelton, Ann Rutherford, Jean Rogers, Rags Ragland, and Ray Collins. Red Skelton stars as “The Fox,” a radio sleuth who gets mixed up in a murder and hides on a bearded baseball team, the Battling Beavers, who play the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1944 Batty Baseball (Primary) Directed by Tex Avery. Produced by MGM. This animated short is a series of visual gags about baseball.
1944 Bells of St.
Mary’s, The (Secondary) Directed by Leo McCarey. Written by Dudley Nichols
and Leo McCarey. Produced by Leo McCarey/RKO Radio Pictures. Starring Bing
Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Travers, William Gargan, and Ruth Donnelly. Sequel
to Going My Way.
Father O’Malley (Crosby) is assigned a run down parish where Bergman is
the Mother Superior. Bergman plays a nun who was a bit of a tomboy who played
baseball. Baseball is introduced several times to shape Bergman’s character
and provide a plot device for securing the gift of a new building to the parish.
Bergman teaches a young girl how to hit and she hits the ball through the window
of the new building sought by the parish. In another scene, when Bergman is in a
sporting goods department to buy a book on self-defense, she takes some practice
swings with a bat and flicks a baseball up in the air.
1944 Block Busters (Secondary) Directed by Wallace Fox. Written by Houston Branch. Produced by Jack Dietz and Sam Katzman/Banner Productions/Monogram Pictures. Starring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, William “Billy” Benedict, and Jimmy Strand. The East Side Kids win a big baseball game with the help of a French kid new to the neighborhood. Harry Langdon has bit part.
1944
Going My Way (Secondary) Directed by Leo McCarey. Written by Frank Butler
and Frank Cavett. Produced by Leo McCarey/Paramount Pictures. Starring Bing
Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Rise Stevens, and Gene Lockhart.
Crosby is a down-to-earth priest working with tough street kids.
Baseball first enters the film in the opening scene as Father Chuck
O’Malley (Crosby) covers right
field in a street game. The ball is hit though a window and the angry owner.
Finally, after telling Father O’Malley he was an atheist, he tosses the
ball back and Father O’Malley says, “You even throw like an atheist.”
Father O’Malley wears the sweats from the St. Louis Browns and later, often
when working with boy’s choir, he wears the Brown baseball cap and jacket. His
dialogue with the boys is salted with baseball metaphors such as “Elmer’s a
switch hitter” referring to a boy whose voice is changing, and “Make believe
I’m the catcher” as he explains the signals he’ll give to the boys choir
signaling chord changes, and ”Bishops are like umpires, we need them to make
decisions.” Father O’Malley tells the boys he used to workout with Browns.
At the end of the film, when Father O’Malley is leaving, he gives his
Browns’ hat and jacket to Tony, the tough leader among the boys.
1944 Mr. Winkle Goes to War (Tertiary) Directed by Alfred E. Green. Written by George Corey and Theodore Pratt. Produced by Jack Moss/Columbia Pictures. Starring Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Warrick, Ted Donaldson, Bob Haymes, Richard Lane, and Robert Armstrong. Henpecked Mr. Winkle is only too happy to go to war when he's drafted. Later his nagging wife and his neighbors are astonished when he returns home as a decorated war hero. Robinson has a close relationship with a young boy who represents what’s good about America with his baseball glove, jersey and hat. Robert Armstrong plays Joe (Tinker to Evers to Chance) Tinker.
1945
Naughty Nineties, The (Tertiary) Directed
by Jean Yarbrough. Written by Hal Fimberg and John Grant. Produced by John Grant
and Edmund Hartmant/Universal Pictures. Starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Alan
Curtis, Rita Johnson, and Henry Travers. Abbott
and Costello are involved with riverboat gamblers in this musical comedy, but
the only baseball reference is their “Who’s on First?” routine.
Importantly, though, this is the first time the whole routine is performed in a
movie. A shorter segment was
included in the 1943 film, One Night in
the Tropics.
1946 Baseball Bugs (Primary) Directed by Friz Freleng. Written by Michael Maltese. Produced by Warner Bros. An animated short that finds Bugs Bunny playing all positions for the Tea-Totallers against the Gashouse Gorillas. The Gorillas’ muscle is no match for Bugs' wit and pitching skill.
1946 Best Years of Our Lives, The (Tertiary) Directed by William Wyler. Written by Mackinlay Kantor. Produced by Sam Goldwyn/RKO Radio Pictures. Starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Harold Russell and Virginia Mayo. Three American servicemen return home to Boone City after the war to find their lives irrevocably changed by their military experience. Homer Parrish (Russell) has lost his hands, and has become distant from his fiancée and family as he struggles to overcome his disability. Al Stephenson (March) returns to a family which has grown and changed during his three years away. And Fred Derry (Andrews) finds himself stuck in a lousy job and a loveless marriage, while at the same time falling in love with Al's daughter. Together, the three must find a way to come to terms with their experiences and pick up the pieces, lest wartime turn out to be "the best years of their lives." The three vets share a cab and inquire about the status of the Boone City Beavers only to hear they are in sixth place. A return from war is a return to baseball as part of everyday American life.
1946 Boys’ Ranch (Tertiary) Directed by Roy Rowland. Written by William Ludwig. Produced by Robert Sisk. Starring Jackie Jenkins, James Craig, Skip Homeier, Dorothy Patrick, and Ray Collins. Craig plays an ex-baseball player who becomes involved in establishing a ranch where boys learn sportsmanship and honesty.
1946 Deadline At Dawn (Tertiary) Directed by Harold Clurman. Written by Clifford Oates and Cornell Woolrich. Produced by Sid Rogell and Adrian Scott/RKO Radio Pictures. Starring Susan Hayward, Joe Sawyer, Paul Lukas, Bill Williams, Joseph Calleia, and Osa Massen. Alex, a sailor on leave, recovers from a drink-induced blackout with a large sum of money belonging to Edna Bartelli, a b-girl who invites him home to "fix her radio." He tries to return it with the reluctant aid of June Goth, a sweet but oh-so-tired dance hall girl. They find Edna murdered. Not quite sure he didn't do it himself, Alex and June have four hours in the dead of night to find the real killer before his leave ends. Their quest brings them into contact with a sleazy kaleidoscope of minor characters. Babe Dooley (Sawyer) is drinking and night prowling and ends in a confrontation with the police, who ultimately recognize that this is the “Babe” Dooley and want to know if they are going to win another pennant. But Babe is more interested in booze and one of the cops wryly notes, “There’s a fat ballplayer who some night will die in the streets.”
1946 Make Mine Music (Secondary) Directed by Bob Cormack and Clyde Geronimi. Written by James Bodrero and Homer Brightman. Produced by Walt Disney. A collection of shorts including a musical recitation of Casey at the Bat.
1946 Mr. Noisy (Primary) Directed by Edward Bernds. Produced by Columbia Pictures. Starring Shemp Howard, Vernon Dent, Brian O’Hara, Matt Willis, and Walter Soderling. This comedy short is a shot-by-shot remake of The Heckler (1940), with The Three Stooges Shemp Howard playing the heckler.
1947
Cass Timberlane (Secondary/Tertiary)
Directed by George Sidney. Produced by MGM. Starring Spencer Tracey and Lana
Turner. A film based on a Sinclair
Lewis novel in which Tracey plays a small town judge and Turner plays a girl
from the wrong side of the tracks. Spencer meets Turner when she is playing
baseball. They marry and Tracy has a hard time keeping up with his young wife.
1947 Diamond Demon (Primary) Directed by Dave O’Brien. Written by Dave O’Brien and Joe Ansen. Produced by Pete Smith/MGM. Starring Pete Smith as the narrator and Johnny Price as himself. A film short that features the unusual talents of Johnny Price, a minor league baseball pitcher and trick artist. Among other talents, Mr. Price can throw two (and, in certain situations three) baseballs simultaneously to different people. The catchers can be side by side, with one high and one low, or standing on the pitcher's mound and second base while Price throws the ball from the catcher’s position. He can even perform these feats while suspended upside-down. (David Glagovsky)
1947 Hobo
Bobo (Tertiary)
Directed by Robert McKimson. Written by Warren Foster. Produced by Warner Bros.
