Le Roi de la piste

A lot has been written about Marilyn Monroe. And a lot of people pride themselves on knowing almost everything about her. But my guess is that these folks have not seen some of her early film work.

For instance, she has a bit part in DANGEROUS YEARS (1948); then has a prominent role in Phil Karlson's LADIES OF THE CHORUS (1948), a low-budget entry from Columbia. Next she has a tiny role in the Marx Brothers flick LOVE HAPPY (1950).

Though she began her ascendancy at 20th Century Fox in 1950, she did not have her first starring role until 1952's DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK. For two years, she was put into a series of Fox programmers, playing supporting parts. These second-tier jobs are interesting to watch, because you can see how she has to serve out her apprenticeship under actresses like Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert and Ginger Rogers.

At one point, she was loaned out was to RKO for CLASH BY NIGHT, where we find her understudying another major star (Barbara Stanwyck). As always, even in a minor role, she still makes an indelible impression.

This brings us to a 1950 effort she made with Mickey Rooney and Pat O'Brien called THE FIREBALL. It was produced independently and released through Fox. However, the copyright for this film was taken over by Warner Brothers, and for years it languished in the vaults. Not long ago, it was released through the Warner Archive, without the benefit of special features or the kind of restoration one would like. Hey, at least it is commercially available.

The picture was a starring vehicle for Rooney, who plays a daredevil skater that risks his life to impress the right people. And although she's eighth billed here, it is clear who the real fireball is.

One of the early attractions of television was the Roller Derby, I well remember it though I certainly can't say I was any fan. And I doubt anyone became a fan after watching this average Mickey Rooney film.

It took a while apparently for Mickey Rooney to finally get cast in adult roles. Producers were still seeing him as either good kid Andy Hardy or that punk from Boys Town, Whitey Marsh. Fireball has Mickey running away from an orphanage where Father Pat O'Brien is having a devil of a time trying to reach this angry young man. Maybe Spencer Tracy had a better touch.

Anyway he finds a pair of roller-skates, a job washing dishes with Ralph Dumke, and pretty soon he's found his way to the skating rink where he finally shows a natural aptitude for speed skating under the tutelage of champion Beverly Tyler. That fact doesn't sit well with her skating partner Glenn Corbett.

Mickey attracts the attention of the television audience just now discovering roller derby when the TV cameras pan to him, heckling the living fecal matter out of Glenn Corbett. Seeing Mickey doing that reminded me of someone I knew way back in the day who used to get free baseball tickets and I went to games with him. The price was listening to this short obnoxious individual heckling the opposition ballplayers the way Rooney was doing to Corbett. Like Mickey in the movie, this individual had issues, many kinds of issues.

Of course he does become a roller derby champion, but faces a couple of crises, personal and professional which I won't go into.

Fireball was made on the cheap to take advantage of the current discovery of the roller derby. Pat O'Brien is the usual wise Catholic prelate, nothing new here since Angels With Dirty Faces. And Rooney is 30, looking 30 playing a teen.

Fireball did give me that unwanted trip down memory lane, not to early television and the roller derby, but to Yankee Stadium trying to pretend I did not know the obnoxious individual sitting next to me.

'm one of the sons of the man on whose life this movie is based. Here are a few points that were different in the picture: My father skated under the name Eddie Cazar. One of his teammates was Johnny Cazar. If this movie is a hybrid of the two Cazars' lives, someone will have to fill in the details on Johnny.

My father was not an orphan. His Irish Catholic mother did leave him in order to take up with a French-Canadian Jewish gangster. Thus Eddie was left in the benignly neglectful care of my backwoods paternal grandfather. Either it was easier just to orphan him in the Hollywood version or being an orphan was part of Johnny's story.

My father was close to six feet tall, from the pictures I've seen I recall Johnny Cazar as being kind of tall himself. Mickey Rooney: not tall. Granted Mr. Rooney could do many of his own skating stunts, so maybe that's why he got the part.

The extent of the polio was seriously downplayed, which is the entire freaking point of the movie! Polio was a big deal back then, and they really gloss over it. It really belittles my father's struggle and accomplishment. You get a montage of treatments, including brief scenes of Mickey Rooney in an iron lung, and that's about it. No massive weight loss, no being rendered mute and having his vocal cords removed, no long time spent in that iron lung; just a little paralysis, no big whoop. It was just like a bad 'flu or something. They should have treated it more like the war injuries were in "The Best Years of Our Lives." Maybe that would have been too expensive or something. Of course it makes his comeback for one final season of skating all the less spectacular. In a way my father was the Earvin Johnson of the era, having the illness everyone feared the most, yet managing to fight back and still participate in a hugely popular sport.

The treatment of his rise from street skater to rollerderby star is close enough for a '50s era family movie. I.e. not enough sex and no drugs. That's true for both Cazars.

Real life is a lot more complex than reel life. His fall a lot harder, his climb up a lot harder, his triumph a lot more amazing, but it took a hell of a lot longer for redemption.

So do check out this movie, it is a glimpse into a nearly forgotten popular culture and plague. Even if it is a watered down look into one man's life or two men's conflated lives.

This is a terrific ultra low-budget film that hits its marks and offers a few surprises. Mickey Rooney stars as an orphanage kid no one wanted. He's past school age (Rooney's 30ish here) but the priest who runs the joint (Pat O'Brien) can't get him motivated to learn a skill. After a big fight, Rooney runs away ... much to O'Brien's delight. Now he'll have to learn a skill. Faced with harsh reality he steals a pair of roller skates and tries to hawk them and eventually lands a job as a dishwasher in a dive. But those skates. He goes to the local rink for lessons and his world changes. He finally finds a passion and becomes a roller derby star until tragedy hits and he learns a thing or two about fame, humility, and life. Fascinating film with Rooney doing much of his own skating. Beverly Tyler is the girl, Ralph Dumke is the dive owner, Milburn Stone is the rink owner. And Marilyn Monroe shows up and gets a few lines as a fan. She even gets a couple scenes with Rooney. I remember roller derby from 1950s TV. It made no sense to me then or now.

If you are willing to suspend disbelief for 84 minutes and accept that someone who has never skated can become a roller derby champion in a matter of weeks or months, then you just might enjoy this movie. I watched it only to see Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest roles and wound up actually liking the movie. Pat O'Brien gives a solid performance in a familiar role as Father O'Hara and it is difficult not to fall in love with Beverly Tyler as Mickey Rooney's loyal, suffering girlfriend. And while Miss Monroe's role is a very minor one with only a few lines, her presence in this film, by definition, makes it a classic.