42

[resortes805]

Yes, another Jackie Robinson movie, but the wardrobe is fantastic and filled with actual clothing of the era.
[video=youtube;I9RHqdZDCF0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9RHqdZDCF0[/video]

 

[Worf]

How many "Jackie Robinson Movies" do you think have been made? The only other one that I know of that wasn't a TV movie was "The Jackie Robinson Story" and that was released over 50 years ago. I don't get what you're saying...

Worf

 

[resortes805]

Yup, "The Jackie Robinson Story" starring the man himself. Alot of people are claiming the new movie is just a remake of the old movie, but it's good to get his story out there again.

 

[Worf]

Yup, "The Jackie Robinson Story" starring the man himself. Alot of people are claiming the new movie is just a remake of the old movie, but it's good to get his story out there again.

I must apologize to you my friend I saw your "yes" and transposed it to "yet"! Now I see said the blind man. I concur with my whole heart. My bad... I should read slower and post even slower!!!

Worf

 

[resortes805]

No problem, Worf!

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?68561-42-trailer The trailer thread.

 

[Feraud]

I'm looking forward to seeing this. Great stories should be told and retold.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I haven't looked forward to a movie with greater enthusiasm in a long, long time -- I hope we get it here, but even if it shows up at the multiplex instead I'll go see it.

I suggest folks read Jonathan Eig's excellent book "Opening Day" before viewing the film to get a detailed, nuanced perspective on the Robinson story -- Eig peels the varnish off a lot of the legends, and presents a factual account that's even more inspiring in many ways than the generally-accepted account of what happened in 1947.

 

[Feraud]

Thanks for the recommendation LizzieM. Have you read Arnold Rampersad's bio of Robinson? Any thoughts on how it compares to Opening Day?

 

[majormajor]

Now that looks like a phenomenal movie, and I don't even watch Baseball!

Looking forward to that one!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think they're complementary books -- Rampersad focuses on the totality of Robinson's life, where Eig focuses exclusively on the events of the 1947 season, with as much emphasis on the contributions and reactions of others as on those of Robinson himself.

I think Rampersad does an excellent job of presenting the real Jackie Robinson, not the paper saint who's become a pop-culture figure over the last twenty years or so. Robinson was a great *man*, in the finest sense of the word, not just a great ball player, but he had plenty of shortcomings as well: he had a vicious temper, he held grudges, he was a persnickety clubhouse lawyer who was widely disliked by many of his teammates for reasons having nothing to do with his race, and he had one of the filthiest mouths in the National League. Those failings, to me, make him a more human, more approachable figure than the Iconic Robinson of legend. He wasn't a superhero, he was a human being who carried a load no human being should have had to carry.

Where Eid excels is in showing how this conflicted, complex man related to his teammates. Despite the legends, Eid documents that Pee Wee Reese wasn't Robinson's staunch friend and supporter in 1947 -- he became such by 1950, certainly, but in the beginning their relationship was dignified but distant. If Robinson had an actual *ally* in 1947, it was Eddie Stanky, a prickly, ill-tempered man not unlike Robinson himself in disposition, who didn't like anybody unless they could help his team win. And Eid takes the time to take a long look at Dixie Walker, the Dodger star who has long been held out as the primary villian of the Robinson story -- and finds that Walker's "opposition" to Robinson was borne more out of fear and uncertainty than of hatred or deep racism. Walker made his peace with Robinson's presence on the club, and with himself over accepting Robinson as a teammate, before the season was a month old. For the rest of the year, he viewed Robinson as did most of the other Dodgers -- someone they didn't quite understand, someone they weren't entirely comfortable around, but a teammate just the same.

I'll be interested to see how much of this complexity is captured in the film -- I'd be shocked if they didn't use both Rampersad's and Eig's books as sources, since they represent the current state of the art in Robinson scholarship.

 

[Worf]

Thanks for the information... two more books for the pile in "the library" ahem.....

Worf

 

[Feraud]

Thanks for the review LizzieM. I'll have to add Opening Day to my reading queue.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just got back from seeing this, and as expected, have mixed feelings.

Visually, it's gorgeous, and the baseball scenes are nothing short of spectacular -- it's worth seeing for those scenes alone, as well as for Harrison Ford's John-Wesley-crossed-with-W. C.-Fields portrayal of Branch Rickey. Robinson himself, aside from one private outburst, doesn't get a chance to do much more than suffer stoically, which is unfortunate: in real life he suffered chronic tension headaches thruout the 1947 season, and at one point actually considered quitting before the stress killed him. The film shows little of what really went on in Robinson's life during the season -- he simply reacts to what's going on around him.

This is the essential flaw of the screenplay -- it treats Robinson more as a symbol than as a man, much like the original "Jackie Robinson Story" did in 1950. It's a childrens' book approach to a very grown-up story, and while it makes the film ideal for a family audience, don't expect to come out of it with much of an idea of who Jack Roosevelt Robinson really was.

