Damn Yankees (film)

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Movie
Original title Damn Yankees
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1958
length approx. 111 minutes
Rod
Director Stanley Donen ,
George Abbott
script George Abbott,
Douglass Wallop
production Stanley Donen,
George Abbott for
Warner Brothers
music Richard Adler (songs) ,
Jerry Ross (songs) ,
Ray Heindorf (arrangement)
camera Harold Lipstein
cut Frank Bracht
occupation

Damn Yankees is an American musical film directed by Stanley Donen and George Abbott in 1958, based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name from 1955.

action

Joe Boyd - a middle-aged real estate seller - is a passionate supporter of the Washington Senators baseball club , much to the chagrin of his wife Meg, who he pays little attention to during the season. His greatest wish is that Washington can win the championship one day, but unfortunately the team has been mediocre for years. Shortly after watching his team's defeat against the " New York Yankees " on television , he receives an unexpected visit from the devil in the form of the businessman Mr. Applegate. He offers him a pact: he will turn him into a 22-year-old, brilliantly gifted baseball player named Joe Hardy, who will lead his beloved team to the championship. In return, Joe would have to write his soul to him. Joe accepts, but stipulates that the contract would not be valid if he decided not to play it before the decisive game in September.

Mr. Applegate himself introduces his protégé to the "Senators": Because he is a big fan of theirs, he wants to free them with Joe Hardy from their troubles. Joe Hardy delivers a short performance to coach Benny Van Buren, after which he is immediately accepted into the team. However, the clever newspaper reporter Gloria Thorpe in particular is skeptical about why such a great talent had previously gone undetected. And there is also speculation about Joe's origins, although Applegate states that Joe comes from Hannibal , Missouri , but nothing more can be found out. Joe establishes himself excellently in the team and leads them from victory to victory.

Despite the success, Joe longs for his wife Meg, who is now very worried about her missing husband - who only left a small farewell note. Joe Hardy moves in with Meg as a lodger without her finding out his real identity. Applegate is still alarmed and calls his assistant Lola to help, who should ensnare the young man with all her charms and thus make him submissive to the devil. Lola's seduction skills fail with Joe. Meanwhile, reporter Gloria Thorpe has investigated further and found that no resident of Hannibal knows Joe. When she asked Joe's manager Applegate about it, he fed her with the information that Joe was a player called Shifty McCoy from the Mexican league, who had been banned for life for unfair activities and was therefore smuggled into the American league under a false name.

Joe is summoned to a court of arbitration - on the day of all things when he wants to transform himself back, otherwise his soul belongs to the devil. At the hearing, Meg and her friends pretend to be old friends of Joe who grew up with him in Hannibal. Joe is acquitted, but the clock has struck midnight and his soul belongs to the devil. But Lola has now fallen in love with Joe and forges a plan how she can save Joe's soul. Lola mixes a few pills for her boss in his drink, whereupon he overslept and only wakes up in the afternoon while the game is running. Only shortly before the end of the game does Applegate get into the stadium, in the presence of Lola, who as punishment for her betrayal and love for Joe is temporarily transformed back into an ugly, hunchbacked woman - her true form during her lifetime.

Applegate wants Washington's team to surprisingly lose the championship to the Yankees - which is supposed to cause heart attacks and suicides among the numerous opponents of the long-dominated Yankees. In order to still achieve his goal, he transforms Joe on the field into his real self - the unsportsmanlike middle-aged man. Even so, that old Joe manages to catch the last crucial ball for the Senators' first championship. In the bustle of victory, he escapes undetected, although later there is speculation in the media about Hardy's strange disappearance. Joe Boyd returns to Meg, who pardons him for his long absence, and he rejects another offer from Applegate to return as Joe Hardy and play in the World Series , whereupon Applegate vanishes angrily.

Production background

Wrigley Field in 1952

Damn Yankees is a modern take on the fist , set in the 1950s, when the New York Yankees clearly dominated baseball, to the chagrin of the other teams. In 1954 the novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by the American author Douglas Wallop (1920–1985) was published. Together with George Abbott , Wallop also wrote the libretto for the musical Damn Yankees , which premiered on Broadway in 1955 with music by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross . Damn Yankees had over 1,000 performances on Broadway and won the Tony Award for Best Musical . Because of these successes, Hollywood's interest in the film was great.

