Starring Jerry Lanning, Phil Silvers, Lee Remick, and Jim Backus
Directed by Kirk Browning
Music by Richard Adler; Lyrics by Jerry Ross
Our next sports musical revolves around the players and those who watch them from home. Even after the original Washington Senators moved to St. Paul in 1958, DC residents still wanted a baseball team in their town. The Senators were revived as an expansion team...and proceeded to play even worse than before. They were still perennial bottom-dwellers when this adaptation of the hit Broadway show first appeared on a revived General Electric Theater. How does this handle the story of a man who would do anything to make the Senators into a winning team...even sell his soul? Let's begin at the home of that obsessive fan, Joe Boyd (Ray Middleton), and his patient wife Meg (Fran Allison) as the Senators lose another game and find out...
The Story: Joe's claim that he'd sell his soul to win the pennant brings in Mr. Applegate (Silvers). Applegate says he can make Joe into a fit young slugger who'll rejuvenate the Senators if he really is willing to sell his soul. Joe's a real estate salesman by trade who has enough sense to add an escape clause that will allow him to return to Meg at the end of the season.
Joe's an instant success who does revitalize the Senators, but he also misses Meg badly. He even takes a room in her home to be near her. Applegate sends his best seductress Lola (Remick) to tempt Joe into straying. When that fails and Lola falls for him instead, Applegate plants a phony story that Joe is really a criminal. The Senators and Meg are willing to help prove he's no con man, but all Joe really wants is to be at home with his wife again.
The Song and Dance: This scores with the excellent cast and the creative staging that makes the most of the low-budget sets and effects. Silvers is a very funny Applegate, especially in the trial, and ultra-sexy Remick is certainly believable as Applegate's most successful temptress. She's so enjoyable here, I wish she did more musicals. Square-jawed Lanning looks like a sports hero and sings his numbers beautifully, especially the two ballads, and the Senators are a hoot. The very 60's animation and graphics bring Monty Python's Flying Circus to mind, with their wacky use of silent movie footage, cut-outs, and stop-motion.
Favorite Number: This time, we open with wives lamenting they lose their husbands to baseball on TV for "Six Months Out of Every Year" over the main credits. Joe says "Goodbye, Old Girl" in his letter to Meg before he leaves with Applegate. "Heart" makes heavy use of those psychedelic graphics stop-motion animation as Coach Buddy (Backus) encourages his team to do their best on the field. The graphics pop up again with "Shoeless Joe From Hannibal Mo" as sportswriter Gloria (Linda Lavin) and the Senators extort Joe as the next big thing.
Joe has two lovely ballads as he tells Applegate and Meg why he misses his wife, "A Man Doesn't Know" and "Near You." Remick makes the most of her big numbers "A Little Brains, a Little Talent" and "Whatever Lola Wants," despite those weird graphics interrupting the former. Three members of the Senators harmonize about how "The Game" is great for their bodies, but not so much for their love lives. Silvers slides right into his take on all the notable figures he's corrupted, "Those Were the Good Old Days." "Two Lost Souls" starts out as Remick and Lanning singing, but ends oddly with the two doing a dance number amid a swirling, melting Chroma-Key background that is too distracting to let us see the decent choreography.
Trivia: TV debut of Linda Lavin.
The Senators remained bottom-dwellers until they finally moved to Dallas in 1972 and were renamed the Texas Rangers. Washington DC wouldn't get another baseball team until the Montreal Expos moved to DC in 2005 and became the current Nationals.
Broadcast as part of a brief revival of General Electric Theater.
What I Don't Like: The production is cheap as heck, even for TV. The fans in the stands and most of the baseball team are cardboard cut outs! The graphics can be nifty, but they're more often distracting, especially when replacing what would have been a dance number in any other show. They're also extremely late 60's. Many people nowadays would call them downright ugly. "Who's Got the Pain?" is really extraneous, but it's a fun song I wish they'd kept.
The Big Finale: This one tends to get strike-outs from many fans online who are expecting a more straightforward adaptation, but I think it's at least a straight line to first. If you love the cast or 50's and 60's musicals and are willing to give those weird psychedelic graphics a chance, this is worth checking out.
Home Media: This disappeared for decades until it turned up on YouTube, which to date remains the only place you can find it.
No comments:
Post a Comment