It Happens Every Spring

This delightful comedy is seldom seen on cable. The Fox channel is a great source for these neglected and forgotten films that still produce a lot of fun to viewers, young and old. Lloyd Bacon directed this movie with a lot of flair. There are some insanely funny moments in the film, based on Valentine Davis' screen play.

Chemistry professor Vernon Simpson, working on a small midwest university, discovers as a fluke, that one of his projects produce a rejection of wood when rubbed in an object; that object being the baseball that almost destroys his lab. Professor Simpson's passion is the national pastime, which we see him hearing a broadcast during one of his classes. Simpson is also in love with the beautiful Debby Greenleaf, the daughter of the president of the university.

Vernon decides to try his hand as a pitcher, now that he has the secret, as he feels his beloved Saint Louis Cardinals can use him. As the mysterious King Kelly, Vernon proves to be an asset to his team. The catcher, Monk Lanigan, is his roommate. The two men develop an easy friendship. Lanigan, like anyone else, is puzzled by the way Kelly can pitch, even at his age. When Lanigan wants to know what does King keep in a tiny bottle in his dresser, and he is told it's hair tonic, which he proceeds to use himself, with magical results. He even gives some of it to the manager, not knowing is the secret formula that King uses to throw those magical pitches.

As Vernon/King, Ray Milland makes a wonderful appearance in the film. His chemistry with Paul Douglas, the catcher and roommate, is unique. Both stars are amazing together and this is what makes the comedy a winning and sunny time at the movies because of the fun we experience in watching them perform. Jean Peters is also good as Debby, the girl that conquered Vernon's heart. Ray Collins, Ed Begley and Jessie Royce Landis do excellent supporting work.

"It Happens Every Spring" is a sunny comedy that proves to be a lot of fun.

Fun baseball comedy starring, of all people, Ray Milland. There's so many things about this that shouldn't work yet it does. Milland plays a college professor who also happens to be a brilliant scientist working on a formula for a coating on wood that will make it repellent to things like bugs and mice. Through an accident he discovers his formula, when put on a baseball, will make it impossible to hit. So he does what any scientist would do and decides to become a major league pitcher. He becomes a big success, cheating like the dickens the whole way. This was back in the day when things like fair play and honor were valued. Yet here this guy is cheating his way to the World Series and, amusingly, the movie passes no judgment on it. Now, anybody who knows baseball knows some pitchers back in the day were not above using various techniques to doctor the balls they threw. Like spitballs, for example. Still, such things weren't openly endorsed by Major League Baseball and they wouldn't have anything to do with the movie because of the cheating. This is why they use fake teams in the film instead of real ones, which was more commonplace at the time.

Milland is excellent and proves that personable, talented actors can often rise above miscasting. Paul Douglas is great fun as Milland's catcher. It's a role Douglas could play in his sleep and he's perfect in it. Gorgeous Jean Peters plays Milland's girlfriend. Besides good looks, she brings charm and humor to the part. She retired from acting in the mid 50s and married Howard Hughes. It's a very pleasant, enjoyable comedy. Far-fetched and often ridiculous, yes, but still fun.

Sometimes Hollywood gets it right. This is one of those times.

While aiming for the funny bone, this delightful comedy scores a home run. Ray Milland is cast in the lead role as an absent-minded professor who becomes a hit in the world of baseball thanks to a wood-repellent formula he has invented. It prevents batters from getting to first base. Jean Peters plays the love interest, and she manages to get to first base in other ways. There's a good turn by veteran character actor Ray Collins, but the one to watch is Paul Douglas, in a supporting role.

If you like this film, watch Disney's The Absent-Minded Professor starring Fred MacMurray.

There have been many pitchers in Major League Baseball who were quite adept at doctoring a baseball. Some, such as Gaylord Perry and Burleigh Grimes, were known to add a little saliva or in Perry's case perhaps a little Vaseline. Doing this would cause the ball to suddenly drop when reaching home plate as if the bottom had fallen out of it. Then there was Whitey Ford, who was said to be able to put a few nicks or scratches in the old cowhide causing the laced sphere to do some mighty strange things. None of these players comes close to being as interesting as baseball legend Professor Vernon Simpson.

