The Guy Who Came Back *** (1951, Paul Douglas, Joan Bennett, Linda Darnell) – Classic Movie Review 11,945

Director Joseph M Newman’s 1951 20th Century Fox black and white sports film The Guy Who Came Back stars Paul Douglas, Joan Bennett, and Linda Darnell.

The Guy Who Came Back is an interesting, pleasing little middle-age crisis inspirational fantasy-drama that succeeds mainly thanks to Douglas’s hard-working performance as injured and out of shape ‘Hurricane’ Harry Joplin, an ageing, down-on-his-luck football player who won’t accept the facts that his playing career is over and that he must now become a coach.

He leaves his wife Kathy Joplin (Bennett), and romances Dee Shane (Darnell), and then the two women conspire to get him back with his wartime talent-starved team.

The Guy Who Came Back is surprisingly entertaining and heart-warming, with a pleasant cast to put it across. It is written by Allan Scott, based on the magazine story The Man Who Sank the Navy by W G Fay.

The cast are Paul Douglas as Harry Joplin, Linda Darnell as Dee Shane, Joan Bennett as Kathy Joplin, Don DeFore as Gordon Towne, Zero Mostel, Billy Gray, Edmon Ryan, Ruth McDevitt, Walter Burke, Henry Kulky, Dick Ryan, Robert B Williams, Ted Pearson, and Mack Williams.

Release date: August 16, 1951.

Running time: 91 minutes.

Paul Douglas is best remembered for two baseball comedy movies, It Happens Every Spring (1949) and Angels in the Outfield (1951), as well as Panic in the Streets, A Letter to Three Wives (1949), The Big Lift (1950), When in Rome (1952) The Maggie (1954), and Executive Suite (1954).

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,945

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