Angels in the Outfield

Angels in the Outfield (1951)

The toughest guy you ever met... until an angel said "Hello!"

The short-tempered manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates mends his ways in return for a little divine assistance.

Date of release
1951-10-19
TMDB
7.0 / 10 (31)
Runtime
1h 39m
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy
Director
Clarence Brown

Casting

Interesting facts

Angels in the Outfield is a 1951 American sports comedy film produced and directed by Clarence Brown and starring Paul Douglas and Janet Leigh. Based on a story by Richard Conlin, the film is about a young woman reporter who blames the Pittsburgh Pirates' losing streak on their abusive manager, who begins hearing the voice of an angel promising to help the team if he changes his ways. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on September 7, 1951. It was President Dwight D. Eisenhower's favorite film.

Production

Father Richard F. Grady, an English professor and administrator at the University of Scranton, wrote the story as a radio comedy under the pseudonym of Richard Conlin. MGM purchased the story as a vehicle for Spencer Tracy, who was later replaced by Clark Gable. When Gable instead chose to appear in Lone Star, MGM unsuccessfully attempted to borrow James Cagney from Warner Bros. before settling on Paul Douglas.

Location filming in Pittsburgh occurred in the spring of 1951, with many baseball action shots filmed at Forbes Field, the former home of the Pittsburgh Pirates that was demolished in 1971. Several distinguishing features of the park visible in the film include the "Kiner's Korner" inner fence in left field, with the 365-feet left-field foul line marker observable on the outer wall, and the 335-feet sign on the inner fence.

Some scenes were shot on location at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. Although its ivy-covered outfield wall resembled that of Forbes Field, "Kiner's Korner" is conspicuous in its absence, and visible distance markers (412 feet in centerfield, 345 feet in left) are inconsistent with Forbes Field's larger dimensions. Stock footage from Comiskey Park in Chicago is also present in the film.

Although he had no background in baseball, Bruce Bennett, who portrays a veteran pitcher, had played football in the 1926 Rose Bowl and won a silver medal in the shot put at the 1928 Summer Olympics. Jeff Richards, who appears as Rothberg, had been a minor-league baseball player before becoming an actor. Fred Graham, who plays Chunk, had been a semi-pro player.

As the Hays Code prohibited profanity in films at the time, Guffy's foul language is audio gibberish that was created by scrambling recordings of Douglas's voice.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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