Professor Simpson was a chemistry professor at a Midwestern college. He was in love with the Dean's daughter, Deborah Greenleaf and hoped that someday they would be married. College professor's salaries being what they were in the late forties, his only hope of being able to financially support Miss Greenleaf depended on an experiment he had devised that would someday change the world. Like all normal American men of his day, Vernon was also known to get caught up in the Rite of Spring better described as the opening of the baseball season. One day while in his lab working intently on his experiment, some of the young college students were outside practicing baseball. Unfortunately, an errant ball came crashing through the window destroying the Professor's experiment and mixing his chemicals into a convoluted mess. Or so he thought.

While cleaning up the destroyed experiment, Vernon accidentally discovered that the mixture of chemicals left behind had the unique ability to resist wood. After testing the formula in his lab, he recruited the young college baseball players to scientifically examine the reaction of this chemical when applied to a baseball. After acquiring enough data to prove to himself that when the formula was applied to a baseball no hitter could touch it, Professor Simpson had no alternative but to offer his services to the St. Louis Cardinals who were themselves in desperate need of pitching. Although skeptical at first, the owner of the Cardinals did give Vernon a tryout to teach him a lesson. It was of course Vernon and his secret formula that taught the manager and the owner of St. Louis the lesson, and they signed him to a contract that would pay Vernon $1,000 dollars for every game he won.

It Happens Every Spring is a whimsical tale of an innocent sports era that has long passed. It's the kind of story one might imagine as a Disney film from the sixties or seventies starring Kurt Russell as The World's Greatest Pitcher or some other lame inappropriate title. I am eternally grateful that Disney never discovered this gem in order to film a plasticized silly remake. It Happens Every Spring is good enough as it is and far better than any of those films about World's Greatest Athletes or Computers in Tennis Shoes.

A large part of its success can be attributed to Ray Milland. As Professor Simpson, he never lets the character sink into the foolishness of Fred MacMurray's Ned Brainard from The Absent Minded Professor films. That is not meant to deride MacMurray's performance in those films, as his character was played as it was written, but the fact that Milland's Simpson appears more scholarly and analytical makes this film work even better. He sees his accidental discovery as a means to achieving two necessary goals: Making enough money to be able to wed Deborah (Jean Peters)and helping the Cardinals win the pennant.

As Deborah, Jean Peters is gorgeous, charming and delightful. After Vernon's mysterious disappearance, she sets out to discover what became of him and through a series of mistaken coincidences believes he has joined the mob. Paul Douglas as Monk Lanigan, Vernon's catcher, has most of the funniest lines and some of the best scenes, one involving him wearing a splint while trying to catch, and another when he uses Vernon's formula as a hair tonic. He's a pure delight in what I consider one of his best roles.

In the cynical sports world of today, one has to wonder if a remake of this film would even work. Much of what occurs is able to happen because it came from a time when there were no multi-million dollar athletes, no wall to wall TV coverage on ESPN and no cynical sports analysts to dissect every play. One of the major plot lines in this film has to do with Vernon being able to hide his identity, and any redo of this film would just have to dispense with that possibility altogether. In the time in which this film occurs, it works marvelously, and is a joy to watch. If set in the year 2004, one doubts that it could be the same enjoyable experience. It Happens Every Spring may not be the most remembered or notable films about baseball, but it one of the best. And when you are one of the best you get my grade which for It Happens Every Spring is an A. Batter Up!!!!

There are so many problems with "It Happens Every Spring" that it's hard to imagine that I'd still recommend it. That's because it's a film you can enjoy IF you turn off your brain and simply enjoy it on a brain-dead level. I apparently could do this, though occasionally nagging problems with the plot reared their ugly heads.

Ray Milland stars as a goofy college chemistry professor. One day while working on a formula for a wood repellent, a baseball flies through the window and smashes his equipment and notes. Oddly, however, it seems that whatever the concoction landed on now repels wood--and I mean REALLY repels wood. When he puts it on a baseball, it cannot be hit! So, he hatches a plan--to brush up on his pitching and earn money for his research by joining the major leagues. Now here is the part that I couldn't understand and I think it was added simply to make the movie formulaic (giving it some contention)--when he is hired by St. Louis to pitch, he uses an alias and doesn't want anyone to know he's a professor. Why isn't really clearly understandable--as the school, when they discovered, wasn't mad in the least he took a leave of absence to play pro ball.

The ball does many insane things when he pitches it--flying about in ways that defy physics. In addition, his using a cloth dunked in the solution to rub on the ball would easily have been discovered. Yet, inexplicably, no one seems to think he's cheating--which he clearly is. Still, despite many logical flaws, Milland is very entertaining (he was a fine actor--and very good in comedy) and the plot is rather cute. As I said above, turn off your brain--otherwise it might be tough to finish.