The Stratton Story

Highly entertaining biopic about baseball pitcher Monty Stratton (Jimmy Stewart). Stratton is on his way to becoming one of the major leagues' best pitchers when he loses a leg in a hunting accident. It looks like his career is over. But with the support of his loving wife (June Allyson), Monty begins to pitch again. First of three movies that paired Stewart and Allyson. They're both terrific. Good support from Frank Morgan and Agnes Moorehead. Also some nice work from real-life baseball players like Bill Dickey and Jimmy Dykes. The baseball parts are fun to watch and contrast the old with the new. The sport is a shadow of its former self today. Anyway, this is one of those fine uplifting biopics Old Hollywood did so well. They don't make 'em like this anymore.

This was a nice baseball story, nothing exceptional but Jimmy Stewart's presence in the title roll elevates the movie.

Jimmy looks a bit old to be playing a rookie pitcher, and he doesn't throw like a professional, but at least he isn't pathetic in that regard like some of the other classic-era actors who attempted to do so (you know who they are). They faked enough of the pitching scenes here to get away with Stewart's baseball shortcomings.

Anyway, it's just as much a human-interest story as it is a baseball movie, the story of "Monty Stratton" (Stewart) and his girlfriend-then-bride "Ethel," played warmly by June Allyson. She and Frank Morgan, who plays the scout to discovers Monty, are excellent as the two other main actors of the film. In a supporting role, Agnes Moorehead gives her normal competent performance as Monty's mom.

On my second viewing I was surprised to discover that the key part of the film - the part which identifies this story as different from others - doesn't occur until the last third of the film. Then, after that, we see how a difficult and traumatic physical loss affects everyone and whether Monty can return to his baseball passion.

Overall, it's an entertaining film if you are a fan of Stewart's work, or a big baseball fan and most people fall into at least one of those categories. If remade today, I would suspect the script would be a little tighter, but stories were told slower 50 years ago and one has to expect that. I'm not complaining. I've enjoyed the movie both times I've watched it, and the DVD transfer is very good.

I saw this movie many years ago with my father on television. He told me about his experience with Monty Stratton.

My father wanted to be a big league pitcher. He tried his luck with the White Sox in the late l930's. He only got as far as spring training before being sent down to the minors leagues. He liked to say that in the minors he made as much money as a soda jerk, but girls at parties were a lot more impressed with someone who played baseball than with some who made root beer floats.

As a rookie in spring training, My dad was too shy to walk with the veteran ball players to the field. He always walked a distance behind them.

One day, Monty Stratton turned back to him and said that if he wanted to be a big league ball player he had to walk with them.

My dad got to know Mr. Stratton very well that Spring. Years later, after WWII and marriage, my dad met Monty again at a ballgame. They talked and Mr. Stratton told him that Hollywood was going to make a movie about him.

My dad said they couldn't have picked a better man to make a film about.

Supposedly Jimmy Stewart did not really want to do this film. However, he changed his mind when it was pointed out to him by the bosses at MGM that it would inspire veterans of World War II who had limited mobility. One inspirational scene that occurs is the one where he and his son walk together for the first time. It is complemented nicely by June Allyson who is exceptional and perfectly cast as Stewart's wife (this was the first of three films they made together).

The supporting roles are worth noting, too. Agnes Moorhead refrains from chewing the scenery, in a performance that is very understated as the mother. And this is another film where Frank Morgan plays a paternal role to one of Stewart's characters. Morgan seems very lively in this offering. The game scenes are equally lively, and the film continues to remain uplifting with each viewing.

Before Hollywood took to making "feel good" movies, this is what they made: apparently simple stories that were intelligently and not at all simply written, performed by actors who knew how to act so well that, if you don't pay attention, you think they are just "being themselves," whereas they are actually building characters, a little piece at a time.

Yes, James Stewart is the star of this picture, and for very good reason. His Stratton is not a country rube. He's a young man with certain ideas, certain goals, and certain ideals. He's not perfect, and Stewart and his director, Sam Wood - who directed such a variety of masterpieces as the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera, Goodbye Mr. Chips (one of my favorite movies), and For Whom the Bell Tolls - do not sugarcoat that part of his character. Stewart builds a very complete, human individual from a lot of small details. He also looks like a real baseball pitcher on the mound, which amazed me.

Allyson is not one of my favorite actresses, but she is good here, if not at Stewart's level. She doesn't seem cute - nothing like Meg Ryan at her worst, say. She, too, seems real. And when she has to play catch, she doesn't throw like a girl, which is pretty impressive!

You don't have to know a thing about baseball to enjoy this movie, since it actually has very little to do with baseball. It's the story of a fundamentally good man who is badly mistreated by fate, but who rises above that, eventually, not because he is a goody two-shoes, but because he has certain very fundamental values that he will not abandon.

It's not surprising that this movie won the Oscar for best script. The story seems simple, and it is, but it is developed in a very careful, very intelligent way.