Hot Curves

"Hot Curves" is a film that made me a bit frustrated. While the basic story idea wasn't bad, the execution was awful...mostly because the story was so rushed and often made little sense as a result.

The film begins at a baseball training camp. Jim (Rex Lease) is a terrible pitcher but he somehow makes the team. Another new guy, Benny (Benny Rubin), appears terrible and out of place but WOW can he pitch! The two become roommates and instantly Jim becomes a star pitcher AND a totally conceited jerk-face. You don't see him winning any games...they just announce he's a star. You don't see a progression to jerk-face...he's just one the instant he meets a sleazy dame. Had there been some progression in both areas, it really could have been a much better film.

Everything comes to a head when Jim's sweet grandmother comes to see him. It's her birthday and he's supposed to spend it with her...but instead is out making time with his evil hoochie mama. Benny is a real stand up guy (as well as walking Jewish stereotype) and tries to cover for Jim but Jim is a drunk jerk-face and makes a fool of himself and uses Benny badly. The coach has had enough and suspends Jim indefinitely. Can Jim somehow redeem himself by the end of the movie? Will the nice girl manage to get through to this idiot?! What do you think!!

So what we have is an early version of a very familiar morality tale. You can see bits of this film in some of the Joe E. Brown pictures as well as "The Natural"...among other movies. But as I already mentioned, it all moves way too quickly and adding an extra 10-15 minutes to the story would have helped tremendously. Also, seeing baseball footage (other than at the very beginning and end) would have helped because it seemed little like a baseball tale during much of the film. Finally, although Pert Kelton was probably a nice person and was nice as the first Alice from "The Honeymooners", here she's rather annoying and easy to hate.

By the way, earlier in 1930, Lease and Rubin also made a nearly identical film but about football called "Sunny Skies".

This is the second pairing of western/action-film/serial leading man Rex Lease and dialect comedian Benny Rubin for Tiffany Pictures in 1930, and it follows in the footsteps of their first film SUNNY SKIES, although it is not as well thought-out nor as charming as SUNNY SKIES. The setting this time is baseball (it was college football in the earlier film), and although the characters have different last names in this film, it seems as though we enter the film with their characters already established, although they are playing DIFFERENT people in a different environment. There are no songs here, no dancing, and not much of the pathos found in the earlier film. Although the handsome-popular gentile paired with the nerdy bumbling Jew was probably a well-established archetype in the vaudeville tradition by the time this film was made, I can't help but think of Lease and Rubin as a kind of earlier version of Martin and Lewis. That Jerry Lewis was aware of Benny Rubin can be inferred from the fact that Rubin appeared in small roles in a number of Lewis' solo films. People between 40 and 60 probably know Rubin best from his many appearances on Jack Benny's TV programs--those two probably played many of the same vaudeville houses together in the 20s and 30s. The supporting players are once again well-chosen (John Ince as the crusty team manager, Pert Kelton as Benny's girlfriend, Alice Day as the girl Rex foolishly ignores but eventually appreciates, Natalie Moorhead as the golddigger who teases and takes advantage of Rex), and Norman Taurog as always handles romantic comedy well (as he would do for decades after this!). See SUNNY SKIES first, but after that this film is worth watching too. The Rex Lease/Benny Rubin duo are still entertaining after 70+ years and these formulas are STILL being used today...but often not as well!

Very slow starting, becoming increasingly more entertaining throughout, with more characters coming in and a bit more character development. Some entertaining gags and jokes pass by too, but it doesn't save from a very weak, almost weird, ending.