jayraskin1

This is a great movie for old time baseball fans as we get to see a dozen or so famous baseball players from the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Nice to find out how successful the Cleveland Indians were in 1948 when they won the World Series and broke attendance records.

However the movie also tries to be a hard edge social drama dealing with juvenile criminality. Here the light-hearted baseball story breaks up and presents us with a seriously disturbed teenage criminal in Rusty Tamblyn ("Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," 1954, "West Side Story," 1961). He loves baseball, but he's attracted to the criminal life for the freedom and easy money. Unfortunately Tamblyn always looks like a sweet and innocent kid even when he's robbing people and threatening their lives.

He was 15 years old when he filmed the movie, but he looks younger, maybe 13 years old.

Again, I gave it 5 stars because the delightful baseball story and the serious juvenile delinquency story undercut each other. However baseball fans can add 2 stars and Russ Tamblyn fans can add 2 stars. Its a must see if you're a baseball and Russ Tamblyn fan.

This is an interesting film which is part gangster film, part film noir, and part social drama. For those interested in how deportation was used in the 1950s to get rid of undesirables, it is very educational and seems pretty realistic. I think the biggest problem with the film is the casting of the three leads, Victor Mature, Terry Moore, and William Bendix.

Mature is surprisingly good as a gangster, but he really has a good nature and looks heroic, so it is hard to see him as a thug. Moore was 21 years old at the time of the movie and Mature was 37. This type of age difference is not unusual in Hollywood movies of this time, but unfortunately, Moore looks 18 years and talks like she is 16, and Mature looks in his 40s, so the blossoming love relationship between them seems misplaced. There were probably 50 actresses from 25-45 who would have been great with Mature, but Moore just seems in the wrong picture. Moore is great in other pictures, like "Mighty Joe Young," but at 21, she lacks the gravity to be a counter-balance to Mature's brooding performance. He is also about a foot taller than her. She looks like his daughter when she is next to him.

Worse, William Bendix, one of the great comic actors of this time plays the villain. Anybody who has seen him in his "Life of Riley" television series or other comic roles he has played in can only be disappointed that he plays the villain straight without any comic touches. He is not bad as the villain, but it does seem a waste of his talents.

It does move along fairly well and does generate some suspense in the key scenes. Don't go in with high expectations and you'll enjoy it.