Movie Review: A League of Their Own

Directed By: Penny Marshall

Written By: Kim Wilson, Kelly Candaele, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel

Starring: Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Lori Petty, Rosie O'Donnell, John Lovitz, Bill Pullman

Sumary

During WWII, baseball in America all but ceased to exist. Countless professional baseball players served the US military during this time, including the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Something had to be done to keep America's game afloat. Women were already playing fast pitch softball, why not dress them up in skirts and teach them how to pitch over-hand?

Two very competitive sisters, Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) and Kit Keller (Lori Petty), play for the same softball team near their Oregon farm. Dottie, the tall and elegant catcher, tries to coach Kit, her short and scrappy younger sister. Ernie (John Lovitz), a talent scout for Walter Harvey and co.'s new All American Girls Baseball League, pays a visit to the farm to try and entice Dottie into the league. Kit wants desperately to join up while Dottie, with a husband at war, has hesitations.

Ernie doesn't want Kit. He wants Dottie, and he'll only take Kit if Dottie comes with her. Kit finally convinces Dottie that, even while her husband is away, she still needs to live her own life and off they go to catch the train.

After a stop in Colorado to prospect ghoulish-looking Marla Hooch, who wins a trip to tryouts through hitting (in spite of her appearance), the girls and Ernie are off to Chicago. They find the other girls at the tryout to be a mix of city folk and country gals from all over the country. Two in particular, Mae (Madonna) and Doris (Rosie O'Donnell), are overly confident and tell the three new arrivals that they probably won't make the team.

When the teams are chosen, Kit, Dottie, Mae, Marla and Doris are all assigned to the Rockford Peaches. The girls gather 'round to see the new uniforms revealed: short skirts with satin bloomers. Before the season starts the teams are forced to participate in charm school. After all, the ladies of the All American Girls Baseball League must act with poise and etiquette at all time (even with all that 'dirt in the skirt').

The Rockford Peaches meet their coach and manager in the locker room right before their first game. They are less than impressed.

Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), stumbles drunkenly into the locker room and heads straight to the urinal, where he pauses for eternity, and stumbles back out again with out even providing the girls with a lineup. The team is flustered and Dottie takes it upon herself to construct the lineup and position assignments. During the first game, the girls are cheered and jeered until the very end, but Dottie manages the team to a victory while Dugan takes a nap.

And so it continues game after game. Dottie manages; Dugan naps. Until one day, Dugan pipes up and questions a signal Dottie has made to a Peach batter. A hilarious competition of who can give the most ridiculous looking signal call ensues. Jimmy seams a bit insulted that he has been relegated to coaching these girls, these "ballplayers." He is brash, mean and insulting towards the girls, even bringing Evelyn to tears. This episode resulted in the famous "There's no crying in baseball" line. After a postgame fight between Kit and Dottie, Kit is traded to the Racine Belles.

a reminder that sports are just a game in the grander existence of life, one of the girls gets the heartbreaking news that her husband has been killed in the war. Dottie is rattled by this event, crying uncontrollably after the game until her husband (Bill Pullman) arrives alive, though injured. This is enough for her to decide to give up baseball and resume her married life, right before the World Series against Kit's Racine Belles.

Dugan has become the manager the team needed, though after the sixth game of the World Series, the two teams are tied. Dottie surprised the team and Dugan by showing up at the last minute for the seventh game. Kit obviously still has anger and resentment towards Dottie. She has always taken the game more seriously than her older sister. But at the end of the game, Kit comes charging into home for the winning score and Dottie is tackled to the ground by her sister, dropping the ball and giving up the final run. Racine wins and Kit becomes a hero, deciding to stay in the league for another season. Dottie returns home to her husband to try and start a family.

Review

On the surface, and perhaps to younger viewers, A League of Their Own is just a really good movie; a sports comedy with a little bit of drama. Tom Hanks delivers a convincing and comedic portrayal of a drunken, has-been sports star. Geena Davis is almost a motherly older sister to Lori Petty's somewhat overly dramatic interpretation of Kit. Most of the comedic relief is provided by Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell, sort of co-sidekicks.

The tricky part of a movie such as this is finding the balance between comedy and drama. Too much comedy and the movie will lose depth and meaning. Too serious and a movie can drag on and viewers feel out of touch. A League of Their Own approaches the balancing act with just enough heart and just enough levity to keep the audience engaged and connected with the characters.

Beyond the surface, the movie can be viewed as a social observation or gender categorization of 1940s America. Women that chose to play baseball were looked down upon by their socially elite counterparts, who aired their scrutiny on the radio airwaves. And while they were brought in to fill a man's roll they were still expected to look and behave like charm school beauties, wearing skirts and full makeup during games. And, of course, the men were in charge.

During the war, women were put to work in factories that supplied American troops with everything they needed. Women even entered the workforce to fill the vacancies left by men who joined the Army. This was honorable. This was dutiful. But one gets the impression that becoming a professional athlete was reaching just a little too far for the women. And when the men came home from Europe the women were ousted and men's professional baseball thrived once more.

There was an expectation that a woman would be a housewife, raise babies and do all the housework. It wasn't just other women that criticized women's baseball. The movie shows men mocking and teasing the women on the field. Though, once the games became more entertaining with a little showmanship and glam, the men because more interested. The women in the movie had to resort to striking sexy poses and donating kisses to generate interest, enthusiasm and revenue in their game.

The women themselves seem conflicted over their new roles. They happily glitz it up for the game and show off for the men-folk, then poison the chaperone and sneak out to a dance club or bar at night. These places are seedy and racy for that time. The girls know they shouldn't be there but they don't care. Is this a contradiction of the movie's message, or a conflict of the character's being? "Let's progress as women, but only when the camera bulbs aren't flashing."

We are also reminded in this movie that a game is just a game and relatively insignificant compared to the larger things in life, like war and death and family. Dottie realizes this after the death of a teammate's husband and the fear of not knowing where her own husband is.

But was it all really just a game? Years later, when the older version of the players meet-up in Cooperstown at the baseball Hall of Fame to be honored for their contribution to baseball, we find that some of the girls have changed and some have not. One of the girls went to college and became a doctor, while one of the prettiest of the original Peaches is proud to have married a plastic surgeon. Dottie finally realizes the deep impact that the one year in the league really had on her life.

If nothing else, the movie is a useful commentary on 1940s gender roles and the women's movement. Today there is still a great division in how men's and women's sports are viewed, though it has evened out a lot since the women's league. Women's sports are still under-funded and under-attended. The important thing is to be love what you do, be confident in who you are and ignore the nay-sayers.

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Source:
A League of Their Own Cast and Information