Delightful Little Fifties Baseball Noir Musical

As the Golden Era of MGM musicals abated -- with "Singin' in the Rain" as perhaps the hippest of the last ones -- the movie musical of the 50's and 60's became a rather gigantic, overproduced and heavy thing. The syrupy epic operettas of Rodgers and Hammerstein ("Oklahoma," "The King and I," "South Pacific," "The Sound of Music,"), the stately sophistication of Lerner and Loewe ("Gigi," "My Fair Lady") the "one-hit wonder giganticism" of "West Side Story" and "Oliver." Musicals were big, expensive, elephantine.

But around 1957/58 the co-directing team of George Abbott and Stanley Donen (who, fittingly enough, co-directed "Singin' in the Rain" with Gene Kelly) did back-to-back Warner Brothers musicals that were light on their feet, funny, sassy, and kind of sexy (thanks to a new young choreographer-dancer named Bob Fosse.)

The musicals were "The Pajama Game" and "Damn Yankees," brought fresh from Broadway to the screen in productions which, while not low-budget, seemed tight and economical and breezy.

The deal was: transfer the cast from Broadway, with one movie star substitution. "The Pajama Game" transferred Broadway star John Raitt, and paired him with movie star Doris Day. "Damn Yankees" transferred Broadway star Gwen Verdon, and paired her with movie star Tab Hunter. Day was a bigger star than Hunter, but no matter, Hunter was fairly hot, too.

"The Pajama Game" and "Damn Yankees" are both fun musicals, but I prefer "Damn Yankees." Two reasons: (1) The plot; (2) one particular song.

1. The plot: A late middle-aged Washington DC area insurance sales man and baseball superfan makes a deal with "Mr. Applegate" (Ray Walston, also imported from Broadway, playing the Devil) to sell his soul in exchange for his beloved underdog team the Washington Senators winning the pennant. The Devil's deal is to tranform the old man into young superstar hitter Joe Hardy (Hunter.) The Devil's evil scheme is to double-cross Joe and ruin the hopes of millions of Senators fans in a "mass torture" deal whereby Joe loses the game and still loses his soul. When young Joe starts hanging around his old wife, the Devil sends in a femme fatale seductress (Verdon) to end it.

The film's playful mix of baseball, sex, and Faustian bargains makes "Damn Yankees" one of the more fun and suspenseful musicals around. This being a musical, the plot just sort of jumps from place to place: seductress Lola goes from trying to seduce and destroy Joe Hardy to trying to save him within the course of one scene. No matter. It's still fun.

The Devil is the greatest of villain's roles. That's why modernly, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, and Robert DeNiro have all played him. But nobody played him with quite so much giddy flair as Ray Walston, using his big Broadway voice to sell his every line with menace and/or relish. Cary Grant was actually interested in this role for awhile, but the budget was too low, and Walston got his finest hour, instead. Oddly, Walston has star quality here when he wouldn't many years later in "Kiss Me Stupid" for Billy Wilder filling in for a stricken Peter Sellers opposite Dean Martin and Kim Novak. Perhaps because in this movie, the other stars (Verdon, Hunter) were low-wattage.

Walston's big voice pays off deliciously well when he argues with the Broadway transfer player of a brassy female sports reporter. Their voices are stylish duets of arrogance. Walston's Devil really insults the "broad" when he says: "Get married. Stay home. Have children." A subversive insult for 1958.

Tab Hunter's star career was short. He was blond -- often trouble for male stars -- and he was rather inhumanly handsome and fit. He was also, we know now from him, gay, which makes his imperviousness to the femme fatale's seductions rather amusing and the baseball team locker room scenes rather interesting.

But Hunter's Joe Hardy is his best performance -- Hunter conveys a genuinely sweet and likeable guy who seems much nicer than the burned-out old guy from whence he was crafted. That old guy barely paid attention to his wife, but as Young Joe Hardy, he can't help but come around and board at her house. It's as if the deal with the Devil brings out the humanity in Joe Hardy.

Which brings us to Gwen Verdon, a leggy Broadway diva-dancer with a delightfully reedy voice and an overtly sexy manner. Playing a saucy redhead, Verdon is kind of like Lucille Ball mixed with Rita Hayworth here. Not a classic beauty, she wasn't destined for a long-term movie career. But this is her showcase movie role for all time. "Whatever Lola Wants (Lola gets)" is her
one-woman showstopper, but she also has great seductive fun with "An Emphasis on the Latter," in which she details her femme fatale conquests to the Devil and guarantees her ability to seduce Joe Hardy (she can't.) Ms. Verdon also gets a very provocative and muscular dance duet ("Who's Got the Pain?") with the dancer she was married to at the time: Bob Fosse.


2. One particular song. Unlike, say, "South Pacific," "Damn Yankees" is not overloaded with famous Broadway tunes -- even "Whatever Lola Wants" is kind of a seductive specialty number, you can't sing along with it.

But you CAN sing along with the film's delightful centerpiece tune: "Heart."

It's sung in a locker-room, by an ultra-tan and wizened old baseball team manager and his three goofiest players. The manager carries the infectious melody once, all the way through, all by himself as a solo -- and then the other three join in to create a satisfying "barbershop quartet" sound which tickles the ears and lifts the heart.

What's great about "Heart" is that it is a great singalong tune which is presented as a great COMEDY number. One of the players "oversells" his part of the harmony ("HA-AH-AH-ART!") , and it is hilarious. When the three players form a conga line out of the locker room while singing, the lead guy affects a jaunty stance that suggests a cartoon character more than a human.

And the message remains as uplifting as any musical number has ever given us: "You gotta have heart, miles and miles and miles of heart, when the odds are saying you'll never win, that's when the grin should start...you gotta have hope, mustn't sit around and mope..."

This song is practically guaranteed to bring you up if you're feeling down. OK, so so it is from the 50's, when it was easier to do that.

(Comedian Allan Sherman spoofed the song as follows: "You gotta have skin...that's the stuff that holds you in...")

"Heart" is the key to "Damn Yankees," but there are other great numbers as well. Gwen Verdon's two seduction songs. The Devil's macabre solo "Those Were the Good Old Days," in which he remembers the plague, Jack the Ripper, the stock market crash and over dire events ("I see...cannibals a munchin' a missionary luncheon...") There are two big group dance numbers, one on a baseball field ("Shoeless Joe from Hannibal Mo") one in a smoky nightclub ("Two Lost Souls.")

And a sad early tune from the old Joe Hardy who writes his wife a heartfelt goodbye note and summarizes the comforts of an older couple's marriage in "Goodbye Old Girl" (somehow, the song sidesteps the selfishness of this guy's disappearing act on his wife.)

Perhaps because of Stanley Donen and Bob Fosse, "Damn Yankees" is a refreshingly adult and exciting musical that stays funny and fast on its feet, start to finish. Enwrapped in the standard "Warner Brothers echo-chamber sound system" of the 50's, "Damn Yankess" conjours up a more innocent era while remaining surprisingly durable today. Baseball is still popular, seductresses still roam the land...and the Devil steal makes deals for souls.

Recommended, for a good time.