Angels in the Outfield

United States

1951

Black and White

1.37:1

English

Currently 2.8/5 Stars.
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SCR Richard Conlin, Dorothy Kingsley, George Wells

CAST Paul Douglas, Janet Leigh, Keenan Wynn, Donna Corcoran, Lewis Stone, Spring Byington, Bruce Bennett, Marvin Kaplan, Ellen Corby, Jeff Richards, John Gallaudet, King Donovan, Don Haggerty, Paul Salata, Fred Graham, John McKee, Patrick J. Molyneaux, Joe DiMaggio, Ty Cobb, Harry Ruby, Bing Crosby, Dick Simmons, Barbara Billingsley, Peter Graves, Richard Hale, Pat Flaherty

PROD DES Edward C. Carfagno, Cedric Gibbons

With baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates in last place (a situation reflecting the club’s real-life woes at the time), their combative, foul-mouthed manager Guffy McGovern has plenty to complain about. All this changes when, while wandering through Forbes Field at night, Guffy is accosted by the voice of an angel (voice of James Whitmore), who hints at having been a ballplayer on Earth. As the spokes-angel for the Heavenly Choir Nine, a celestial team of deceased ballplayers, he begins bestowing “miracles” upon the Pirates — but only on the condition that McGovern put a moratorium on swearing and fighting. With the help of the invisible ghosts of past baseball greats, the Pirates make it into the pennant race. During one crucial game, orphan Bridget White insists that she can see the angels helping out the “live” ballplayers — understandably so, since it was Bridget’s prayers to the Archangel Gabriel that prompted the angel to visit McGovern in the first place. Newspaper reporter Jennifer Page transforms Bridget’s angelic visions into a nationwide news story, causing McGovern no end of trouble. When Guffy himself confirms Bridget’s claims, he falls into the hands of vengeful sportscaster Fred Bayles, who has been scheming to have McGovern thrown out of baseball. Complication piles upon complication until the Big Game, wherein Guffy is forced to rely exclusively upon the talents of his ballplayers — notably “over the hill” Saul Hellman (who, the angel has told Guffy, will be “called up” to the Heavenly Choir team shortly) — to win the pennant. Guffy also wins over Jennifer, and they plan to adopt young Bridget. The angels themselves are never actually seen by the viewing audience, just the effects of their presence – a feather dropping, or someone being jostled from time to time. The angel who talks to Guffy never reveals who he was in life. It being a time when profanity was never used in films, the “swearing” uttered by Guffy is audio gibberish, scrambled recordings of his own voice. —wikipedia

Director

Clarence Brown

The son of a cotton manufacturer, Clarence Brown moved from Massachusetts to the South when he was eleven. He attended the University of Tennessee, graduating at the age of 19 with two degrees in engineering. An early fascination in automobiles led Brown to a mechanics-expert post with the Stevens Duryea Company, then to his own Alabama-based Brown Motor Car Company. He abandoned this concern when a new interest in motion pictures began manifesting itself circa 1913. Hired by the Peerless Studio at Fort Lee, New Jersey, Brown became assistant to the great French-born director Maurice Tourneur. Until the day he died, Brown attributed his future success in films to what he had learned under Tourneur’s tutelage. After World War I service, Brown was given his first co-directing credit (with Tourneur) for 1920’s The Great Redeemer; that same year, he directed a goodly portion of The Last of the Mohicans when official director Tourneur was injured in a fall. Soloing for the first time with… read more

The son of a cotton manufacturer, Clarence Brown moved from Massachusetts to the South when he was eleven. He attended the University of Tennessee, graduating at the age of 19 with two degrees in engineering. An early fascination in automobiles led Brown to a mechanics-expert post with the Stevens Duryea Company, then to his own Alabama-based Brown Motor Car Company. He abandoned this concern when a new interest in motion pictures began manifesting itself circa 1913. Hired by the Peerless Studio at Fort Lee, New Jersey, Brown became assistant to the great French-born director Maurice Tourneur. Until the day he died, Brown attributed his future success in films to what he had learned under Tourneur’s tutelage. After World War I service, Brown was given his first co-directing credit (with Tourneur) for 1920’s The Great Redeemer; that same year, he directed a goodly portion of The Last of the Mohicans when official director Tourneur was injured in a fall. Soloing for the first time with 1923’s Don’t Marry for Money, Brown went on to direct some of the best dramas of the silent era, among them Smouldering Fires (1924), The Goose Woman (1925), and Valentino’s The Eagle. His most felicitous screen collaboration was with Greta Garbo. He became Garbo’s favorite director, guiding her through such well-received productions as Flesh and the Devil (1927), A Woman of Affairs (1928), and the actress’ first talkie, Anna Christie (1930). From 1925 through 1952, Brown worked exclusively at MGM, save for a loan-out to 20th Century-Fox for The Rains Came. He functioned as both producer and director for many of his later films, notably Intruder in the Dust (1949), Angels in the Outfield (1951) and Plymouth Adventure (1952), his last effort. He retired a wealthy man due to his real estate investments, refusing to see any new films for fear of being galvanized into jump-starting his career. In the 1970s, the octogenarian Clarence Brown became a much-sought-after guest lecturer on the film-festival circuit, thanks in great part to his Garbo films and to his many excursions into Americana (Ah, Wilderness, Of Human Hearts, The Human Comedy). —allmovie guide

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