Truly Dreadful Film

the audience applauded

Strong and Moving!

Admirable film.

. . . but this yarn concerning a college chemistry instructor who pitches 1.000 (38-0 with one no-hitter for the Cards, plus 3-0 against the Yankees in the World Series) is such a stretch that MLB required the producers of IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING to make all the teams and stadiums "generic" (at least to Martians). This story asks the question, "What if there were some magical chemical hormone that could make a geezer in the twilight of his career--say, Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds--suddenly perform better than ever before: Would such a geriatric has-been risk The Game's Integrity and his own Legacy by cheating, and could be get away with it?" Obviously, young Roger and Barry saw IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING many times growing up, and noticed that clever cheaters such as Vernon, a.k.a. "King" Kelly, not only get away with transgressing--they're given a hero's welcome complete with marching bands when they return home. In movie life, Vernon breaks his pitching hand catching a line drive to end the World series (as well as his career). It's a safe bet MLB wishes that Roger had permanently thrown his elbow out winning Game #299, or that Barry had suffered a career-ending knee injury rounding first on home run #754, but Real Life doesn't work so neatly. Sadly for this film, Ray Milan (Vernon) and his girl Debbie (Jean Peters) have NO chemistry together (which is more than you can say for Roger and Barry).

I first saw this movie on the pioneer network TV movie series,"Saturday Night At The Movies", which I am sure most people have long since forgotten.I liked it then, and enjoyed seeing it later. This is one of the most pleasant, relaxing movies I have ever seen.Something that wee need more of in this stressed out world.I think that the people who criticize the "moral" aspect of "cheating" are forgetting one thing.If Ray Milland used some cheating device that really existed, they would have a point. But the device he uses is total fantasy,and everyone knows it.Like getting a genie to help him win; you just don't take it seriously. It is a comic device, just like the Three Stooges turning a meat grinder into a machine gun in one of their shorts!

This is one of my favorite films from my childhood. I love to watch it in March, just before the baseball season begins. Milland is outstanding as the quiet, studious college instructor who has a slight case of "spring fever", except it "lasts all summer." If this film were made today there'd be a lot of pseudo-moral outrage about the message that cheating is OK, etc. etc. Probably there would also be grumbling about a college teacher having a romance with a student, but this movie is innocent and funny. Paul Douglas was outstanding, as always, playing the catcher/roommate.This film should be on DVD. It's outrageous that it it isn't.

One of my most memorable baseball images is that of George Brett who after hitting a home run against the Yankees had it disallowed because of excess pine tar used on his bat. The protest was lodged by Billy Martin the Yankee manager of the time who knew about the obscure rule and waited for an appropriate moment for the protest. I remember vividly the image of George Brett in his Royals uniform charging out of the Kansas City dugout, bat in hand looking to rearrange Billy Martin's face with it.Now if pine tar got that home run disallowed, what do you think the ruling heads of baseball would say to a wood repellent that made it impossible to hit a doctored ball? Yet that's what we're being asked to accept here.A lot has sure happened to baseball since 1949, but I think outright cheating would have been frowned upon back in the day. Of course Ray Milland doesn't think of it as cheating. He accidentally discovers a compound that repels wood in an experiment to develop some stain free varnish. He's a university chemistry professor and he decides to join the hapless St. Louis team and pitch them to the pennant, purely as a scientific experiment.I do love baseball and baseball films, but this is one of the worst ever made. It has a few laughs in it, the players Ray Milland, Jean Peters, Paul Douglas, Ted DeCorsia give adequate performances, but the premise is impossible. Ray Milland is like a pitching version of Joe Hardy from Damn Yankees. Hardy had some underworld intervention to account for his success, but Milland relies on some scientific cheating. I can hardly believe that the Commissioner of Baseball who at the time was Albert "Happy" Chandler would not have called for an investigation as to the strange doings in St. Louis.And if he didn't no one should ever have criticized and attacked such pitchers as Whitey Ford, Lew Burdette, and Gaylord Perry who were accused of using the outlawed spitball to help their game.In fact we ought to consider bringing back all those doctored pitches from days gone by.