It Happens Every Spring (1949)

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Ray Milland although an academy award winning actor always plays a dour, serious kind of actor. This film is sort of an aberration for Milland taking part in this baseball fairy tale comedy. Milland plays a college professor Vernon Simpson who is a baseball fan. One day while running an experiment in his lab, a baseball crashes through his window breaking beakers and glassware. The fluids combined with a fictitious substance methylethylpropylbutyl creates this holy grail that only major league pitchers were looking for in the quest of greatness, a chemical that repels wood. The mild mannered Vernon takes leave from the university and goes into obscurity. Vernon immediately tries out for the St. Louis club as a pitcher. On first impression by the owner and coaches was not a good one despite his slow delivery and lack of velocity until the teams top slugger was whiffing at ball soaked pitches after pitch. Catcher and second banana Paul Douglas plays the room mate Monk to the green Major Leager/ professor King Kelly as his alias. Meanhile back at the Campus Vernon's fiancé Deborah (Jean Peters) is worried as there's no word on his whereabouts. Our new phenom King Kelly is making headlines across the country setting strikeout records and victories using a sponge inserted in his catching glove. Reporters try to find out where he's from. Protected by Monk, King Kelly's personal catcher who is constantly harassed by his wife via the telephone borrows that formula mistaking it for hair tonic. The results are astounding as at one point the hair goes one way and the opposite way when using a wooden brush. This baseball fantasy plays itself out and in 9 beautiful innings.

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.

I first saw this film in 1962 on "Saturday Night At The Movies", and it's a pleasure to see it again now 51 years later! I always remembered it as a "fun film", and it still is.The story is simple: A college professor (Ray Milland) accidentally invents a liquid that repels wood. He's also a lover of baseball, so decides to become a major league pitcher and use the fluid to stymie the batters on the other team and win the pennant. If he makes enough money, he can marry his sweetheart, the daughter of the college's dean. But, who is this mystery man (remember, in 1949 there were only a million television sets in the whole country). And, on the other hand, why did he disappear from the university? Had he become a gangster? I do have to say a word about the special effects here. Not bad. It's the general effects that are a little pathetic. In a number of the shots of Milland pitching, you can clearly see that he's standing in front of a screen since you see his shadow directly behind him. That's pretty sloppy for a major studio! But aside from that, this is a film to savor for its simple fun. And, there's a pretty decent cast here. Ray Milland is perfect as a professor and not bad as a pitcher...that's believable. Jean Peters is suitable as the fiancée. Paul Douglas (no favorite of mine) is wonderfully likable as the catcher who pals around with the professor; this may be his most engaging role. It's nice to see Ed Begley as the baseball club owner -- I used to like him in lots of television shows. And Ted de Corsia is great as the manager (interesting that they named him Jimmy Dolan). And to round out the cast -- Ray Collins and Jessie Royce Landis, both wonderful character actors.Of course, one thing not brought up in the film is that Milland's character is clearly cheating. Even the baseball commissioner when the film was made called it that, and refused to allow any participation of any baseball players or stadiums in the filming of the production.But, that aside, it's still just a good fun movie! Enjoy!

This is a fanciful story, nostalgic now, with its presenting the baseball milieu as it was several decades ago, and presents several likable actors, now gone, led by Milland and Douglas.Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen - and a couple of other actors - can handle throwing, fielding and hitting a baseball competently, and are able to convey an ability at a level to warrant the character they've been hired to portray.However, in past flicks, the macho Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart, who played "men's men" many times over, couldn't play baseball for sour apples; and Tony Perkins was even worse. However, Milland and Paul Douglas are so inept it is doubtful they would stand-out if participating as members of a T-ball team.But it is enjoyable as a nostalgic piece of cornball comedy, with an engaging cast no longer with us. A 7-* decent piece of entertainment.