The Jackie Robinson Story

Yes, Jackie Robinson portrayed himself in this 1950 B-movie "docudrama." Perhaps that was a mistake. Robinson was a great baseball player, a pioneer, and a true hero of the civil rights movement. What he was not was an actor. And while this is an important film because of Robinson's presence, it is not a good film.

His historically important stint in the U.S. Army was glossed over. There was no mention of his court martial for refusing to sit at the back of the bus on an Army transport in Texas (he won--see movie "The Court Martial of Jackie Robinson"). There was nothing about the Kansas City Monarchs and his playing on the same team as legendary hurler/baseball showman Satchel Paige (see movie "Soul of the Game.")

While there was an attempt made to show the racial injustices Robinson faced, first as a member of the Triple-A Montreal Royals of the International League, then with the Dodgers, this movie was more of a feel-good, 1950s, African-American Horatio Alger piece of public relations. For all the bite the screenplay had, it could have been written by the Dodgers P.R. office. It also made a running joke of brother Mack's "steady job." Mack Robinson was a janitor/street sweeper who could not find a better job despite a college diploma and a silver medal as a sprinter in the 1936 Olympics. The only reason he wasn't hired somewhere as a coach was racism. The movie tried unsuccessfully to make that point, but racism was not a popular subject in 1950 America, especially when the filmmaker's agenda was selling movie tickets, so the reason for Mack's lowly employment status was hinted at, not confronted.

There are two redeeming qualities in the movie: Ruby Dee as Robinson's wife, Rachel, and the appearance of Robinson himself, actor or not. Dee, who was one of Hollywood's most beautiful women at that time, was an excellent physical match for the lovely and intelligent Rachel Robinson. Her acting performance transcended an otherwise bad film. Ironically, forty years later, she would play Robinson's mother in "The Court Martial of Jackie Robinson." As for Robinson himself, those who only know him from Black History month can see firsthand that he was an intelligent, articulate human being, despite being ill at ease on the movie set. What also comes through about Robinson is his broad shouldered physical prowess. He was not as tall as Andre Braugher, who played him in "Court Martial...," nor did he have Braugher's vocal presence. While handsome, he was not drop dead movie star gorgeous as Blair Underwood, who played him in "Soul of the Game." But he was a real athlete, who had been a four-letter man at UCLA (baseball, football, basketball and track), and who had also been the best black amateur golfer in California. The real Robinson, unlike the fine actors who played him later, comes across as the real athlete he was.

True story of Brooklyn Dodger ballplayer Jackie Robinson the man who broke the color barrier in professional Baseball and made it possible for future black ballplayers, like Willie Mays Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson to name a few, to follow him.

After the end of WWII it was Brooklyn Dodger owner Branch Rickey, Minor Watson, who saw what a reservoir of talent there was in the then segregated Negro League and attempted to tap in on it. It was Jackie Robinson who was not only a star in collage football basketball baseball and track and field but was educated and well spoken, unlike most Negro players at that time, who was chosen by Rickey's top scout William Spaulding to be the man to do it: Brake Baseball's color barrier.

Jackie not at first believing that he's to play in the major leagues is surprised when Spaulding knocked at his hotel room while he was playing with the Black Panthers Negro Baseball team and convinced Jackie that he was the real thing, a scout or the Brooklyn Dodgers, not someone trying to play a joke on him! Like Jackie and his fellow Black Panthers at first thought.

In knowing that it was far more important for him to succeed for his race not just for himself Jackie not only had to be able to hit run and field on the baseball diamond but put up with the insults and threats to him and his family. Not just by the racist fans but his fellow baseball players, some on his own team, to make his and Branch Rickey, who put his reputation on the line in giving Jackie a chance, dream come true.

It was in the Triple A Brooklyn farm team the Montreal Royals that Jackie got his first taste of what he was to run into being the only black not on the team but in the entire league. The taunts and insults that Jackie suffered from both the fans and players just toughened his resolve to succeed to the point that he not only ended up leading the league in batting with a .349 average but was named the league's "MVP" Most Valuable Player. There was a very touching and bittersweet scene in the film where Jackie being taunted by the fans about him being black is shown a cute little black cat and told to come over and say hello to a relative of his. Jackie instead of whacking the guys in the mouth like he should have got up out of the dugout and took the cat, with those who were holding it running for safety, back into the dugout with him petting the cute litter kitzel as if he somehow knew that it was suffering the same kind of abuse that he was going through at the time.

Finally making it to the big leagues in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers who lost the 1946 National League Pennant on the very last day of the season in a two out of three game playoff, with the Dodgers losing the first two games, to the World Champion St.Louis Cardinals he in fact was the extra ingredient that was able to get the Dodgers to become the 1947 National League Champs. Jackie did all that not just with his hitting fielding and dazzling running on the bases running but with his courage as well both on and off the field which earned Jackie the 1947 Rookie of the Year Award.

