TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME

US, 1949, 93 minutes, Colour.
Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Betty Garrett, Jules Munshin, Edward Arnold.
Directed by Busby Berkeley

Take Me Out To The Ball Game is a pleasant, but very minor, Arthur Freed production. Freed, writer of many songs, was an excellent producer of M.G.M. musicals in the '40s and '50s ? including On The Town, An American In Paris, Singin' In The Rain.

Song and comedy writers Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Roger Edens contribute a minor musical score. Choreographer Busby Berkeley directs the film, without much echo of his razzle dazzle visual style in the '30s. The story and the choreography is by the team of Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, who were soon to use many of the stars of this film for their classic musical On The Town and were then to make Singin' In The Rain and It's Always Fair Weather. Kelly continued his dancing reputation and moved to film directing in the '60s and '70s; Donen directed such musicals as Funny Face, The Pyjama Game, Damn Yankees.

The stars seem to enjoy themselves and actually make jokes about their singing and dancing rivals in the final song. Gene Kelly doesn't have much dancing in comparison with his other films and portrays the conventional wolf. Jokes
are made about Frank Sinatra's weight and his ingenuousness. Stage star Jules Munshin joins the two and was to be the third sailor in On The Town. Esther Williams has a chance to swim, Betty Garrett has a very enjoyable raucous song singing at Frank Sinatra and Edward Arnold does another variation on his swindling villainous heavy. The film is particularly patriotic in its songs and its focus on baseball in the Teddy Roosevelt period. Entertaining but mild in comparison with other M.G.M. musicals and vehicles for these stars.