The supporting cast is quite good, although there are so many characters who come and go that, if you don't know a lot about the baseball scene in 1947, you may end up lost. All of the expected incidents occur -- the Southern Dodgers start their petition drive, Pee Wee Reese refuses to sign, Leo Durocher tells them what they can do with their petition, Ben Chapman heckles Robinson with a string of racial invective that's so outrageous you might not believe it was actually sanitized for the film, Eddie Stanky stands up and puts Chapman in his place, Reese and Robinson share a moment (which didn't actually happen in 1947), and the Dodgers go on to win the pennant.

A few key incidents in the film were manufactured out of whole cloth:

*There was never any fight, or even a threat of a fight between Robinson and Dixie Walker. Walker made his peace with Robinson's presence on the club early on, and while they never became pals, their relationship was quietly civil for the rest of the season. Walker was not traded because of his early opposition to Robinson -- he was traded because he was 37 years old and wanted too much money for 1948.

*Fritz Ostermueller of the Pirates never hit Robinson in the head -- he brushed him back, and Robinson actually fended off the pitch with his arm. There was no brawl after that pitch -- but the Dodgers did stand up in the dugout and yell across the field at Ostermueller to tell him to lay off.

*Robinson did not win the pennant for the Dodgers with a homer off Ostermueller in the last game of the season -- in fact, the Dodgers lost the last game of the season in Boston against the Braves, a game in which Robinson didn't even play, and only backed into the pennant when the Cubs beat the Cardinals later that night, knocking them out of the race.

So, in summary, it's by no means a documentary, or even much of a docudrama. But it's a good, wholesome family movie that's definitely worth two hours of your time. It's the closest you'll get in the 21st Century to walking into Ebbets Field.

 

[MisterCairo]

Number 42 started his pro career in Montreal. Here's hoping that great city can get a another team.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/spor...son+story+started+Montreal/8236250/story.html

 

[LizzieMaine]

Number 42 started his pro career in Montreal. Here's hoping that great city can get a another team.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/spor...son+story+started+Montreal/8236250/story.html

The Montreal season is touched upon -- Robinson's first spring training as a member of the Royals is shown, along with opening day 1946 in Jersey City, but frustratingly you see nothing in Montreal itself. That's a pity, because Robinson himself always spoke fondly of his year in that city, and Montreal itself embraced him fully.

There's one more serious omission in the film -- and I was astounded that it was left out. Early in 1947, members of the St. Louis Cardinals tried to organize a league-wide strike against Robinson, but the plan was snuffed thru the intervention of the president of the National League, and put all of baseball on notice that the administrative powers in the game were standing fully behind Robinson and Rickey. The story was exposed by reporter Stanley Woodward of the New York Herald Tribune, who warned "the boys from the hookworm belt" about making any further attempts to "foist their quaint sectional folklore" on the rest of the country, and in doing so helped turn public sentiment firmly to Robinson's side.

 

[Worf]

Excellent review's LM and MUCH appreciated.

Thanks...

Worf

 

[Fletch]

You've got me interested in this now. I was expecting a modernized pandering, but this seems like a good faith effort to reach back - with the inevitable tweeks in time and place that come with making a well paced 2 hours out of a hunk of history.

Does television play a role in the film? The '47 Series was the first on TV, with the audience mostly in New York drinking establishments, but that may not be part of the legend enough to matter here.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And no, there ain't no rap music anywhere on the soundtrack.

A bit more on the Fritz Ostermueller incident: Ostermueller himself wasn't any kind of an embittered Southerner feeling threatened by Robinson's presence in the league. He was from Illinois, was forty years old, and was wrapping up a long baseball career. And by all existing accounts, he was sincerely apologetic about the up-and-in pitch which, he insisted, got away from him. Wendell Smith, the writer portrayed in the film as Robinson's "Boswell" actually wrote about this incident the following day, and doubted that there was any malice in the pitch -- but he did say the way in which the entire Dodger team reacted to it was the first evidence in the season that they were thinking of Robinson as truly being one of them.

Another bit of historic inaccuracy worth noting is that Southern pitcher Kirby Higbe is portrayed as the man behind the petition campaign against Robinson. In fact, Higbe did sign the petition, and did demand to be traded. But he felt so guilty about it that he went out that night and got drunk -- and while drunk told traveling secretary Harold Parrott all about the petition. It was Higbe's tipoff that allowed Rickey to alert Durocher to what was going on and made it possible to nip the protest before it could become public. Higbe wasn't a particularly nice guy, but he should have at least gotten credit for his sabotaging the petition.

 

[Fletch]

Philco TV ad, New York Daily Mirror, 9/29/47.