A League of Their Own *** (1992, Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Jon Lovitz, Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell) – Classic Movie Review 3134

An excellent comedy drama idea about the founding of the All-American Girls’ Baseball League in 1943 when the men were away at war comes close to being chucked away in the popular high-profile 1992 movie A League of Their Own. That is thanks to some feeble, over-sentimental work in an otherwise interesting script, some overplayed performances among a good cast and over-stated direction by Penny Marshall.

Geena Davis, as Dottie Hinson, and Lori Petty, as her less pretty younger sister Kit Keller, are as cute as apple pie as two gals from an Oregon dairy farm recruited by crabby scout Jon Lovitz (‘See that grass girls, well don’t eat it’). A tubby Tom Hanks has much less to do but gets top billing as the injured, drunken ex-baseball champ Jimmy Dugan, who is offered the job of managing the team. It’s the Walter Matthau role from the similar The Bad News Bears and Hanks is too young and this time surprisingly a bit too underwhelming to make a success of it.

Madonna on the other hand scores surprisingly well in a straight role as another girl hopeful, ‘All the Way’ Mae (‘My name is Mae and that’s more than a name, it’s an attitude’): see how see underplays and acts naturally when others are overacting around her. Shame she doesn’t have more to do, and her jitterbug is a sight to behold. Madonna also sings her hit ‘This Used to be My Playground’.

The film’s worst performance comes from a grotesquely over-stressing Rosie O’Donnell. All her comedy is first signaled, and then repeated, and then she looks for applause. Director Marshall is to blame for letting the performers take over and the film ramble into overtime, when she needed the much tighter, smaller, funnier picture that’s begging to be let out.

Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel Mandel’s screenplay from the story by Kim Wilson and Kelly Candaele isn’t at all bad, though more jokes and less sentimentality would be much better. But unfortunately the tale is told in flashback and the modern-day framing with Davis in latex old-lady makeup is embarrassing and overextended.

A League of Their Own was huge hit in the States, grossing well over $100million back in 1992, but the baseball lore and American flag-waving perhaps don’t look quite so attractive from the British side of the Atlantic.

Also in the cast are David Strathairn, Garry Marshall, Renée Coleman, Ann Cusack, Anne Ramsay, Bitty Schram, Tracy Reiner, Megan Cavanagh, Freddie Simpson, Patti Pelton, Kelli Simpkins and Bill Pullman.

RIP Penny Marshall, who died on 17 December 2018, aged 75. She directed such films as Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986), Big (1988) and Awakenings (1990). She was Laverne in TV’s Laverne & Shirley (1976-1983).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3134

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