Revolta de um Coração

Young Russ Tamblyn gets his first big break as a baseball crazy kid from Cleveland who is a devoted fan of the new World Series winners from 1948 the Cleveland Indians. Russ is having a lot of home issues with mother Ann Doran and stepfather Louis Jean Heydt and comes under the influence of street punk Tommy Cook.

However a counter influence develops when he sneaks into Municipal Stadium and meets up with manager/shortstop Lou Boudreau, owner Bill Veeck, Hank Greenberg who was now retired as a player and working in the Indians front office for Veeck and their team announcer George Brent.

It's Brent who takes an interest in the kid and takes him home to meet his wife Lynn Bari and their two daughters. Tamblyn has to make some critical life choices and we can only hope as viewers he does the right thing.

The movie itself is a decent and well played film about juvenile delinquency as seen in 1949 eyes. But it is a nice look back at the baseball scene of the time. Footage of the 1948 series and some regular season games are nicely integrated into the plot. The World Series film also gives us a chance to look at Braves Field which is no more in Boston as a big league ballpark. With the stands now down, the field serves as the playing ground for the Boston College team.

Such baseball Hall Of Famers like Greenberg, Boudreau, Tris Speaker, Bob Feller, Larry Doby, Joe Gordon and Satchel Paige do a fine job in playing themselves along with the other Indian ballplayers of the era. Come to think of it Bill Veeck is also in the Hall of Fame and I'm sure this film was part of his promotion which in the game of baseball was second to none.

The Kid From Cleveland is a decent enough family film, but for baseball fans especially from the Cleveland area, it's an absolute must.

I was an "extra" in the movie, which was filmed at the end of street where I lived,near Hough Ave. It was very near League Park, at other end of my street! Some of the the kids in neighborhood were also in the movie, of course we were all not paid but did have a lot of fun with the "stars" and were treated to a ballgame, taken by bus, where we ran around under the bleachers. Have seen it a couple of times on AMC, but not in about last 6 yrs. or so. Was a bit of a "tearjerker" as brought back many memories of the days after WW11 and the pride we in Cleveland had, and I still have, for our Indians. Would love to have a copy,mainly to see if I could find myself among the kids. Can't find any on-line. Thanks for memories!

Cleveland Indians radio color commentator George Brent discovers Russ Tamblyn (in his first movie role) hiding out in the stadium. He says he's an orphan from Chicago who wants to see the game, so the team members agree he can come ack, and Brent takes him home to wife Lynn Bari and their two daughters. It comes out that Tamblyn isn't from Chicago, but Cleveland, and his mother Ann Doran and stepfather, Louis Jean Heydt.

Looking at the 1948 World Champion Indians is a bonus here, and enough to extend the movie into first-feature length. It's a story about a troubled boy, and well-meaning adults who are at the end of their tethers. For the era, it's quite frank, with Miss Bari mentioning casually that she cannot have any more children, and Heydt getting to show some range. Amidst this story, you get shots of the 1949 Indians on the field and off.

... as a troubled teen baseball fan who hates his stepfather (Louis Jean Heydt), sneaks into the baseball stadium and claims he's an orphan, befriending the Cleveland Indians sportscaster (George Brent) and the whole team (playing themselves) but still getting in trouble with the law because of his home life and hanging around with a local hoodlum. The kindly sportscaster had been an orphan himself so he takes the boy under his wing and tries to find a way to reform him and keep him off the streets, and even convinces his wife (Lynn Bari) they should adopt him.

Of course, various complications intervene so we can have a wholesome portrait of the juvenile justice system bringing families together. The scenes using actual newsreel footage from the 1948 World Series are obviously grainier, but the newly shot 1949 baseball footage is all pristine in the copy I saw. The story is pretty much standard formula with little in the way of surprise twists, but it's all nicely done, beautifully shot (again with several noir-like sequences), and certainly a must for baseball fans and fans of delinquent-teen dramas.

This is not as terrible a movie as I had read. It's a typical "social problems" movie from the post-World War II era, of which more famous examples would be "The Asphalt Jungle," "The Snake Pit," etc. As such, it's about delinquent children, why they become delinquent, and what might be done to solve that issue. It's not very convincing, frankly, but it's not terrible, either. It's just that the script is bad, the acting second-rate, and the direction no better. Not terrible, but not in any way impressive.

And then there are the baseball players whom the one child delinquent admires, all real members of the 1949 Cleveland Indians. They don't talk much about baseball, we don't really see what their lives are like (with the exception of Larry Doby's at the end), etc. As such, the movie really isn't about baseball.

Early in the movie, the players muff some of their lines, though they do better later. They aren't movie stars, and they don't pretend to be.

I doubt anyone is going to want to watch this movie to see how to deal with child delinquency. Those interested in the history of baseball may well want to see some of these legendary Indians just stand around and talk. (They don't really try to do any acting, nor are they called on to do so.) There is some newsreel footage from the Indians' World Series 1948 season, though not a lot of it.

In short, this movie is a mixed bag. The social problems segments are like a run of the mill 1950s TV drama. The scenes with the legendary Indians are not great movie-making, but it's fun to see those guys when they were active players.