This animated short is about Little Bobo the Elephant who decides to leave a
jungle, where he is assigned to the thankless task of moving logs with his
trunk, for a glamorous life in a circus in America. On the advice of a mynah
bird, Bobo paints himself pink to gain access to a ship bound for the U.S.,
because nobody on the ship will admit to seeing a pink elephant. After Bobo
arrives in America, a street-cleaner washes his pink color away, and people are
now willing to acknowledge seeing the little elephant. Bobo is arrested by the
police and the judge sentences him to life—in a circus, where he is bat
"boy" for the big top baseball team, and laments that he's carrying
logs (i.e., bats) yet again! (Kevin
McCorry)
1947 I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now (Tertiary) Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Written by Lewis R. Foster. Produced by George Jessel/20th Century Fox. Starring June Haver and Mark Stevens. A biopic of the career of Joe Howard (1878-1961), famous songwriter of the early 20th Century. Includes the song “The Umpire Is a Most Unhappy Man.”
1947 Mexican Baseball (Primary) Directed by Mannie Davis. Produced by 20th Century Fox/Terrytoons. An animated short about Gandy Goose and his friend Sourpuss taking on the Mexican League Bulls in a baseball game to end all baseball games.
1948 Babe Ruth Story,
The (Primary) Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Written by George Callahan, Bob
Considine, and Babe Ruth. Produced by Roy Del Ruth and Joseph Kauffman/Allied
Artists. Starring William Bendix, Claire Trevor, Charles Bickford, Sam Levene,
William Frawley. A biography
starring William Bendix and Claire Trevor. The famed slugger is played by Bendix,
who resembles Ruth slightly in looks and not at all in baseball ability. The
film traces the "life and times" of Ruth, including his famous
"called shot" in the 1932 World Series.
1948 Base Brawl (Primary) Directed by Seymour Kneitel. Produced by Famous Studios/Paramount Pictures. A short animation of a bouncing ball cartoon of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”
1949 Battleground (Secondary) Directed by William Wellman. Written by Robert Pirosh. Produced by MGM. Starring Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, and George Murphy. The use of baseball as passwords becomes an important form of security for WWII troops. Noted in Ken Burns’ baseball documentary as an example of the use of baseball in WWII films.
1948 Foreign Affair, A (Secondary) Directed by Billy Wilder. Written by Charles Brackett and Richard L. Breen. Produced by Charles Brackett/Paramount Pictures. Starring Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund, Millard Mitchell, and Peter von Zerneck. A congressional committee visits occupied Berlin to investigate G.I. morals. Congresswoman Phoebe Frost, appalled at widespread evidence of human frailty, hears rumors that cafe singer Erika, former mistress of a wanted war criminal, is "protected" by an American officer, and enlists Captain John Pringle to help her find him not knowing that Pringle is Erika's lover. German youth clubs organized after the war were taught to play baseball, and when one German family names their child DiMaggio Schultz, that’s when one Colonel “started believing we’d really won the war.”
1949
It Happens Every Spring (Primary) Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Written by
Valentine Davies and Shirley W. Smith. Produced by William Perlberg/20th
Century Fox. Starring Ray Milland, Jean Peters, Paul Douglas, Ed Begley, and Ted
de Corsia. In this comedy,
chemistry professor Ray Milland discovers a mixture that causes baseballs to
repel from wood (including, of course, baseball bats). Suddenly he realizes the
possibilities and takes a leave of absence to go to St. Louis to pitch in the
big leagues where he becomes a star and propels his team to the World Series.
1949 Kid From Cleveland (Primary) Directed by Herbert Kline. Written by Herbert Kline and John Bright. Produced by Walter Colmes and Herbert Kline/Republic Pictures. Starring George Brent, Lynn Bar, Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Cook, and Ann Doran. Sports announcer George Brent helps a troubled boy who loves baseball. Many real players make cameo appearances, including Satchel Paige.
1949 Slide Donald Slide (Primary) Directed by Jack Hannah. Written by Nick George and Bill Berg. Produced by Walt Disney Pictures/RKO Radio Pictures. An animated Disney short. Donald Duck wants to listen to the World Series in his backyard, but a bee, enamored of the classical music he heard before Donald got there, has other ideas.
1949 Stratton Story, The (Primary) Directed by Sam Wood. Written by Douglas Morrow and Guy Trosper. Produced by Jack Cummings and James Stewart/MGM. Starring James Stewart, June Allyson, Jack Cummings, Frank Morgan, Anges Moorehead, and Bill Williams. The biography of Monty Stratton whose loss of a leg did not end the career of Chicago White Sox pitcher Monty Stratton (Stewart), who in the 1930s, compiled a 37-19 won-loss record in three seasons. After he became the winningest right-hander in the American League, his major league career ended prematurely when a hunting accident in 1938 forced doctors to amputate his right leg. With a wooden leg and his wife Ethel's (Allyson) help, Stratton made a successful minor league comeback in 1946, continuing to pitch in the minors throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s.
1949 Take Me Out To The
Ball Game (Primary) Directed by
Busby Berkeley. Written by Gene Kelly and others. Produced by Busby
Berkeley/MGM. Starring Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Jules Munshin and Esther
Williams. A musical set in the 1900s, Sinatra and Kelly not only play ball for
the team of the year, The Wolves, but are also a song and dance vaudeville team.
A woman, Esther Williams, inherits the Wolves.
There’s romance between Kelly and Williams and between Sinatra and a
nightclub star who works for a gambler who has bet against the Wolves. Kelly
gets booted from the team, because he is not performing well on the field (the
gamblers had seduced him into moonlighting, rehearsing for a new nightclub act),
but he returns in time for the playoffs. The bad guys get the heave ho, and
Kelly hits a home run with Sinatra on base and another runner on third to win
the game and ultimately their girls. Also released in the U.K. as Everybody’s
Cheering.
1950 Halls of Montezuma (Tertiary) Directed by Lewis Milestone. Written by Michael Blankfort. Produced by 20th Century Fox. Starring Richard Widmark, Jack Palance, Reginald Gardiner, and Robert Wagner. The Marines attack a strongly held enemy island in the Pacific. We follow them from the beach to a Japanese rocket site through an enemy infested jungle as their ex-school teacher leader is transformed into a battle veteran and his squad becomes a tight fighting unit. (Derek Picken) When Richard Widmark interviews a Japanese prisoner, the prisoner says in clear English that he was a baseball player.
1950 Jackie Robinson
Story, The (Primary) Directed by Alfred E. Green. Written by Arthur Mann and
Lawrence Taylor. Produced by Mort Briskin/Eagle-Lions Films. Starring Jackie
Robinson, Ruby Dee, Minor Watson, Louie Beavers, and Richard Lane.
A biography of the first Black man to play in the major leagues for the
Brooklyn Dodgers. Jackie Robinson
plays himself and Ruby Dee plays his wife, Rachel. The film directly confronts
the racial issues of the real story.
1950 Jim Thorpe-All American (Secondary) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Written by Russell Birdwell, Jim Thorpe, and Frank Davis. Produced by Everett Freeman/Warner Bros. Starring Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford, Steve Cohran, Phyllis Thaxter, and Dick Wesson. A biographical film about Jim Thorpe, played by Burt Lancaster, reveals Thorpe’s activity as a paid baseball player, which led to his being stripped of his Olympic medals.
1950 Kill the Umpire (Primary) Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Written by Frank Tashlin. Produced by John Beck/Columbia Pictures. Starring William Bendix, Una Merkel, Ray Collins, Gloria Henry, and Dick Taylor. A William Bendix comedy about a man who really loves baseball but becomes the hated umpire. The story includes a subplot involving the hero with gamblers, but he’s not to be bought, though circumstances make it appear that he has. He has to call the crucial game and becomes the hero of the day, but not for long.
1950 Screwball, The (TV, Primary) Written by Mel Goldberg for CBS The Play’s the Thing (60 minutes). Starring Jack Gilford, Lee Grant, and Edith King. Despite age and limited skills, a garage mechanic pursues his dream of being a major league player. Restaged in 1951 (with Dick Foran and Cloris Leachman) and 1954 (with Jack Warden, Sally Gracie and Leora Thatcher).
