Take Me Out to the Ball Game (film)
| Take Me Out to the Ball Game | |
|---|---|
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Promotional poster
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| Directed by | Busby Berkeley |
| Produced by | Arthur Freed |
| Screenplay by | Harry Tugend George Wells |
| Story by |
Gene Kelly Stanley Donen |
| Starring |
Frank Sinatra Esther Williams Gene Kelly |
| Music by | Adolph Deutsch |
| Cinematography | George J. Folsey |
| Edited by | Blanche Sewell |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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March 9, 1949 (NYC premiere) April 13, 1949 (US) |
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Running time
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93 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,025,000 |
| Box office | $4,344,000 |
Take Me Out to the Ball Game is a 1949 Technicolor musical film produced in the Arthur Freed unit of MGM. It stars Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, and Gene Kelly, features Betty Garrett, Edward Arnold and Jules Munshin, and was directed by Busby Berkeley. The title and nominal theme is taken from the unofficial anthem of American baseball, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". The movie was released in the United Kingdom as Everybody's Cheering.
In 1908, a fictional American League baseball team, the Wolves, Two of its players, Eddie O'Brien (Gene Kelly) and Dennis Ryan (Frank Sinatra), are also part-time vaudevillians. The ball club's status quo is turned on its head when the team winds up under new ownership, and the distress this causes the team is only increased when the new owner is revealed to be a woman, K.C. (Katherine Catherine) Higgins (Esther Williams). Eventually, Dennis falls for her, and then Eddie as well, while Dennis is the object of the affections of an ardent fan, Shirley Delwyn (Betty Garrett). All of them must contend with a number of gangsters led by Joe Lorgan (Edward Arnold) looking to win a big bet by impairing Eddie's play and getting him kicked off the team.
Esther Williams, a star in swimming-themed musicals, did not enjoy her experience filming with star, story-writer and choreographer Gene Kelly. In her autobiography, she describes her time on the film as "pure misery", claiming that Kelly and Stanley Donen treated her with contempt and went out of their way to make jokes at her expense. Williams asserts that Kelly was uncomfortable with the height difference between them, Williams being 5'10", while Kelly was 5'7".
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