The direction was shared by George Abbott and Stanley Donen , the latter directed numerous Hollywood musicals in the 1950s and therefore had the necessary cinematic experience. For the playwright and producer Abbott, on the other hand, it was important that the spirit of Broadway production be preserved in the film. With the exception of Tab Hunter as Joe Hardy , all of the cast had played their roles on Broadway. Hunter was hired in place of Stephen Douglass , who originally played Joe on Broadway, because they needed a big movie star in the cast. Gwen Verdon again represented the role of Lola, but had to forego some of the suggestive hip movements that she had made in the song A Little Brains on Broadway in the film version - in the days of the Hays Code , these hip movements were considered too provocative. At number Who's Got the Pain is, together with still little known at this time Bob Fosse at Mambo dance to be seen. Fosse was the chief executive officer of Damn Yankees on Broadway and in the film version. In 1960 he married Verdon.

The stadium scenes were filmed at Wrigley Field , Los Angeles , where games of minor league baseball were played and numerous film productions were shot for decades . The stadium with a capacity of over 20,000 people was demolished in 1969. A few real New York Yankees such as Yogi Berra , Mickey Mantle and Bill Skowron were cut into the film using archive footage .

Songs

  • "Overture" orchestra
  • "Six Months out of Every Year" - Joe Boyd, Meg Boyd and Chorus
  • "Goodbye Old Girl" - Joe Boyd / Joe Hardy
  • "Heart" coaches Van Buren, Smokey, Rocky, Vernon
  • "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo" - Gloria and crew
  • "There's Something About An Empty Chair" - Meg Boyd
  • "Whatever Lola Wants" orchestra
  • "A Little Brains, A Little Talent" - Lola
  • "Whatever Lola Wants" - Lola
  • "Those Were the Good Old Days" - Mr. Applegate
  • "Who's Got the Pain" - Lola and her mambo dancer
  • "Two Lost Souls" - Lola, Joe Hardy
  • "There's Something About An Empty Chair (repeat) - Joe Boyd, Meg Boyd

Awards

At the Academy Awards in 1959 , Ray Heindorf received an Oscar nomination in the category Best Film Music (Musical) . At the Golden Globe Awards in 1959 , the film was nominated in the category of Best Picture - Comedy or Musical . Donen and Abbott received a nomination for directing the Directors Guild of America , and Abbott received another for his screenplay from the Writers Guild of America . The film was nominated for Best Musical at the Laurel Awards , and Tab Hunter and Gwen Verdon also received other nominations for Best Actor in a Musical. Verdon also received a BAFTA Awards nomination for Best Young Actress for Damn Yankees!

Reviews

Damn Yankees was a financial success and received mostly positive reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes , based on 17 reviews, the film has a positive rating of 76%. Bosley Crowther gave the film a positive review in the New York Times on September 27, 1958, Donen and Abbott would have remained loyal to the Broadway play and would rightly have adapted it in some places to the characteristics of the cinema at the same time. Crowther praised the entire cast and especially Gwen Verdon, who as Lola would have given one of the "hottest and heartiest" performances on a film musical in years. She is a kind of mixture of Fanny Brice and Lucille Ball and a fresh talent that the cinema urgently needs. Crowther noted, "If you can't see the World Series, go see Damn Yankees ." Variety called the film a "sparkling version of the movie" with lots of good songs and Ray Walston as the "perfect comedy satan."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Damn Yankees. Retrieved February 5, 2018 .
  2. ^ Damn Yankees (1958) - IMDb. Retrieved February 5, 2018 .
  3. ^ BAFTA 1959: British Academy Film Awards (Movies from 1958) . filmaffinity.com. Retrieved November 16, 2014.
  4. ↑ Damn Yankees. Accessed February 5, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Movie Review - Screen: 'Damn Yankees'. New York Times, accessed January 29, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Variety Staff: Damn Yankees . In: Variety . January 1, 1958 ( Online [accessed February 2, 2018]).