1950 Sunset Boulevard (Tertiary) Directed by Billy Wilder. Written by Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr.. Produced by Charles Brackett/Paramount Pictures. Starring William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olsen, and Fred Clark. Set in Los Angeles in the 1950s, Joe Gill (Holden) plays a script writer who has fallen on hard times and needs a big break to keep him from going home to Ohio and settling for a job as an editor. Joe gives a sales pitches one of his scripts to a big time producer. The story is of a third base rookie who gets mixed up in gambling over his head and is forced to throw the last game of the World Series. The producer says the idea is flat and trite and jokes that maybe a girl’s softball team would make it more interesting than Joe’s idea.
1950
Three Little Words (Secondary) Directed by Richard Thorpe. Written by George
Wells. Produced by Jack Cummings/MGM/United Artists. Starring Fred Astaire, Red
Skelton, Vera-Ellen, Arlene Dahl, and Keenan Wynn. A biographical story about the song writing team of Bert
Kalmar and Harry Ruby. Ruby, played
by Red Skelton, is a baseball fanatic. In
the film, when Ruby is about to get into trouble with the wrong woman, Kalmar
conspires with a friend to invite Ruby to work out at a spring training
practice.We see Skelton in a few slapstick scenes at the training camp. In this
case baseball is used as part of the humor in the script and as a plot device to
get Ruby out of town.
1951
Angels in the Outfield (Primary) Directed by Clarence Brown. Written by
Richard Conlin and Dorothy Kingsley. Produced by Clarence Brown/MGM. Starring
Paul Douglas, Janet Leigh, Keenan Wynn, Donna Corcoran, and Lewis Stone.
Paul Douglas is the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Many real players have cameo appearances.
A young woman reporter blames the Pittsburgh Pirates' losing streak on
the obscenely abusive manager. While she attempts to learn more about him for
her column, he begins hearing the voice of an angel promising him help for the
team if he will mend his ways. As he does so, an orphan girl who is a Pirates
fan and has been praying for the team begins noticing angels on the ball field.
Sure enough, the Pirates start winning, and the manager tries to turn his life
around.
1951 I Was a Communist for the FBI (Tertiary) Directed by Gordon Douglas. Written by Crane Wilber. Produced by Bryan Foy/Warner Bros. Starring Frank Lovejoy, Dorothy Hart, Philip Carey, James Millican, Richard Web. A FBI agent is assigned to become a communist for the FBI and he must hide it from friends and family. The protagonists teaches a kid how to bunt and the kid’s father calls him a dirty Commie and says he has no business playing an American game.
1951 On Moonlight Bay (Secondary)
Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Written by Booth Tarkington, Jack Rose, and Melville
Shavelson. Produced by William Jacobs/Warner Bros. Starring Doris Day, Gordon
MacRea, Billy Gray, Jack Smith, and Leon Ames.
Baseball is highlighted at the beginning of this film, which is Warner
Bros. answer to Meet Me in St. Louis.
Tomboy teenager Majorie Winfield (played by Doris Day) is crazy about
baseball. When a boy is hurt in an
all-boys pickup game, she volunteers to substitute for him and proceeds to hit a
triple, then steals home to win the game. Dialogically
baseball is referred to several times (e.g. Stella the housekeeper says Marjorie
“walks like a first baseman,” and her father comments that “all she knows
about men are their batting averages”). Marjorie meets William Sherman (MacRae),
baseball in hand; when they kiss, she reaches behind her to grab a baseball. At
the fair, she proceeds to knock down the bottles three times at the baseball
throw and thereby wins a doll.
1951 Rhubarb (Primary) Directed by Arthur Lubin. Written by Francis M. Cockrell and Dorothy Davenport. Produced by William Perlberg and George Seaton/Paramount Pictures. Starring Ray Milland, Jan Sterling, Gene Lockhart, William Frawling, and Elsie Holmes. A cat named Rhubarb inherits a baseball team from its millionaire owner. The will says that Ray Milland has to babysit the cat as the entrepreneur’s press agent. He turns tragedy into triumph by renaming the lackluster Brooklyn Loons the Brooklyn Rhubarbs and convincing the team that the cat is a good luck omen. The team flourishes and makes it to the World Series. An attempt by the millionaire’s daughter and a gambler to take revenge on the cat and make money on the deal is thwarted in time for the cat to get to the ballpark and inspire the team to win.
1952 About Face (Secondary) Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Written by Fred Finklehoffe and Peter Milne. Produced by William Jacobs/Hal Roach Studios/United Artists. Starring Gordon MacRae, Eddie Bracken, Dick Wesson, Phyllis Kirk, and Joel Grey. A musical comedy remake of Brother Rat (1938). The film features a baseball game between the Southern Military Institute and the University of North Carolina.
1952 A Man’s Game (TV, Primary) Written by David Swift for the NBC Philco TV Playhouse. Starring Patricia Benoit and Vinton Hayworth. A big league manager travels to Alabama to scout catcher Chub Evans, but signs Evans’s fireball pitching sister instead (Mote). (Remade as a musical in 1957.)
1952 Pride of St.
Louis, The (Primary) Directed by Harmon Jones. Written by Herman Mankiewicz
and Guy Trosper. Produced by Jules Schermer and Jules Sherman/20th
Century Fox. Starring Dan Dailey, Richard Crenna, Joanne Dru, Richard Hylton,
and Hugh Sanders. The
“Hollywood” version of the life of Dizzy Dean with Dan Dailey as Dizzy, and
Richard Crenna as Daffy. Joanne Dru plays Dizzy’s wife. The story recounts
Dizzy’s rise from the Texas League to St. Louis where he and Daffy, both
pitchers, help St. Louis in the1946 World Series. A number of professional
ballplayers appear in the film.
1952 Winning Team, The (Primary) Directed by Lewis Seiler. Written by Merwin Gerard and Seeleg Lester. Produced by Brian Foy/Warner Bros. Starring Doris Day, Frank Lovejoy, Eve Miller, James Millican, and Ronald Reagan. Reagan plays Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander in this biography. It tells the story of Alexander’s rise through his early playing days in the minors, his start with the Phillies and moves to the Cubs and the Cardinals. It includes his illness which led him to problems with alcohol and his fall as a ballplayer only to make a comeback as the Cardinals’ hero of the 1926 World Series. A number of professional ballplayers appear in the film.
1953 0 for 37 (TV, Primary) Produced for the NBC Philco TV Playhouse (60 minutes). Starring Arthur O’Connell, Eva Marie Saint, and James Broderick. A young ballplayer appreciates the value of home and family after a shaky start in professional baseball.
1953 Big Leaguer
(Primary) Directed by Robert Aldrich. Written by Herbert Baker and John McNulty.
Produced by Matthew Rapf/MGM. Starring Edward G. Robinson, Jeff Richards,
Vera-Ellen, Richard Jaeckel, and William Campbell.
Adam Polachuk (Richards) goes to the Florida tryout camp for the New York
Giants, run by Robinson, who plays John B. “Han” Lobert, the actual major
league scout and manager. Adam’s Dad, a miner, believes his son is off to
college to begin his study to become a lawyer. Adam makes the cut, but his Dad
discovers him at the camp and concedes that baseball is a reasonable substitute
for practicing law.
1953 Kid From Left Field (Primary) Directed by Harmon Jones. Written by Jack Sher. Produced by Leonard Goldstein/20th Century Fox. Starring Dan Dailey, Anne Bancroft, Billy Chapin, Lloyd Bridges, and Ray Collins. Dan Dailey is Larry Cooper, who views himself as a former major leaguer, but is now a peanut vendor in the Bison’s stadium. His son, Christy, is the bat boy. Cooper gives his son tips about how the team can improve and Christy passes them on to the players but promises his Dad not to tell anyone who gave him the suggestions. The “Hollywood” twist is that the Bison’s owner makes Christy the new manager. Ultimately Christy reveals that his Dad was the man with all the ideas, and Larry Cooper succeeds his son as manager.
