Casey at the Bat
                            
Director: Monte Brice
Year: 1927
Rating: 5.0
Ah, baseball spring training has begun. The sound of bats hitting balls and pitches hitting mitts. It is a wonderful sound. A nostalgic sound that can take you back years to your youth and playing catch with your father. Sandlot games after school. A sign that the dreary long days of winter are coming to an end. Baseball like everything else isn't what it used to be, but it is still the only sport that really matters. A team sport but built on mano y mano. But if nothing else, it is a sport that welcomes people from anywhere in the world as long as they can play. From Canada, Panama, Australia, the Dominican, Japan, Korea. America when it was a welcoming country. Not a hateful one. Not a threatening one. Who are we going to threaten today? Must be someone left. Fuck Trump and the sociopaths that work for him and support him.



So, my tradition is to try and watch a baseball film every year about this time. No sounds of hitting or catching in this one though - it was a silent film. Based ever so casually on the famous poem of the same name. Casey at the Bat was composed in 1888 by Ernest Thayer for a newspaper. It is the ninth inning in Mudville with the home team behind by two runs but with two men on and the Mighty Casey at the bat as the crowd roars. In one of the great tragedies of American literature, Casey strikes out. There had already been a few films based on the poem before this, but they have been lost. A nice cast here that would do well once the talkies came along. As Casey there is Wallace Beery, a great bear of a man - perfect for the legendary Casey. His hometown girl is played by Zasu Pitts and his sleazy agent is the debut of Sterling Holloway who once the talkies came around became unmistakable for his voice. 




Casey is the hero on the hometown team - a bit of a braggart and show-off - but a good-hearted junk man who loves his girl. On a carriage ride back to town he makes the mistake of putting his arm around her and she is shocked! I didn't think you were that kind of man, she tells him. I will walk home. I miss the distinctive voice of Zasu as well. Casey signs up with the New York Giants and soon becomes a famous slugger and carouser. In one scene in one take, he downs a pitcher of beer. It is the big game. His agent bets on the opposing team and sabotages Casey and as in the poem he strikes out and like fans everywhere, they turn on him till his old girlfriend saves the day. Nice ending, but a bit slow getting there. Baseball without sound isn't really baseball. There are a few comedic bits that work fine.  One of the writers was Jules Furthman who would go on to an impressive career in scriptwriting - To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Only Angels Have Wings.