Elmer, the Great

Nothing much to say. A lot like Adam Sandler's The Waterboy. To tell the truth, Sandler is the latter-day Brown. If you love Sandler, you'll like beown. I've a suspiscion his fans were kids and junior high school kids because his films play to that level of humor. You may call them family films. Movie is about a small-town boy who joins the Cubs and helps them win the penant. There are gangsters, bribes and bets that go awry. It has a very good and realistic baseball finale.

Joe E. Brown is largely forgotten today and it's too bad. He made a string of fine little films for Warner Brothers in the early to mid 1930s. Ironically he has the final riotous line in the American Film Institute's no. 1 comedy, from their 100 Greatest Comedies list, "Some Like It Hot". Regarding "Elmer the Great," this film recaptures a wonderful era in baseball as well as a nostalgic feel for small town America. Its story is told with the Warner Brothers' successful no frills approach to movie making at that time. There is plenty of warm humor throughout especially from the always wonderful Joe E. Brown as the cantankerous, egoist Elmer Kane, still likable in spite of these character flaws. I wish Joe E. Brown's WB movies were available on DVD. A single packaged trilogy release could be made of his 3 baseball films: "Fireman Save My Child" (WB 1932), "Elmer the Great" (WB 1933) and "Alibi Ike" (WB 1935).

Just as Dizzy Dean was lifting baseball braggadocio to a fine art as a pitcher, Warner Brothers came out with one of Joe E. Brown's best comedies in Elmer the Great. In real life Joe E. Brown was a very big baseball fan and this film along with his other baseball comedy, Alibi Ike, was a labor of love.

In 1933 the Chicago Cubs were not yet a national joke, going 98 years without winning a World Series and 62 years without being in one. They fielded some very good teams during the Thirties and Forties, but never quite could get to the top. In 1932 the year before Elmer the Great came out, they were in the World Series and were crushed by the selfsame New York Yankees four straight games which featured Babe Ruth's famous 'called shot' home run.

The Babe had nothing on Elmer Kane from Gentryville, Indiana who was not loath to let one and all know exactly what his contribution to the Cubs was going to be. He fulfilled his promise though, hitting 67 home runs in his rookie season, leaving Babe Ruth's mark in the dust. No one accused him of taking steroids either. In fact in real life both Jimmy Foxx and Hank Greenberg made serious runs at Ruth's record with seasons of 58 homers each during the Thirties.

But off the diamond, Joe is a real babe in the woods himself. He's caught between two girls, good girl Patricia Ellis and bad girl Claire Dodd. And the simpleton gets himself caught up in a gambling house where he drops $5000.00 to slick gambler Douglass Dumbrille. Of course with Brown's IOU in his pocket Dumbrille sees a chance for a killing in Brown not playing on the square during the World Serious as Brown calls it.

The last game of the World Serious is one of the funniest baseball sequences put on film. It was actually shot at Wrigley Field, but Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which housed the minor league team in the Pacific Coast League.

Preston Foster plays the Cubs manager and Frank McHugh Brown's best friend on the team. It's a very nice comedy for baseball fans and others and a good chance to become acquainted with the comedy of Joe E. Brown.

Sure it's cornball, and in many respects it seems hopelessly naive, and Joe E. Brown's persona is in some respects pretty insufferable, but it's clear that the makers of this picture knew all that. For some reason, Joe really resonated with American society of the 1930s, and that's what the producers gave to the public. I doubt if folks back then could have related to Johnny Depp, either. While "Elmer the Great" is certainly no masterwork, if you just take it on its own terms, the film is quite likable. It's particularly atmospheric in the earlier scenes set in Gentryville, Indiana. And there's some nice moments of pathos here, too. I would rank all three of JEB's baseball trilogy as about equally good.

Elmer the Great (1933)

*** (out of 4)

Second film in Joe E Brown's trilogy has him playing a slugger living in a small town in Indiana. When the Chicago Cubs come to sign him at first he does want to go but he eventually does a gets the team in the World Series but being the idiot he is, gets in trouble with gamblers. This is a step up from the first film but I'd still say the third one is the best of the trilogy. Brown is in top form here and adds a lot of laughs but the serious side with the gamblers is handled very well. I guess there's an added bonus in the fact that Chicago's other team had their own gambling scandal a decade earlier. It was also nice seeing Wrigley Field way back when even though it doesn't look too much different today.