Platicsco
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
ThedevilChoose
When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.
ttrryosborn
I saw this movie many years ago with my father on television. He told me about his experience with Monty Stratton.My father wanted to be a big league pitcher. He tried his luck with the White Sox in the late l930's. He only got as far as spring training before being sent down to the minors leagues. He liked to say that in the minors he made as much money as a soda jerk, but girls at parties were a lot more impressed with someone who played baseball than with some who made root beer floats. As a rookie in spring training, My dad was too shy to walk with the veteran ball players to the field. He always walked a distance behind them. One day, Monty Stratton turned back to him and said that if he wanted to be a big league ball player he had to walk with them. My dad got to know Mr. Stratton very well that Spring. Years later, after WWII and marriage, my dad met Monty again at a ballgame. They talked and Mr. Stratton told him that Hollywood was going to make a movie about him. My dad said they couldn't have picked a better man to make a film about.
jc-osms
Baseball means little to me, living in Scotland, so it was with some ignorance of the sport's finer points that I approached this lesser known James Stewart vehicle. Whilst ball-game live-action, with some real-life baseball personalities in the cast, does play a major part in the movie, the underlying story is simply a true tale of overcoming unexpected adversity, a prototype role Stewart delivered time and again in his distinguished career. Following on from the above, Monty Stratton as a sporting hero means nothing to me so I have no idea how far Hollywood bowdlerised the story, so I'll take the narrative at face value and give kudos where they are due to a well-paced film, with natural dialogue and well-crafted scenes, even the baseball match recreations. Stewart's "pitching action" looks natural and he acts his disability convincingly. The Stewart/Allyson pairing gets its first outing here and their natural playing and obvious simpatico from the start has you rooting for them both all the way through. The support is equally strongly played, particularly Agnes Moorehead playing her stock-in-trade "Whistler's Mother" come to life. The direction by Sam Wood is sure and I particularly appreciated the sensitivity shown in the lengthy scenes where Stewart initially broods and gives in to the loss of his leg before Allyson, in a memorable scene, encourages him to fight his disability and helps him achieve his self-respect as well as his place back at the pitching mound. In the main though, as ever, it's Stewart in all his drawling, winking, glory who garners your sympathy from the "Play ball" of a very entertaining family film. It's interesting too, to see his playing of the Stratton part as the unwitting precursor to his more celebrated part as an invalid in the later classic "Rear Window".
Piafredux
Made in 1949 - at about the time that WWII veteran amputees were emerging from their VA hospital prosthetics rehab program and thus beginning to appear among the general population - 'The Stratton Story' topic of a man working hard to overcome the wound he suffered was timely, and it helps to explain the film's resonance with the audiences of its day.Well crafted in all respects 'The Stratton Story,' though certainly a rather fictionalized Hollywood treatment, gives a straightforward, honest look at a man, a farmer, a baseball player, a husband, a father facing his amputation squarely and making the best of himself despite his handicap - and the real Monty Stratton accomplished this feat in the days before every mosquito bite or knee-scrape prompted the callout of armies of professional counsellors. The pairing of June Allyson with James Stewart proved to yield attractive screen power as the two thespians work together very well here in their first effort as a movie couple. The supporting cast give solid performances, though I give special mention to Agnes Moorehead for her restrained, dignified portrayal of Stratton's mother which in the hands of a lesser actress could have been turned into a cliché of the farm-earth-mother.There's fraught drama here as well as lighthearted and inspiring moments, and none are overindulged or wrung out beyond their intrinsic value. 'The Stratton Story' is a nicely balanced example of forthright cinematic storytelling of a self-reliant man supported unflinchingly by his clear-eyed, plain-spoken family and his baseball fraternity. Over time the film stands up well and it needs no third millennium explication or embellishment; it's fine fare for adults and children alike.
bkoganbing
In everyone's list of the top 10 baseball films ever made are usually the Pride of the Yankees and the Stratton Story. No coincidence I think that neglected director Sam Wood is responsible for both.James Stewart's biggest commercial post World War II hit was this gem of a film. It marked a return to his pre-war studio of MGM and in marked the first of three teamings with June Allyson. Monte Stratton was a promising young pitcher for the Chicago White Sox in the late Thirties. An off-season hunting accident cost him a leg because in his very rural part of Texas, medical help was not readily available. But that did not keep him down.The film has a nice baseball feel to it, no doubt helped like in Pride of the Yankees by the appearance of several ballplayers. Bill Dickey of the Yankees for one and long time Chicago White Sox manager Jimmy Dykes for another. The White Sox in the thirties were pretty much a middle rank team in the American League with two franchise players, shortstop Luke Appling and pitcher Ted Lyons, both now in the Hall of Fame. Actors Dean White and Bruce Cowling play both respectively and well.Two other fine veterans round this cast out. Agnes Moorehead in a kinder gentler version of the rural farm wife she played in Citizen Kane is Stratton's mother. And Frank Morgan does very well as down and out baseball veteran Barney Wile who scouts Stratton and sees him as a meal ticket to get back in the big leagues.The chemistry of Stewart and Allyson was discovered here and they made this film the hit it was and deserved to be. A truly inspiring story told here.