1953 Old MacDonald Had a Curve (TV, Primary) Written by Rod Serling for NBC Kraft Television Theatre (60 minutes). Directed by Harry Hermann. Starring Olin Howlin and Jack Warden. The story of a 67-year-old ex-major leaguer rejoining his former team after developing a freakish curve ball.
1954 Baseball Blues (TV, Primary) Written by Steven Gethers. Produced by ABC for The United States Steel Hour (60 minutes). Starring Frank Lovejoy, Billie Worth, Hally Bellaver and House Jameson. The story of a 40-year-old pitcher facing his retirement from baseball.
1954 Casey Bats Again (Primary) Directed by Jack Kinney. Written by Jack Kinney and Brice Mack. Produced by Walt Disney/RKO Radio Pictures. This Disney animated short is about how Casey and his wife are trying to have a baby boy to carry on the slugger’s tradition. Only girls are born, but Casey is convinced they make a good team. In the big game, however, Casey dresses up as a woman to make sure they get the hitting they needed.
1954 Gone Batty (Primary) Directed by Robert McKimson. Written by Sid Marcus and Ben Washam. Produced by Warner Bros. An animated short. Mel Blanc provides the voices for all the baseball players. Bobo the Elephant is baseball team mascot for the lean and meek Sweetwater Shnooks, all of whom are rendered unconscious by their opponents, the husky and brutal Greenville Goons. The Shnooks' manager, rather than forfeit the game, decides to bring in Bobo to play every position—and he does rather well!
1954 On the Waterfront (Tertiary) Directed by Elia Kazan. Written by Budd Schulberg and Malcolm Johnson. Produced by Sam Spiegel/Columbia Pictures. Starring Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, and Pat Henning. A longshoreman compares the holes in his windbreaker to the holes in the Pittsburgh Pirates infield and after a beating, says they used his head as a baseball; later Karl Malden and Brando argue over whether or not to confess that Brando had helped in a murder. Sitting at the Polo Grounds is a focal point of the discussion. When Malden convinces Brando to tell Eva Marie Saint, he says “No Curves,” and Brando agrees.
1954 Roogie’s Bump (Primary) Directed by Harold Young. Written by Jack Hanley and Joyce Selznick. Produced by John Bash/Republic Pictures. Starring Robert Marriot, Ruth Warrick, Olive Blakeney, Robert Simon, and William Harrigan. Remington "Roogie" Rigsby is just a kid, but he ends up pitching for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Very similar to 1993's Rookie of the Year. A ghost helps Roogie become the youngest major league player. Released in the U.K. as The Kid Colossus.
1955 In the Sun (Secondary) Directed by Richard Murphy. Written by Albert Duffy and E.J. Kahn. Produced by Fred Kohlmar. Starring Aldo Ray, Phillip Carey, Dick York, Mitosuko Kimura, and Chuck Connors. Connors is stationed in Japan and pitches in a game between the Japanese and Americans (the Americans lose the game).
1955 Man on Spikes (TV, Primary) Written by Eliot Asinof from his book by the same title for the NBC Goodyear TV Playhouse (60 minutes). Starring Warren Stevens, Janet Ward, Ned Glass, and William Zuckert. Recounts the life of baseball player from his youth to retirement.
1955 Man Who Caught the Ball at Coogan’s Bluff, The (TV, Primary) Written by Rod Serling for CBS Studio One (60 minutes). Starring Alan Young, Gisele MacKenzie, Henry Jones, and Benny Baker. A shy, middle-aged baseball fan becomes a national celebrity after making a spectacular catch of a homerun ball (Mote).
1955 Mighty Casey, The (TV, Primary) A 90 minute CBS production for Omnibus starring Danny Scholl. An operatic treatment of the famous poem “Casey at the Bat.”
1955 O’Toole From Moscow (TV, Primary) Written by Rod Serling for NBC Matinee Theatre. Starring Leo Durocher and Chuck Connors. A baseball loving Soviet citizen defects to the U.S. to play for the Cincinnati Reds.
1955 Phoney News Flashes (Secondary) Directed by Connie Rasinski. Written by Tom Morrison. Produced by Terrytoons/20th Century Fox. A collection of newsreel spoofs. Among them is a slow-motion view of a spitball pitcher.
1955
Strategic Air Command (Secondary) Directed by Anthony Mann. Written by
Valentine Davies and Bernie Loy, Jr. Produced by Samuel Briskin/Paramount
Pictures. Starring James Stewart, June Allyson, Frank Lovejoy, Barry Sullivan,
and Alex Nicol. This Hollywood
movie turns out to be a propaganda film of sorts to support the build-up of the
military during the Cold War. Dutch (Stewart) plays ball for the Cardinals, but
is called back to active duty because of his flying experience.
Dutch demonstrates his patriotism by dropping out of baseball and
reenlisting in the Air Force, setting an example for others to follow.
1956 Away All Boats (Tertiary)
Directed by Joseph Pevney. Written by Kenneth Dodson and Ted Sherdeman. Produced
by Howard Christie/Universal Pictures. Starring Jeff Chandler, George Nader, Lex
Barker, Julie Adams, and Keith Andes. The
story of the USS “Belinda,” Attack Transport PA22, launched late in1943 with
regular-navy Captain Hawks (Chandler) and ex-Merchant Marine Captain MacDougall
(Nader) serving under Hawks as boat commander. Despite personal friction, the
two have plenty to deal with as the only experienced officers on board during
the "shakedown." As tensions grow among the crew, the Chaplin stirs up
interest in a baseball game which is used as one of the plot vehicles to ease
the tension among the men. Its success is dubious.
1956 Bang The Drum Slowly (TV, Primary) Written by Arnold Schulman based on the novel by Mark Harris. Produced by CBS for the United States Steel Hour. Starring Paul Newman, Albert Salmi, George Peppard and Georgann Johnson. A precursor to the critically acclaimed full-length motion picture by the same title released in 1974.
1956 Great American Pastime, The (Primary) Directed by Herman Hoffman. Starring Nathaniel Benchley, Tom Ewell, Anne Francis, Ann Miller, and Dean Jones. Produced by MGM. A Tom Ewell comedy set after WWII about Little League baseball and its effect on suburban families. Bruce Hallerton (Ewell) is a lawyer who decides it might be nice to coach his son’s team even though his wife hates baseball. The first full-length feature film about Little League.
1956 I’ll Buy You (Secondary) Directed by Masaki Kobayashi. Written by Zenzo Matsuyama. Starring Keiji Sata, Keiko Kishi, Minoru Oki and Yunosuko Ito. Produced by Shochiku Films. A Japanese release (Anata Kaimasu) that tells the story of an unscrupulous baseball scout set on signing a high school player who drives a wedge between the young man and his family and girlfriend.
1957 Escapade in Japan (Tertiary) Directed by Arthur Lubin. Written by Winston Miller. Produced by Arthur Lubin and Winston Miller/RKO Radio Pictures. Starring Cameron Mitchell, Teresa Wright, Jon Provost, Roger Nakagawa, Philip Ober, and Clint Eastwood. Story of an American and Japanese boy and their search for the Japanese boy’s father. The two cultures are symbolically linked through the Yankees baseball cap worn by the Japanese boy.
1957 Fear Strikes Out
(Primary) Directed by Robert Mulligan. Written by Ted Berkman and Raphael Blau.
Produced by Alan J. Pakula/Paramount Pictures. Starring Norma Moore, Adam
Williams, Perry Wilson, Anthony Perkins and Karl Malden. This biography tells
the Hollywood version of the life of Red
Sox outfielder Jimmy Piersall (Perkins), his rocky relationship with his father
(Malden). Piersall’s mental breakdown, his treatment and the recovery that
allows him to continue to play professional ball are the focus of the film.
1957 Man’s Game, A (TV, Primary) Written by David Swift for the NBC Kaiser Aluminum Hour. Starring Nanette Fabray, Lew Parker, Stephen Shaw and Fred Gwynne. The same story as the 1952 version, only set to music.
