They Learned About Women

This movie has a song by Schenck and Van that they do in the baseball team locker room. The vocal is by Gus Van (with vocal responses from locker room boys), and it rocks pretty good for 1930: "Ten Sweet Mamas" - check it out, the rest of their numbers are more typical vaudeville stuff, but this one is worth listening to.

Early sound musical THEY LEARNED ABOUT WOMEN (1930) M.G.M. combines BaseBall with the dying performance art of Vaudeville. Throw in some rather poor musical numbers and a romance spoiled by a Gold-Digger and that about sums up the plot. For some this film will be offensive in it's dated ethnic comedy. They should realize that is not the problem, it is just bad even by early sound standards.

The cast features real Vaudeville performers (Gus) VAN & (Joe) SCHENCK and M.G.M. Star BESSIE LOVE. LOVEs' career was winding down and did not translate well too the sound era. VAN & SCHENCK must be one (1) of the reasons of what killed Vaudeville. This film shows why the Hollywood Musical lost popularity until revived by WARNER BROTHERS and BUSBY BERKERLY in 1933.

Fast forward now nineteen (19) years and M.G.M. releases TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME (1949). Nothing gets thrown away in Hollywood so this concept was dusted off, rewritten and given TechniColor and the M.G.M. star power of GENE KELLY, ESTHER WILLIAMS, FRANK SINATRA & BETTY GARRETT. BUSBY BERKERLY directed and this film has at least enjoyable 'Song & Dance' routines. Our rating IMDB******(6).

A interesting note, long term Character Actor, TOM DUGAN appeared in both films. In T.L.A.W. (1930) he played TIM 'Timmy' O'CONNOR, in T.M.O.T.T.B.G. (1949) it was 'Slappy' BURKE.

great piece of historical entertainment! Embodying the intersection of at least 3 critical eras of the show biz: Vaudeville, Baseball & Film (also sound movies & musicals).

Check out the Harlem Madness number for dynamite production of the period (1920s, really). Nothing since has even approached the electricity captured in that performance, but lots have tried with endless derivatives (ending but not limited to Moulin Rouge with Kidman & MacGregor).

Sure, the humor's creaky, the acting's stilted, the direction is confusing (although by two of the stalwarts of the golden age of film).

But hey, Washington's inaugural (or Lincoln's Gettysburg) address would look pretty dated now, wouldn't they? I'd still give anything to see them wouldn't you?

The vaudeville team of Van and Schenck concluded their brief film career with this positively dreadful MGM musical, a surprisingly bad film considering it was co-directed by Jack Conway and Sam Wood. In a stretch, the two less than wry hams play a vaudeville team who double up as star players for the Blue Sox, a professional baseball team of no apparent fixed address. The film features some poor and forgettable songs, dreadful editing, and some of the most boring baseball footage ever committed to celluloid, including the climactic World Series battle between the Blue Sox (probably modeled on the Boston Red Sox) and the Bears (whose gothic 'B' implies they're standing in for the Detroit Tigers). The only interesting part of the film is the Harlem Madness sequence, featuring the magnetic Nina Mae McKinney as a chorus line singer.

In vaudeville and on stage the team of Van&Schenck was one of the biggest drawing acts. But vaudeville was dying a slow death in 1930 and their kind of dialect humor could not carry a film aw is proven in They Learned About Women.

This film is a baseball film about a vaudeville act that doubles in baseball. This was done so much better by Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in Take Me Out To The Ballgame. The film is a hodgepodge of their type of numbers written by Jack Yellen and Milton Ager.

There's a good girl Bessie Love and a bad girl Mary Doran in the film and a lot of newsreel baseball shots.

One of the worst baseball films ever. But at least Van&Schenck are preserved.