utgard14 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.

dimplet Once, all things were new. And when It Happens Every Spring was new it probably didn't look as tired as it does now. Sure, there were some great, artistic movies made around 1949, but also some really cheesy stuff. The Adventures of Superman was three years away, and it was a huge hit. Not only is there a resemblance between Ray Miland fiddling with his black frame glasses and Clark Kent, but people back then were quite willing to suspend disbelief for some fun escapist fantasy. You don't hear as much these days about the need to be willing to suspend disbelief, but that's what you are doing for certain types of movies. It's as though there is a plumb level that points straight down for realistic stuff, but is adjusted off plumb to a certain degree by the director at the beginning to establish an alternate reality for a movie or TV show. Now, it's interesting that this movie is set up with a professor talking about chemistry. Way back then in the 1940s scientists were doing some stuff that must have looked pretty astounding to the average layman. Today, we look at the basic premise of a chemical designed to repel insects that instead repelled wood and sneer, but in 1949 the audience might have thought, deep down, "who knows?" Science was almost magical. So the director is setting the plumb, say, 45 degrees off. But it's not way off -- 90 to 180 degrees -- like some dumb modern movies that bear no resemblance to reality. The actors still bear a reasonable resemblance to real people, at least by Hollywood standards -- say 10 to 25 degrees off plumb. But the rest of the situation requires the level stay 45 degrees off, stuff like using a glove with a hole in it and thinking he can get away with a fake name, no pictures and no background identity -- stuff in the cynical modern drug testing post 9/11 world we know no one could every hope to get away with now. But we have agreed to suspend belief with the opening premise to 45 degrees, so the rest goes with the package.A lot of cynical modern viewers post all sorts of critical comments about old movies like this and think they are clever, completely missing the point. Each era seems to have a willingness to suspend disbelief in somewhat different ways. When Goldfinger came out, most people were just blown away with what seemed a great picture. Now, to me, it looks more like Swiss cheese. The closer you look (with the hindsight of home video), the less sense it makes. Yet it's still loads of fun. Today, young viewers are willing to suspend disbelief about all sorts of fantasy movies like Inception and Hunger Games that just leave me cold because I can't. In 1949, people paid their money for a bag of popcorn and some escapist fun, and It Happens Every Spring hit the spot. In the 1950s, it was Damn Yankees, which was probably inspired by this movie, and which faced some of the same plot holes. In the 1960s, it was The Nutty Professor and The Absent Minded Professor (I can't, believe I ever watched that stuff!), plus a fun Twilight Zone episode about a robot pitcher named Casey. And from there it was just dumb and dumber. But there were also The Natural in 1984 (same plot holes), and The Rookie in 2002, which didn't require suspending belief because, according to Hollywood, it was based on a true story.From the 2013 perspective, It Happens Every Spring looks better than some of the more recent stupid stuff, but otherwise rather dull. You have a basic plot that unfolds pretty straightforwardly, with just a bit of suspense about the ending. The early scene of his testing the baseball against a stick of wood was amusingly bad from the perspective of DVD-computer slow motion. Do a freeze frame and you see the ball being jerked up about the same time he begins to swing the stick. The best part, for a movie buff, is seeing some fine old names from movies and TV, like Jessie Royce Landis (North by Northwest) and Lt. Tragg (Ray Collins), plus Alan Hale Jr. (the Skipper) and Ed Begley (not junior). That's one reason to recommend it, the other is if you are a baseball movie buff. Most modern viewers I think would not enjoy this movie, in part because they need more special effects and loud music to pound them into suspending their disbelief. But perhaps this will help: It Happens Every Spring is based on a true story. Really.

MartinHafer There are so many problems with "It Happens Every Spring" that it's hard to imagine that I'd still recommend it. That's because it's a film you can enjoy IF you turn off your brain and simply enjoy it on a brain-dead level. I apparently could do this, though occasionally nagging problems with the plot reared their ugly heads.Ray Milland stars as a goofy college chemistry professor. One day while working on a formula for a wood repellent, a baseball flies through the window and smashes his equipment and notes. Oddly, however, it seems that whatever the concoction landed on now repels wood--and I mean REALLY repels wood. When he puts it on a baseball, it cannot be hit! So, he hatches a plan--to brush up on his pitching and earn money for his research by joining the major leagues. Now here is the part that I couldn't understand and I think it was added simply to make the movie formulaic (giving it some contention)--when he is hired by St. Louis to pitch, he uses an alias and doesn't want anyone to know he's a professor. Why isn't really clearly understandable--as the school, when they discovered, wasn't mad in the least he took a leave of absence to play pro ball.The ball does many insane things when he pitches it--flying about in ways that defy physics. In addition, his using a cloth dunked in the solution to rub on the ball would easily have been discovered. Yet, inexplicably, no one seems to think he's cheating--which he clearly is. Still, despite many logical flaws, Milland is very entertaining (he was a fine actor--and very good in comedy) and the plot is rather cute. As I said above, turn off your brain--otherwise it might be tough to finish.

JimSDCal "Field of Dreams" is the best baseball fantasy yet filmed, followed closely by "The Natural". In this picture, Prof. Vernon Simpson (Ray MIlland) invents a chemical which makes any object avoid wood. This property is invaluable to baseball pitchers who wish that their pitches avoid contact by batters. Simpson, tests his invention himself as he gets himself hired by the St. Louis baseball team. Their is decent comedy in this movie as Simpson tries to hide the reason for his success from his teammates, such as Monk (Paul Douglas), and his manager, Jimmy Dolan. The reason Simpson has for pitching, in addition to proving that his invention works, is to earn money so he can marry his girlfriend Debbie (Jean Peters), but he wants her not to find out why he has departed his college campus. I like this movie, it would probably play better during spring training, not the dead of winter, so it get a grade of C+ and a modest recommendation.