1957 Twelve Angry Men (Secondary) Directed by Sidney Lumet. Written by Reginald Rose. Produced by Henry Fonda and George Justin/United Artists/MGM. Starring Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, and Henry Fonda. A classic film about the process of jury decision-making. Initially all want to convict the accused, except for Fonda. Eventually, the other jurors come around to Fonda’s point of view. Juror #7, played by Jack Warden, is a wise-cracking New York Yankees fan who can’t wait to vote guilty and head for Yankee Stadium, where the new kid Mojolewski is pitching against the Cleveland Indians. Before the ugly deliberations begin, Warden leans over to juror #4, Jack Klugman, and asks, “You a Yankee fan?” “No,” answered Klugman, “Baltimore.” Warden staresin disbelief, “Baltimore! Like being hit in the head with a crowbar once a day.” He shakes his head, “Baltimore!”
1958 Damn Yankees (Primary) Directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen. Written by George Abbott and Douglas Wallop. Produced by George Abbott and Frederick Brisson/Warner Bros. Starring Russ Brown, Shannon Bolin, Tab Hunter, Gwen Verdon, and Ray Walston. This is the Hollywood version of the hit Broadway musical. Ray Walston plays Mr. Applegate, an incarnation of Satan, who makes a deal with a Washington Senators fan to sell his soul to become a young star ballplayer (Hunter) and lead the Senators to victory over the Yankees. In the end, the fan tricks the devilish Mr. Applegate (Walston), the Senators win, the fan returns to his corporeal self and is reunited with his wife.
1958 Geisha Boy (Secondary) Directed and written by Frank Tashlin.Produced by Ernest D. Glucksman and Jerry Lewis/Paramount Pictures. Starring Jerry Lewis, Marie McDonald, Sessue Hayakawa, Nobu Atsumi McCarthy, and Suzanne Pleshette. Lewis is a not-so-good magician touring Japan for the USO. One of Japan’s greatest baseball legends, Ryuzo Demura, thinks that Lewis is courting his girlfriend. Later, there is an exhibition game between the Japanese team and the L.A. Dodgers. This misplaced jealousy and the exhibition game provide comic venues for Lewis’ antics.
1958 Old Man and The
Sea (Secondary) Directed by Henry King and John Sturges. Written by Ernest
Hemmingway and Peter Viertel. Produced by Leland Hayward/Warner Bros. Starring
Don Diamond, Don Blackman, Spencer Tracy, Felipe Pazos, and Harry Bellave.
Hemingway’s classic tale of an old out-of-luck fisherman, Santiago (Tracy) and
his battle with the elements. Baseball plays an important role in the
relationship between Tracy and his young friend played by Pazos. The young boy
cares greatly for the old man and when he is fetching supper for old man, Pazos
passes a baseball game being played by his friends. They invite him to join in,
but he defers so he can bring the old man his supper. The old man likes to read
about baseball in the newspaper and talk with the boy about players
(particularly Joe DiMaggio), teams and managers. When the old man is out in the
boat and had been away for several days, he wondered how his Yankees were doing.
1959 Kiddie League (Primary) Directed by Paul J. Smith. Produced by Walter Gantz/Universal-International. A one reel Woody Woodpecker animation in which baseball is played by tots in diapers.
1959 Moochie of the Little League (TV Mini-series) (Primary) Directed by William Beaudine. Written by Ellis Marcuz. Produced by Walt Disney. Starring Alan Hale, Jr., Frances Rafferty, Stuart Erwin, Kevin Corcoran, and Reginald Owen. A two-part television film. Moochie (Corcoran) wants to start a Little League team, but needs some help so he drafts an Englishman (Owen). The program was edited and released as a feature in Europe. (a.k.a. A Diamond Is a Boy’s Best Friend, a.k.a. Wrong Way Moochie.)
1960 Horizontal Lieutenant, The (Secondary) Directed by Richard Thorpe. Written by Gordon Cotler and George Wells. Produced by Joe Pasternak/MGM. Starring Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, Miyoshi Umeki, Jim Backus, and Jack Carter. An accident prone intelligence officer (WWII) plays in an interservice baseball game while in Honolulu. He is struck by a foul ball and laid out horizontally.
1960 Mighty Casey, The (TV, Primary) Written by Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone (30 minutes), CBS. A robot star pitcher loses the will to win after receiving a heart and the ability to feel compassion (Mote).
1961 Abner the Baseball (Primary) Directed by Seymour Kneitell. Story and narration by Eddie Lawrence. Produced by Paramount Pictures. A comedy short that follows the life of “Abner,” a baseball from his days in a ball bag to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Abner becomes concerned when his buddy is hit out of the park by Yogi Berra. Abner pitches to Mickey Mantle who hits him 987 feet which makes Abner a celebrity.
1962 Boys’ Night Out (Secondary) Directed by Michael Gordon. Written by Arne Sultan and Marvin Worth. Produced by Joseph E. Levine and James C. Pratt/MGM. Starring Kim Novak, James Garner, Tony Randall, Janet Blair, and Patti Page. Four men want to escape the drudgery of suburbia, including coaching their boys in Little League. They rent an apartment in Manhattan and hire Kim Novak to keep them company on a rotating basis. None of the men find the nerve to fulfill their fantasy and return to suburbia and Little League.
1962 Experiment in Terror (Secondary) Directed by Blake Edwards. Written by Gordon Gordon and Mildred Gordon. Produced by Columbia Pictures. Starring Glenn Ford and Lee Remick. Kelly Sherwood (Remick) is terrorized by a man with an asthmatic voice who plans to use her to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works. He threatens to kill her teenage sister Toby (Powers), if she tells the police. However, she manages to contact F.B.I. agent Ripley (Ford). The final scene takes place in Candlestick Park during a Dodgers/Giants game. The scene features Don Drysdale on the mound and Harvey Huen hitting a double with broadcaster Vin Scully describing the plays. After the fans leave, Ford flushes out the bad guy and shoots him on the pitching mound. Released in the U.K. as The Grip of Fear.
1962 Lonely are the Brave (Tertiary) Directed by David Miller. Written by Edward Abbey and Dalton Trumbo. Produced by Edward Lewis/Universal Pictures. Starring Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, Michael Kane, and Carroll O’Connor. Jack Burns’ best friend, Bondi, is in jail. What Jack doesn’t know is that Bondi doesn’t want to leave jail. After a plot to free Bondi, Jack ends up in jail and now it is a whole new adventure when Jack tries to escape. In a short but highly symbolic scene, Kirk Douglas swings a bat linking him to two American myths, baseball and the west.
1962 Safe At Home (Primary) Directed by Walter Doniger. Written by Robert Dillon and Tom Naud. Produced by Tom Naud/Columbia Pictures. Starring Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, William Frawley, Patricia Barry, Whitey Ford, Ralph Houk, and Dan Collier. Young ball player lies about a friendship with Mantle and Maris.
1962 That
Touch of Mink (Secondary) Directed by Delbert Mann. Written by Stanley
Shapiro and Nat Monaster. Produced by Robert Arthur and Martin
Melcher/Universal. Starring Gig Young, Cary Grant, Doris Day, Mickey Mantle,
Roger Maris, Yogi Berra Audrey Meadows, and Alan Hewitt.
Cathy Timberlake is an old fashioned country girl who meets the man of
her dreams, Philip Shayne, after his Rolls Royce splashes her with mud on her
way to a job interview. Philip is a romantic businessman who is taken by Cathy's
honest heart. There's one problem, he's not interested in marriage while Cathy
has never thought of anything else. Cathy and Philip discover that baseball is
as mutual interest. Philip takes her to a Yankees game. Cathy sits in the dugout
flanked by Maris, Mantle, Philip and Berra. The umpire comes over the dugout
asking Cathy to stop questioning every call he makes (“Hey, Ump! Shake your
head, your eyeballs are stuck!”). She enlists the support of Mantle, he gets
kicked out of the game. She enlists the support of Maris, he gets kicked out.
She enlists the support of Berra and he sides with the ump, but get kicked out
for “sarcasm.” Cathy askes for the manager, but Philip assures her that the
manager has gone into hiding. Philips later notes that the Yankees proved they
could win without their starting lineup.
