Take Me Out to the Ball Game – Mismatched Couples Blogathon

When I saw this blogathon, I knew exactly which movie couple I wanted to focus on. Frank Sinatra and Betty Garrett starred together in both Take Me Out to the Ball Game and On the Town (which is getting its own separate post). In this case, I’m looking at their personality traits as being mismatched, but not their validity as a movie couple. As a movie couple, they are absolutely perfect together and one of my favorite pairings to watch.

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I adore their chemistry. In Sinatra’s earlier years, he often played the inexperienced and more timid man. He hadn’t yet come into his own in his Rat Pack years yet, so they paired him with Gene Kelly to help boost his leading man quality and money-making abilities. When Take Me Out to the Ball Game came out, Sinatra wasn’t a huge box office draw yet, like Gene Kelly, so they put them together again after having played opposite each other in Anchors Aweigh four years earlier (1945). The formula in that movie worked, so they duplicated it again here and in On the Town.

And Sinatra and Garrett are SO CUTE together. I can’t even stand it sometimes. His shy demeanor and her aggressive pursuit of him is endearing. Their songs together are great and they seem to have so much fun playing off each other, which just makes the entire thing more enjoyable to watch.

Synopsis

We open up with our two favorite hoofers singing and dancing to Take Me Out to the Ball Game (what else?)! I want to take a moment here to note how much Frank improved between Anchors Aweigh and this film. If you watch him in Anchors Aweigh (especially the “I Begged Her” number), you will see him watching Gene’s feet as they dance. That is gone here. His confidence grew so much between films and he is stellar and keeps up with one of the best dancers of the time. So they finish their number and Gene says goodbye to a girl he’s.. ahem… because they have to go back to join their baseball team as the season is about to start.

They make fun of Frank’s lack of muscles and show Gene as the ladies man before they even get on the train to head back to play for the Wolves. When they arrive they boast about their skills with women through song (Yes, Indeedy), but it’s pretty much all bull and their teammate (Jules Munshin) makes fun of them for it. So they’re all jazzed to start playing ball again until they hear that they have a new team owner. Dun dun dunnnnnnnn…

Who then turns out to be a woman (say what?) and the gorgeous Esther Williams enters. According to her autobiography, June Allyson and Judy Garland were both in the running to play Miss K.C. (Katherine Catherine) Higgins, but there were issues, so here we are. You may notice Esther’s lack of swimming… she only gets one number in the pool, but that was because the part was originally written for Kathryn Grayson, who also wasn’t able to do the film.

So Denny (Sinatra) falls hard for the idea of Katherine, so in true Sinatra fashion, he serenades her. Fun fact – I walked down the aisle to this song during my wedding because I love it THAT much.

This is similar to Anchors Aweigh because a similiar thing happens… Sinatra falls for a girl, who isn’t actually the right girl for him. In both Anchors Aweigh and Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Sinatra falls for the girl destined for Gene Kelly. Poor Frank.

But here, one of his fans, Shirley, played by Betty, falls for him hard immediately (much how Hildy does in On the Town, but more on that in the next post). What I want to know about her though is why she hangs out with gangsters? I feel like that may be an interesting angle to explore because she sits with them at EVERY game.

So Shirley’s gangster friends decide to lure Eddie (Gene Kelly) into a show with a bunch of girls and he’s powerless to resist even though it means that he’s falling asleep while playing baseball. Not cool, Eddie. So when Katherine finds out about this, she kicks him out of the team. He goes on some soul-searching and comes back, getting them to let him play in the pennant. Katherine is mad, but loves him, so she allows it. But the gangsters are like, we don’t want to lose money, so let’s take him out of the game. Denny agrees and beams Eddie with a real baseball, knocking him out when Shirley warns him that the gangsters are after Eddie. Then, the gangsters gain access and just keep punching Eddie in the face to keep him out of the game whenever he’s about to come to, which seems a bit crazy… I feel like the coaches should be smarter than that, but you know…

Shirley sees them and reveals that they aren’t doctors, but gangsters, and Eddie wakes up in time to hit the winning run!

The Players

Frank Sinatra and Betty Garrett

Again, I love these two together. This is Shirley’s love song to Denny about how they are fated to be together! She is the aggressor and I love it. While they make fun of Sinatra’s skinny stature a bit, I find it awesome that she can lift him. Get your man, Betty!

Also starring…

Gene Kelly

Okay… so it would be a shame not to highlight this number by Gene Kelly. Even though his character makes a mistake, we still love him. This dance is stellar as usual.

Esther Williams

Here’s her number in the pool in a gorgeous yellow swimsuit.

Jules Munshin

So Jules in here, sort of. He doesn’t get his own girl in this film (which they remedy in On the Town, more on that in the next post), but he’s a fun friend to Denny and Eddie and they do have this number together.

Honorable Mention to…

The mismatched, but perfect, relationship with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. As I mentioned before, they are just great together. I love how they complement each other and rise each other up.

Background Trivia

The idea behind this movie came from Gene Kelly himself, who wanted to be a baseball player when he was a kid. He and Stanley Donen were primarily in control of the film, even though Busby Berkeley retains directorial credit. You’ll notice that it really doesn’t look like a Berkeley film because there are exactly zero of those overhead shots that he’s so famous for. He did come up with a number for Gene and Esther to do together called “Baby Doll,” but it was deleted from the film.

Although Gene and Stanley were against casting Esther, you have to admit that she makes perfect sense. She was an athlete already and she fits the part of someone who would be in the sort of position that her character is. Even though I’m sure Kathryn Grayson, June Allyson and Judy Garland would have done their best to fit the role, none of them were athletes.

What if…

What if Kathryn Grayson had played K.C. Higgins?

This film would have been much different if it had been a reunion of Anchors Aweigh, which had been the original plan. There would have been more opera and no swimming scene. I wonder if they would have kept in the “Baby Doll” number if it had been her and Gene Kelly. I think she would have been cute, but the movie would definitely had a different feel to it if she had been in this one.

What if Judy Garland had played K.C. Higgins?

So, at this point, Judy was a bit unreliable. I think if she’d been cast, I think there would have been delays. Gene covered for her a bit when they did Summer Stock together though, so I think he probably would have been understanding with her here, but at the same time, this was his film. Maybe it would have damaged their friendship slightly if he got frustrated about delays. It probably would have affected Summer Stock then as well.

What if June Allyson had played K.C. Higgins?

I really do like June, but I don’t think she’d have worked well in this movie. I can’t picture her and Gene Kelly as a couple. She also doesn’t have the singing pipes of Kathryn and Judy, so I’m not sure how things would have gone. I don’t think her character would have had quite the presence and strength of Esther’s.

If you like alternative history or historical fiction, I write that as well under the pen name Dottie Fray.

Check out the other entries in the Mismatched Couples Blogathon!

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