Made in 1950 while Jackie Robinson was still an active player "The Jackie Robinson Story" is about as autobiographical a movie as a movie could be. It showed that by turning the other cheek and concentrating on his game and not letting his temper get the best of him Jackie achieved the impossible in being a both fiery combatant as well as gentleman at the same time. Which in the end even had his biggest detractors,fan and ballplayers alike, end up standing up and cheering wildly for for him whenever he hit the ball either out of the park or the infield. It was that, Jackie's ability to stand tall and not give into his pent up emotions, far more then his baseball playing ability that made Jackie Robinson the Baseball legend that he is today.

P.S Jackie Robinson #42 uniform was retired not only from the Dodger team but from all of Major League Baseball in 1997 making him the first and only Major League Baseball player to have that honor. What most people don't know is that there was a Dodger player George Jeffcoat who had the famed #42 before Jackie did while he was a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers back in 1939.

THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY is a slightly formulaic, but nonetheless solid, biopic that really deserves more attention that it receives. Robinson stars as himself, the first African American to break through pro baseball's color barrier. It's by no means an easy task as he confronts a society that is far from united in wanting to see this groundbreaking endeavor succeed.

The film is to be credited for not shying away from the racial tension of the time. Robinson endures racial slurs, unyielding boos, the indignity of sitting at the back of the bus, and so on. It's both shocking and infuriating to be reminded of how bigoted and unreasonable society was just a few decades ago. In many ways Robinson's is a heartbreaking story, even though we know it has a happy ending.

Robinson won't be mistaken for an Academy Award winner, but his performance is decent. He proves to be a highly likable screen presence, portraying the sort of gentleman that by many accounts he was in real life. Some of his supporting cast is stiff, but by and large the performances work.

Surely this important story will again one day be given the big screen treatment. And whoever gets behind the camera for that effort will have a solid foundation to which to refer in THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY.

Continuing to review African-Americans in film in chronological order for Black History Month, we're now at 1950 when the first black to play baseball in the major leagues, Jackie Robinson, stars in his own life story in a motion picture made three years after becoming a player in the Brooklyn Dodgers. Since he's basically playing himself, he doesn't need scenes that challenge him, just recite lines that I'm sure were written in a way to make things easy to remember. We're not meant to be impressed by his acting, anyway, but his athleticism whether catching balls, throwing them, or especially hitting them. No, the real acting challenge came to Minor Watson who-as the actual President of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey-has to present authority and conviction as someone who truly believes in baseball as the democratic sport meant to give fair chances to all Americans of all races and creeds, which was convincing enough to me. So on that note, The Jackie Robinson Story was an inspirational enough movie that can still touch some heartstrings, old-fashioned though some of it may be. P.S. Since it is Black History Month, I'd like to note some of the supporting performers that happen to be people of color: first off, there's Ruby Dee as Jackie's wife, Rae, in one of her earliest roles. Then there's Louise Beavers, who I last saw in the 1934 Imitation of Life back in 2008 when I last did similar reviews for BHM, as Jackie's mother. Both are adequate enough in their parts. The others-Bernie Hamilton as Ernie-a player for the Panthers, Mildred Boyd as a roommate of Rae, Howard Louis MacNeely playing Jackie as a boy, and Kenny Washington as the Tigers manager. He was previously a halfback for the Los Angeles Rams. Two more worth mentioning: Roy Glenn as attorney Mr. Gaines. He would later appear in "Amos 'n' Andy", Carmen Jones, and "The Jack Benny Program" among other movies and TV shows for the next 21 years. And, last but not least, Joel Fluellen as Jackie's older brother Mack. He was born in Monroe in my home state of Louisiana.

If the obviously affable Robinson doesn't come across as a "good" actor, it might be more the fault of the production than himself. Though it's an important movie about a great sports pioneer, it has too many marks of a B-movie production. Too much exposition by characters who should have more interesting stories (wouldn't you want to know more about the USC athletic director who said the only color he cares about is "blue and gold?" Also, Louise Beavers gave a very subdued performance considering it was one of her few roles where she wasn't playing someone's maid. Other hallmarks of the B production were about two minutes of running used for the stock footage of calendar leaves falling to mark the passage of time, the old "spinning headlines" of newspapers with the same articles beneath, the fact that Jackie's baseball scenes were shot at just two ballparks (I'm not even sure his Dodgers scenes were shot at Ebbets Field; the field doesn't quite match the long shots of Ebbets) and the "flashback voices" that ran through Jackie's head when he was set to fight with some white hecklers. This film could also be considered as a product of the McCarthy era in which it was made. It did ignore Jackie's problems in the Army (because it's "un-American" to criticize the military) and ends with Jackie's flag-waving radio address before Congress. Branch Rickey, who in real life did spend several years trying to get pro baseball to desegregate, has a lot of "let's behave like real Americans" dialogue, but tempered with his admission to Jackie that he scouted him because we wants the Dodgers to win a pennant. Despite my quibbles, I think this is an important movie and I'm glad it's around for us to see. I am also torn between feeling that it might be better remembered had it not been a small studio picture, and the possibility that a major studio would have completely glossed over the prejudice portrayed in the film. <i>Note: Jackie's Dodger uniform number, 42, had been officially retired by every team in Major League Baseball. "42" is also the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, as explained in "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Coincidence? I think not.