1963 Great Escape, The
(Secondary) Directed by John Sturges. Written by Paul Brickhill and James
Clavell. Produced by John Sturges and James Clavell/United Artists. Starring
Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, and Charles
Bronson. A classic WWII film about Allied prisoners of war. McQueen,
playing an American prisoner named Virgil “The Cooler King” Hilts, uses his
baseball and glove as a character defining and plot technique. His most
consistent personality trait relating to baseball is bouncing the ball against
the wall in solitary confinement to consume time and to concentrate on other
ways to escape. As an American, the baseball symbolism establishes his character
and indicates his persistence and dedication.
1963 New Kind of Love, A (Tertiary) Directed and written by Melville Shavelson. Produced by Melville Shavelson/Paramount. Starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Thelma Ritter, George Tobias, and Marvin Kaplan. A comedy set in Paris that portrays a fashionable sensible woman as a call girl and the journalist who is trying to get details about her job. Newman loves only one thing more than women—baseball. In one scene, his love-making is orchestrated to the play-by-play of a baseball game.
1965 Family Jewels, The (Secondary) Directed by Jerry Lewis. Written by Jerry Lewis and Bill Richmond. Produced by Jerry Lewis and Arthur Schmidt/Paramount Pictures. Starring Jerry Lewis, Sebastian Cabot, Neil Hamilton, Jay Adler, and Robert Strauss. Nine-year-old Donna Peyton is orphaned when her father dies and leaves her with a $30 million fortune. Her late father's attorney, John Wyman, explains that she must visit each of her six uncles (all played by Jerry Lewis) and decide which of them will become her new "father." The film begins with Jerry Lewis inadvertently breaking up an armed robbery as he chases a baseball outside the field. Lewis returns to the field, unaware that he has single-handily subdued the bad guys. Donna is playing the catcher in the baseball game even though she is supposed to be a proper young lady. The scene, while relatively short, is important establishing not only the physical comedy of Jerry Lewis, but more importantly, establishes the nature of the relationship between Willard and Donna, a relationship that is at the core of the story.
1965
Ship of Fools (Tertiary) Directed by Stanley Kramer. Written by Abby Mann.
Produced by Stanley Kramer/Columbia Pictures. Starring Vivien Leigh, Simone
Signoret, Jose Ferrer, Oskar Warner, and Lee Marvin. The story is set on an
ocean liner traveling from South American to Germany in 1933 and focuses on the
characters on board and the foreshadowing of the impending war and Holocaust.
Bill Tenny (Marvin) is hard-drinking and brash, but one scene in particular is
worthy of attention for baseball fans when he reveals the root of his perceived
failure in life “I could never hit a curve ball over the outside corner.”
1965 World of Abbott and Costello, The (Tertiary) Narration written by Gene Wood. Produced by Vanguard Productions/MCA/Universal. A documentary compliation of nineteen clips from Abbott and Costello routines including “Who’s On First?” from Naughty Nineties (1945).
1966 Charlie Brown’s All-Stars (TV, Primary) Directed by Bill Melendez. Written by Charles M. Schultz. Produced by Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson. In this animated feature, Charlie Brown learns that his frustrated and battered team (who have all just quit on him) could join the Little League and get real uniforms. He is faced with the problem that neither Snoopy nor the girls would be allowed to play.
1967 Damn Yankees (TV, Primary) A two-hour NBC-TV color special starring Lee Remick, Jerry Lanning, Phil Silvers, Jim Backus, Linda Lavin, and Joe Garagiola. (See description for Damn Yankees, 1958.)
1968 Odd Couple, The (Tertiary) Directed by Gene Saks. Written by Neil Simon. Produced by Howard Kock/Paramount Pictures. Starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. In Neil Simon’s classic play, Felix (Lemmon) interrupts sports writer Oscar (Matthau) while he is covering a baseball game. Felix’s interruption causes Oscar to miss a triple play. Oscar is always wearing a Mets cap and his apartment is decorated with photos of various Mets players and Yogi Berra and Stan Musial.
1968 Tournament (Primary) (a.k.a. Shishun, Youth) Directed by Kon Ichikawa. Produced by Asahi Shimbunsha. A 97-minute documentary of the fiercely competitive high school baseball tournament played annually in Koshien Stadium near Osaka.
1971 Ceremony, The (Secondary) Directed and written by Nagisa Oshima. Produced by Sozosha/Art Theatre Guild. Starring Kei Sato. A Japanese release (Gishiki) that tells the story of a boy (Masuo) who grows up in Japan, becomes a baseball player but then abandons baseball because he commits a critical error in a college game that humiliates his parents (his mother commits hara-kiri). He burns his glove and bat. Baseball is used to represent Western influences and the bringing of democracy to Japan after WWII.
1971 One-Legged Ace (Primary) Directed by Kazuo Ikihiro. Written by Masato Ide. Produced by Katsu. A Japanese release (Kata Ashi No Ace) that is the story of a heroic baseball player/amputee.
1972
Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, The (Tertiary) Directed and written by
Philip Kaufman. Produced by Jennings Lang/MCA/Universal Pictures. Starring Cliff
Robertson, Luke Askew, R.G. Armstrong, Dana Elcar, Cliff Roberts, and Robert
Duvall. A western that looks at the exploits of the James-Younger gang that
includes a scene where the Jesse James gang encounters the game of baseball.
1972 Play It
Again, Sam
(Tertiary) Directed by Herbert Ross. Written by Woody Allen. Produced by
Paramount Pictures. Starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton. A mild mannered film
critic is dumped by his wife and his ego is crushed. His hero persona is the
tough guy played by Humphrey Bogart in many of his movies and the apparition of
Bogart begins showing up to give him advice. With the encouragement of his two
married friends, he actually tries dating again, with less than satisfactory
results. The movie includes a scene in which Woody Allen explains to Diane
Keaton why he thinks about baseball while making love.
1972 Ulzana’s Raid (Tertiary)
Directed by Robert Aldrich. Written by Alan Sharpe. Produced by Carter DeHaven
and Harold Heccht/MCA/Universal Pictures. Starring Richard Jaeckel, Joaquin
Martinez, Burt Lancaster, Bruce Davison, and Jorge Luke. A western clash between
the U.S. Cavalry and Native Americans. The cavalry troop is playing baseball in
the beginning of the movie. The game is interrupted by news of an Apache attack.
1973
Bang The Drum Slowly (Primary) Directed
by John Hancock. Written by Mark Harns. Produced by Lois Rosenfield and Maurice
Rosenfield/Paramount Pictures. Starring Michael Moriarty, Robert DeNiro, Vincent
Gardenia, Phil Foster, Ann Wedgeworth, and
Heather MacRae. A drama with Michael Moriaty and Robert DeNiro as pro
baseball players. DeNiro, the
catcher, is dying from an incurable disease and Moriaty, the pitcher, works to
help him live his last months by enjoying a few good games.
1974 Godfather II (Tertiary) Directed and written by Francis Ford Coppola. Produced by Coppola Productions/Paramount Pictures. Starring Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and Robert DeNiro. The continuing saga of the Corleone crime family tells the story of a young Vito Corleone growing up in Sicily and New York; and follows Michael Corleone in the 1950s as he attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba. (Keith Lo) About midway through the film, when Michael Coreone meets Hyman Roth, Roth mentions that he likes baseball in America, ever since Arnold Rothstein fixed the 1919 World Series. Subtly reveals an important side and background of Roth’s inherent evilness.
1974 It’s Good To Be Alive (TV, Primary) Directed by Michael Landon. Written by Roy Campanella and Steve Gerthers. Produced by Charles Fries and Larry Harmon/Metromedia Productions. Starring Ramon Bieri, Joe DeSantis, Paul Winfield, Ruby Dee, Lou Gossett. Winfield plays Dodger Roy Campanella in this biography revolving around the auto accident in 1958 that crippled him for life. It relates his battle through physical therapy to regain some physical movement though confined to a wheelchair.
