Joe E. Brown is the greatest baseball player in the world, but he doesn't want to leave his small town in Indiana because he's in love with Patricia Ellis. When he admits to it, she tells him no, so off he goes to play for the Chicago Cubs, where his swell-headedness annoys everyone, but his batting and fielding wins him fans. Then he gets in debt to gambler J. Carrol Naish, who offers to tear up his IOU in return for throwing the World Series.
Given the long drought in Cubbies World Series victories, it sounds like money for nothing, but when this movie came out, it had been going on for only a quarter of a century. Given Brown's well-deserved reputation as a baseball enthusiast, this movie, based on a play by Ring Lardner, was a certain crowd-pleaser, and fit right in with Brown's star character of a hayseed whose head was as large as his talent. Although this movie plays fast and loose with the rules of baseball, it's certainly entertaining, with Mervyn Leroy directing a typically fine Warner Brothers cast that includes Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Preston Foster, Sterling Holloway, and Berton Churchill.
Given the long drought in Cubbies World Series victories, it sounds like money for nothing, but when this movie came out, it had been going on for only a quarter of a century. Given Brown's well-deserved reputation as a baseball enthusiast, this movie, based on a play by Ring Lardner, was a certain crowd-pleaser, and fit right in with Brown's star character of a hayseed whose head was as large as his talent. Although this movie plays fast and loose with the rules of baseball, it's certainly entertaining, with Mervyn Leroy directing a typically fine Warner Brothers cast that includes Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Preston Foster, Sterling Holloway, and Berton Churchill.