The Winning Team ** (1952, Doris Day, Ronald Reagan, Frank Lovejoy) – Classic Movie Review 9580

Yes, Doris Day and Ronald Reagan made a film together – director Lewis Seiler’s 1952 drama The Winning Team, a careful Warner Bros biopic of Grover Cleveland Alexander, the Nebraska phone engineer who hit the heights as a baseball pitcher despite an eye injury accident.

His wife always saw his baseball as frivolous and, rather chillingly, leaves him after mistaking his double vision and epilepsy for alcoholism. But his injury and his marriage do heal eventually, prompting a comeback with the help of his wife.

Reagan and Day as his wife Aimee Alexander prove a winning team in a pleasing picture, let down only by a too-cosy, uninspiring script.

With so many songs and so much music, you would be forgiven for thinking it was a musical: ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ (played during the opening credits and sung by Doris Day), ‘I’ll String Along with You’ (played at various times throughout the film), ‘Ol’ Saint Nicholas’ (sung by Doris Day at the Christmas gathering), ‘Lucky Day’, ‘Ain’t We Got Fun’, ‘Carolina in the Morning’ and ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’.

Also in the cast are Frank Lovejoy, Eve Miller, James Millican, Russ Tamblyn, Gordon Jones, Hugh Sanders, Frank Ferguson, Walter Baldwin, Dorothy Adams and Fred Millican.

The Winning Team is directed by Lewis Seiler, runs 98 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by Ted Sherdeman (screenplay), Seeleg Lester (screenplay and story), Merwin Gerard (screenplay and story), is shot in black and white by Sid Hickox, is produced by Bryan Foy and is scored by David Buttolph.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9580

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