1975 French Connection
II (Secondary) Directed by John Frankenheimer. Written by Laurie Dillon and
Robert Dillon. Produced by Robert Rosen/20th Century Fox. Starring
Gene Hackman, Fernando Roy, Bernard Fresson, Jean-Pierre Castaldi, and Charles
Millot. Gene Hackman is New York Detective Popeye Doyle in this
action/adventure sequel. In one extended scene, while Doyle is in the throws of
going cold turkey off heroin, he describes his school life and his desire to be
a baseball player. He talks about getting a tryout with the Yankees, but when he
saw Mickey Mantle play, he decided to become a cop. He talks of Willie Mays,
Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra. He uses an apple as a baseball to illustrate to the
French inspector what a southpaw is. Then he uses a drum stick from his chicken
dinner to show the inspector how to bat and he has the inspector pitch the apple
to him swinging the drum stick.
c. 1975 Greatest Legends of Baseball (Primary) Viacom International (60 minutes).
1975 Just the Beginning (Primary) Directed by Jung In Yup. Produced by Yung Bang Films. A Korean film about an ex-baseball player who coaches a team, accustomed to losing, to the championship.
1975 One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest (Secondary) Directed by Milos Forman. Written by Bo Goldman
and Lawrence Hauben. Produced by Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz/United Artists.
Starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Michael Berryman,
and Peter Brocco. Randle Patrick McMurphy (Nicholson) is taken to a mental
hospital because of his behavior in the regular jail.
His adversary is the strict Nurse Ratched (Fletcher). Baseball plays a
role in this movie of a mental institution and its inmates because of
McMurphy’s attempts to make the rules less stringent so the boys can watch the
World Series on television. When he doesn’t succeed, he pretends the game is
on TV and calls the play-by-play action, to the cheers of fellow inmates.
Baseball links these patients to that which is “normal” within them, and
establishes a common ground among the group that they did not have before
McMurphy’s arrival.
1976 Bad News Bears (Primary) Directed by Michael Ritchie. Written by Bill Lancaster. Produced by Stanley Jaffe/Paramount Pictures. Starring Ben Piazza, Vic Morrow, Chris Barnes, Walter Matthau, and Tatum O’Neal. The story of a Little League coach, Morris Buttermaker (Matthau), who loves his beer, but signs up to coach an unlikely gathering of kid misfits. His team consists of his star pitcher, a girl (O’Neal), and a motley group of ballplayers trying to win and cussing up a storm in this first of three Bad News Bears comedies.
1976 Bingo Long
Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (Primary) Directed by John Badham.
Written by Hal Barwood and William Brushler. Produced by Rob Cohen/Motown
Productions/Universal Pictures. Starring Rico Dawson, Sam Briston, Billy Dee
Williams, James Earl Jones, and Richard Pryor. Bingo Long (Williams) plays a
pitcher for a Negro league team in 1939 who establishes his own traveling
all-star team. They do well in their enterprise because a number of players from
the Negro Leagues join the team. Complications set in when the greedy former owner of the Aces
conspires to find a way to get the Black players back into the Negro Leagues.
A championship game is arranged and Bingo Long’s team wins.
1976 Enforcer (Tertiary) Directed by James Fargo. Written by Gail Morgan Hickman and S.W. Schierr. Produced by Robert Daly/Warner Bros. Starring Bradford Dillman, John Mitchum, Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, and Tyne Daly. A Dirty Harry movie with Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, and Tyne Daly as Eastwood’s partner. The San Francisco Mayor (Crawford) uses Candlestick Park as a venue to glad-hand possible voters and be seen among the average people who enjoy the sport.
1976 It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown (TV, Secondary) Directed by Phil Roman. Written by Charles Schultz. To celebrate Arbor Day, the gang decides to do a great gardening project for Charlie Brown. Unfortunately, Charlie Brown learns that they did it in his baseball diamond, turning it into a lush garden. With no alternative, he is forced to play against Peppermint Patty's team in that field. However, the bizarre setting seems to work to his advantage. (Kenneth Chisholm)
1977 Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, The (Primary) Directed by Michael Pressman. Written by Paul Brickman. Produced by Fred T. Gallo and Leonard Goldberg/Paramount Pictures. Starring William Devane, Jackie Earle Haley, Jimmy Baio, Clifton Jones, and Chris Barnes. A sequel to the 1976 film with Jackie Earle Haley as this version’s Little League star. He convinces his dad (Devane) to help the team.
1977 Baseball Bats and Samurai Swords (Primary) Produced by VidAmerica. A 60 minute film of an American and Japanese all-star game in Nishinomiya Stadium.
1977 Baseball: Fun and Games (Primary) Produced by VidAmerica. A 60 minutes film of odd plays, trivia, and quirks of baseball history.
1977 Just the Beginning (Primary) Directed by Jong In Yup. Starring Jin Yoo Young, Ha Myoung Jung, Kang Juttee, and Koh Kum Bong. Produced by Yung Bang Films. A Korean film about a misfit youth-league baseball team that eventually wins the championship.
1977 Murder at the World Series (TV Primary/Secondary) Directed by Andrew McLaglen. Written and produced by Cy Chermak. Starring Michael Parks, Lynda Day George, Murray Hamilton, Karen Valentine, and Gerald S. O’Loughlin. An angry young ballplayer has been rejected by the Houston Astros and plans a kidnapping at the Astrodome during the World Series.
1977 Oh God! (Tertiary) Directed by Carl Reiner. Written by Avery Corman and Larry Gelbart. Produced by Jerry Weintraub/Warner Bros. Starring John Denver, Teri Garr, George Burns, Donald Pleasence, and Ralph Bellamy. The baseball references in this movie are slight. When God (Burns) appears the first time he’s wearing a peaked hat that looks like a baseball cap. And, the topper is a line in response to Denver’s request for him to prove himself by doing a miracle. He says, “My last miracle was the 1969 Mets, before that it was the Red Sea.”
1977 Other Side of Midnight, The (Tertiary) Directed by Charles Jarrott. Written by Sidney Sheldon, Barry Sandler, Daniel Taradash, and Herman Raucher. Produced by Howard Koch/20th Century Fox. Starring Marie Frane Pisier, John Beck, Susan Sarandon, Raf Vallone, and Clu Gulager. The story, set in the 1930’s and 1940’s follows a woman’s quest for stardom. In one scene, one of the bad guys is talking to the other bad guys while he was swinging at pitches from a pitching machine. He hits every one well and doesn’t miss any. Later, pilot Larry Douglas (Beck) is having difficulty finding a job after the end of world War II and casually mentions to his wife Catherine (Sarandon) that he’ll “play shortstop for the New York Yankees.”
1977 Over-Under, Sideways-Down (Secondary) Directed by Eugene Corr, Steve Wax and Peter Gessner. Written by Eugene Corr and Peter Gessner. Produced by Steve Wax/Cine Manifest. Starring Roy Andrews, Robert Behling, and Joe Bellan. A man turning 30 begins to realize that his dream of being a major league baseball player won’t be coming true. That realization affects his work and marriage.
1977 Rolling Thunder (Secondary) Directed by John Flynn. Written by Heywood Gould and Paul Schrader. Produced by Lawrence Gordon and Norman T. Herman/American International Pictures. Starring William Devane, Tommy Lee Jones, Linda Haynes, James Best, and Dabney Coleman. Story of a Vietnam P.O.W. returning to the U.S. where he finds his wife interested in another man and before his family problems can be resolved, his wife and children are murdered. Devane, as the husband spends the rest of the movie on a mission of revenge. Baseball is used in the film to illustrate the family’s growth. The returning father plays ball with his son, but relinquishes that privilege to the “new” father.
1978 Bad News Bears Go To Japan, The (Primary) Directed by John Berry. Written by Bill Lancaster. Produced by Terry Carr and Bill Lancaster/Paramount Pictures. Starring Tony Curtis, Jackie Earle Haley, Tomisaburo Wakayama, George Wyner, and Lonny Chapman. The last of the series finds the team off to Japan for a tournament. This time Tony Curtis plans to rake off all he can make from the kids’ efforts.
1978 Boy Called Third Base, A (Tertiary) Directed by Yoichi Higashi. Written by Shuji Terayama. Starring Toshiyuki Nagashima and Tsugiaki Yoshida. A Japanese release about a troubled 18-year-old who is called Third Base because of his love of baseball.
