23. Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Let me preface this review by saying that I really, really like this musical. I don’t really know why because Take Me Out to the Ball Game isn’t a great musical, or even one of Gene Kelly’s top films. It’s got Kelly and Frank Sinatra, but the plot is incredibly thin and not exactly believable, but there is definitely something about it that draws me in.

Dennis Ryan (Sinatra) and Eddie O'Brien (Kelly) are members of the Wolves, an early 1900s baseball team, who travel in vaudeville during the off-season. They come back for spring training in Florida, complete with a song and dance about how great their travels across the USA have been. The team has a new owner -- K.C. Higgins (Esther Williams) who runs the team more strictly. Ryan falls in love with her, mostly because of her athletic abilities, and O'Brien has an antagonistic relationship with her. You can guess what happens between the two of them.

The Wolves do well at baseball -- and they even have a song about the triple team of O’Brian to Ryan to Goldberg. There is a plot about throwing the game and making Kelly’s character too tired by getting him involved with putting together a show during the post-season. He gets fired, but manages to come back in time to win the big game.

The movie doesn’t really end typically -- there's a vaudeville-esque song and dance about how Kelly gets Williams and Sinatra gets Betty Garrett (who is my favorite wisecracking second-lead; I absolutely love her in On the Town!).

Take Me Out to the Ball Game is just a cheesily good musical, complete with a few good dance numbers and songs. I do love Shirley (Garrett) and O'Brien’s courtship -- she gets to pursue him and complain about how skinny he is, which is what I tend to think when ever I see him in his early films.

FILE UNDER: Classic Film ; 31 Films in 31 Days Challenge; Top Ten Lists