It Happened in Flatbush

Very enjoyable "B" movie from 1942. Nolan as skipper of Brooklyn Dodgers is good. For once they did not use old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles for the long shot scenes. Instead they used films of the three games played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn in the 1941 World Series. You can tell from the bunting hanging from the stands. Also some events are very close to actual happenings of the old Dodgers. A most for all us old Brooklyn Dodger fans.

Following their first National League Pennant win since 1920, The Brooklyn Dodgers team players, though losing the 1941 World Series, went to Hollywood to appear as themselves in this film's field and locker room scenes. Though uncredited on screen, they included Mickey Owen, Dolf Camilli, Billy Herman, Pewee Reese, Arky Vaughan, Dixie Walker, Cookie Lavagetto, Peter Reiser, and pitchers Hugh Casey, Whitlow Wyatt, and Freddie Fitzimmons. However, Lloyd Nolan played the team manager instead of Leo Durocher and Red Barber's substitute was KMPC radio Broadcaster Hal Berger whose 1941 in-studio game recreations fostered the birth of L.A.'s Dodger fan clubs.

Although in 1942 Brooklyn was only one of the five boroughs of Greater New York when it was a city by itself it had a ballclub in the National League that eventually became known as the Dodgers. That club helped Brooklyn keep its individuality and was what made Brooklyn as Lloyd Nolan put it, "the greatest baseball town in the world".

Although you can see a lot more of old Ebbetts Field in the Red Skelton film Whistling In Brooklyn, you get enough of it here in a film about the Dodgers and their run for the pennant. In fact It Happened In Flatbush celebrated what happened in real life, the Dodgers winning their first pennant in 21 years in 1941.

But they lost the World Series in five games to the Yankees, a pattern that would repeat itself until 1955. That series is best remembered for passed ball by Dodger catcher Mickey Owen in game four on what would have been the last out of the game and the Dodgers winning and evening the series up at two games to two. But the Yankee right fielder Tommy Henrich ran to first safely and then the Yankees opened up and won the game. The heart was cut out of the Dodgers with that play.

Something similar has happened to Lloyd Nolan in It Happened In Flatbush. He was a promising shortstop who made an error and cost the Dodgers the pennant back in the day. In fact he was tagged "Butterfingers" and literally run out of the Big Leagues. More modern fans would call this the Bill Buckner syndrome.

Anyway Dodger owner Sara Allgood hires Nolan as manager and then she promptly dies leaving the biggest share to her niece Carole Landis who is a Park Avenue débutante with not much interest in the game. General Manager William Frawley is in Nolan's corner however and to keep his job he puts the moves on Landis.

Let's say she develops an interest in her Brooklyn roots and in baseball and Nolan with the inevitable results.

Watching that I couldn't help thinking of the real Dodger manager at the time, one Leo Durocher who had an eye for the ladies and would soon take as a third wife, movie star Laraine Day. If Durocher had a pretty owner like Carole Landis to deal with instead of the mercurial Larry MacPhail at the time, he would have been in their pitching with Carole.

Baseball players all over organized baseball would have voted Lloyd Nolan an Oscar if they had a vote for punching out the character that Robert Armstrong plays. Armstrong is one of those grudge bearing sportswriters who will pick on a target of some athlete and just always tear him down for whatever the reason. Ted Williams had one such individual in Boston, a guy named Dave Egan and if the Splendid Splinter ever saw It Happened In Flatbush he would have stood and applauded Nolan for doing what he would like to have done. In real life that would probably get you banned, fortunately Armstrong and Nolan had no witnesses.

The misanthropic William Frawley who was in real life a very lonely alcoholic has an unusual number of baseball films in his film credits. That's because he was a huge fan and probably would have paid 20th Century Fox to be in It Happened In Flatbush.

It Happened In Flatbush celebrates the place of my birth and the unique place in American culture it has. Its fans made it the greatest baseball town in the world.

I've been on an old movie kick lately. Some are more watchable than others. This one is in the former category. Although some of the hooliganism gets tiring after a while.

I have been living in Brooklyn for over 25 years, and my father was born and raised here until he went into the army in 1942, so I enjoyed the location shots, such as they were. And speaking of 1942 (the year this movie was released), I presume it was filmed in 1941 because there is not a single mention of the war.

A couple of other observations. 1. They must not have gotten permission to use the real team's name, because the word "Dodgers" is never once used in the movie. Or even "Dem bums". 2. When Nolan is in a taxi, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, there is a streetcar in the left lane. My father talked about the streetcars on the surface streets (and how the kids would climb on the back to ride for free), but I never knew they used the bridges too.

Nolan is perfectly cast as the struggling ball club manager. What a fine effortless actor he was, always making dialog sound both natural and spontaneous. The movie had more substance than I expected. It's not a straight Cinderella story of a manager taking a last place team (Brooklyn) to the top. Instead, Maguire (Nolan) has plenty of downs to go with the occasional up, and in the romantic department, as well. And what a dish Carole Landis (Kathryn) is, all outfitted here in upper-class finery, and before she became the more familiar blonde.

The most notable thing about this sports story is how the fans of Brooklyn are portrayed. Note that the movie was made at the beginning of WWII. The preceding decade of the 1930's was the decade of the "common man" when everyday ordinariness was honored by Hollywood's dream factory.

Here, that ordinariness is on display with an emphasis on fighting spirit from both the rowdy fans and the Brooklyn team. On a larger scale, it would take that sort of popular effort and team spirit to win the big war, which amounts to a topical sub-text even in this modest programmer.

Note too how the upper class is portrayed as slightly effete, especially lounge lizard Walter (Allen), Maguire's rival for Kathryn's affections. In the screenplay, Brooklyn stands for the borough of the common man and his combative spirit, while Manhattan receives a rather dismissive upper-class reference. It's Hollywood gearing up for the big war, and, on the whole, a better movie than I expected, but nothing special.

(In passing—I can't help noticing that the Brooklyn team is never referred to as the Dodgers, just as the generic "Brooklyn". Similarly, for St. Louis minus the Cardinals. I expect these generic references allowed the producers to avoid legal problems.)