1978 Bleacher Bums (TV, Primary) Written by and starring Dennis Franz and Joe Mantegna for PBS (90 minutes). This video production of a play made famous in Chicago, but little known elsewhere. It takes place in the bleachers, the cheap seats set at the very back of a baseball stadium, where tickets were about a buck and the view needed binoculars. The characters are a bunch of Chicago Cubs fans, sitting in the bleachers watching a Cubs game on a summer afternoon. Most of them have been gathering here for some time and know each other, even if they might not necessarily like or tolerate each other. Beer flows, hot dogs disappear, and friendly wagers take on increasing importance. Dennis Franz is a working class guy who dreams of just having enough money to take his wife out to his ideal fancy restaurant. (David Martins)
1978 Coming Home (Tertiary) Directed by Hal Ashby. Written by Nancy Dowd, Robert Jones, Waldo Salt, and Rudy Wurlitzer. Produced by Bruce Gilbert and Jerome Hellman/United Artists. Starring Jane Fonda, John Voight, Bruce Dern, Penelope Milford, and Robert Carradine. About five minutes in, as a Simon and Garfunkel song plays the line “a time of innocence,” the scene shows boys and girls playing catch; later, during an argument among military wives, Jane Fonda’s character accuses them of reporting on softball homeruns rather than on the wounded men at the hospital.
1978 Days of Heaven (Tertiary)
Directed and written by Terrance Malick. Produced by Robert Wilke/Paramount
Pictures. Starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, and Linda Manz. Turn
of the century love story set during the western wheat harvest. Baseball is
played on the vast expanse of the wheat plains using cushions from the farmhouse
furniture for bases.
1978 Goodbye Franklin High (Secondary) Directed by Mike MacFarland. Written by Stu Krieger. Produced by Joseph Laird, Kool Lusby and Mike MacFarland/Cal-Am. Starring Lane Caudell, Ann Dusenberry, William Windom, Julie Adams, and Darby Hinton. A story in which a senior at Franklin High is being pulled in several directions: by college, the wishes of his parents and his girl friend, and the possibility of a career in baseball.
1978 Grease (Tertiary) Directed by Randal Klieser. Written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Produced by Allan Carr and Neil A. Machlis/Paramount Pictures. Starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. The movie is set in the late 1950s in a large high school. Sandy (John) and Johnny (Travolta) have a summer romance and think that they will never see each other again. Sandy’s father gets a permanent job transfer and she stays the school year. Johnny tries several sports to impress Sandy, but wrestling also makes him too aggressive so the coach suggests baseball because, it has no contact. So he suits up and steps up to the plate. He strikes out and gets mad at the ump and snaps his mask on his face. The coach firmly instructs Johnny to, “Just put the bat down.” He finally joins the track team which helps get his girl back.
1978 Here Come the Tigers (Primary) Directed by Sean Cunningham. Written by Arch McCoy. Produced by Sean Cunningham and Steve Miner/United Artists. Starring Richard Lincoln, Kathy Bell, Samantha Grey, Manny Lieberman, and William Caldwell. An underachieving clone of The Bad News Bears.
1978 Love Affair, The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story, A (TV, Primary) Directed by Fielder Cook. Written by Joseph Dorso and Eleanor Gehrig. Produced by Richard Beg and Charles Fries. Starring Blythe Danner, Edward Herman, Gerald O’Loughlin, Ramon Beri, and Jane Wyatt. A story based on Eleanor Gehrig’s autobiography and told from her point of view.
1978 One In A Million, The Ron LeFlore Story (TV, Primary) Directed by William Graham. Written by Ron LeFlore and Stanford Whitmore. Produced by Tony Converse and William Gilmore. Starring Paul Benjamin, Billy Martin, LeVar Burton, Madge Sinclair, and James Luisi. Based on his 1978 autobiography breakout, this is the story of Ron LeFlore’s climb from the depths of the Michigan State Penitentiary to the prison baseball team to the Detroit Tigers where he became an outstanding center fielder.
1979 Aunt Mary (TV, Primary) Directed by Peter Werner. Written by Ellis Cohen. Produced by Ellis Cohen and Michael Jaffe. Starring Dolph Sweet, Harold Gould, Robert Emhardt, Jean Stapleton, and Martin Balsam. Set in the early 1940s, Aunt Mary (Stapleton) decides to start a Little League team for disadvantaged kids in her neighborhood. Though physically disabled, her efforts help thousands of kids to play in baseball games.
1979 Chapter Two (Tertiary) Directed by Robert Moore. Written by Neil Simon. Produced by Margaret Booth and Roger Rothstein/Columbia Pictures. Starring James Caan, Marsha Mason, Joseph Bologna, Valerie Harper, and Alan Fudge. Caan and Bologna play softball in the Central Park Broadway Show League. George (Caan) is a big sports fan and there are many references to baseball cards and the Yankees.
1979 Flintstones Little Big League (TV, Primary) Fred manages a Little League baseball team that seems absolutely hopeless, except for a player that he blindly refuses to recognize.
1979 Kid From Left Field, The (TV, Primary) Directed by Adell Aldrich. Starring Tricia O’Neil, Gary Collins, and Tab Hunter, Gary Coleman, and Robert Guillaume. The San Diego Padres bat-boy guides the team out of the cellar with the help of his Dad, a former big leaguer, now a hot dog vendor.
1979 Squeeze Play (Primary) Directed by Samuel Weil. Written by Haim Pekelis. Produced by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz/Troma Films. Starring Jim Harris, Jenni Hetrick, Rick Gitlin, Helen Campitelli, Rick Kahn and Diana Valentein. Members of the Beavers team of the Mattress Companies Softball League are more interested in playing ball and guzzling beer than they are in their women. The women, upon the arrival of a pitching ace from Georgia, form their own team. The film ends with the game between the Beavers and the Beaverettes.
1979 Warriors, The (Tertiary) Directed by Walter Hill. Written by Walter Hill, David Shaber, and Sol Yurick. Produced by Lawrence Gordon and Frank Marshall/Paramount Pictures. Starring Michael Beck, James Remar, Dorsey Wright, Brian Tyler, and David Harris. A meeting is called among all the gangs in New York City to meet and call a truce. At the meeting, one of the gang leaders is shot and killed. One of the gangs uses baseball bats as their weapon of choice and taps of the bats on the street as they walk which helps create their persona. The Warriors are wrongly accused and now it is a long journey for them to get back to their turf.
1980 50 Years of Baseball Memories (Primary) Produced by Major League Baseball. A 30 minute film of highlights and history of baseball.
1980 Comeback Kid, The (TV, Primary) Directed by Peter Levin. Written by Joe Landon. Produced by Joe Landon and Louis Rudolph. Starring John Ritter, Susan Dey, Doug McKeon, James Gregory, and Jeremy Licht. A down-and-out former minor league ballplayer finds romance and a renewed zest for life when he takes a job coaching a group of underprivileged kids.
1980
Heaven’s Gate (Tertiary) Directed and written by Michael Cimino. Produced
by Joann Carelli and Dennis O’Dell/United Artists. Starring Sam Waterson, Kris
Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, and John Hurt. A western
about the land wars in Wyoming between the cattle ranchers and immigrant farmers
circa 1890. There is a brief scene of baseball being played by Company C of the
Wyoming National Guard.
1980
It’s My Turn (Tertiary) Directed by
Claudia Weill. Written by Eleanor Bergstein. Produced by Martin Elfand and Jay
Presson Allen/Columbia Pictures. Starring Charles Grodin, Beverly Garland,
Steven Hill, Jill Clayburgh, Michael Douglas, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and
Bob Feller. An ex-baseball player and a career woman are involved in a romance.
At one point during the movie, Kate Gunzinger (Clayburgh) and Ben Lewin
(Douglas) engage in a board baseball game.
1980 Squeeze Play (Primary) Directed by Lloyd Kaufman. Written by Charles Kaufman and Haim Pekelis. Produced by Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman/Troma Films. Starring Jim Harris, Jenni Hetrick, Rick Giltin, Helen Campitilli, and Al Corley. Story of male vs. female in a community where softball is pre-eminent; the women in the community feel ignored by their softball playing men, so they form a team in order to beat the men at their own game.
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