| Damn Yankees | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | George Abbott Stanley Donen |
| Screenplay by | George Abbott |
| Based on |
|
| Produced by | George Abbott Stanley Donen |
| Starring | Tab Hunter Gwen Verdon Ray Walston |
| Cinematography | Harold Lipstein |
| Edited by | Frank Bracht |
| Music by | Richard Adler Jerry Ross |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 111 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $2.6 million[2] |
Damn Yankees is a 1958 Americanmusicalsupernatural sportsromantic comedy film. It was directed byGeorge Abbott andStanley Donen from a screenplay by Abbott, adapted from his andDouglass Wallop's book of the 1955musical of the same title with music and lyrics byRichard Adler andJerry Ross, itself based on the 1954 novelThe Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant by Wallop. The story line is a take on theFaust legend[3] and centers on theNew York Yankees andWashington Senators baseball teams. With the exception ofTab Hunter in the role of Joe Hardy (replacingStephen Douglass), the Broadway principals reprise their stage roles, includingGwen Verdon as Lola.
A notable difference between the film and stage versions was Gwen Verdon's performance of the song "A Little Brains". Verdon's suggestive hip movements (as choreographed byBob Fosse and performed on stage) were considered too risqué for a mainstream 1958 American audience, and so she simply pauses at these points in the film. The title was unacceptable in the United Kingdom, where "damn" was a vulgarism and "yankees" was a derogatory term for Americans. The British branch of Warner Bros. changed the title toWhat Lola Wants.
Joe Boyd (Robert Shafer) is a middle-aged fan of the unsuccessfulWashington Senatorsbaseball team. His obsession with baseball is driving a wedge between him and his wife, Meg—a problem shared by many other wives of Senators supporters. Meg leads them in lamenting their husbands' fixation with the sport ("Six Months Out of Every Year"). Joe is furious that his team has lost again. Meg, realizing that her husband isn't even listening to her, retires for the night, leaving Joe alone.
Joe rashly declares that he would sell his soul tothe Devil to see his team beat theNew York Yankees. No sooner has he spoken than the Devil appears before him in the guise of a suavecon man, Mr. Applegate. Applegate claims he can improve on Joe's wish—he can restore Joe's youth, making him the player who wins thepennant for Washington. Joe agrees but insists that Applegate must give him anescape clause. Applegate declares that Joe can back out, but only the day before the last game of the season—afterward, his soul belongs to the Devil. Joe bids an emotional farewell to a sleeping Meg ("Goodbye Old Girl"), after which Applegate transforms him into a dashing young man, now called Joe Hardy.
The next day, the Senators' practice is a fiasco. Their manager, Benny Van Buren, gives the team a rousing pep talk ("Heart"). Applegate arrives and, introducing himself as ascout, presents his new discovery—Joe Hardy fromHannibal, Missouri. Joe promptly hits baseball after baseball out of the park in an impromptu batting practice. As he is signed to a Senators contract, female sportswriter Gloria Thorpe plans to quickly get Joe into the public eye ("Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.").
With tremendoushome runs and game-saving catches, Joe leads the Senators on a long winning streak into pennant contention and becomes a national hero. Joe misses Meg dreadfully, however, and keeps sneaking back to his old neighborhood for a glimpse of her. Applegate, realizing this could ruin his plans, summons his demonic right-hand girl, Lola, a seductress who was once known as "the ugliest woman inProvidence, Rhode Island," but sold her soul to Applegate in exchange for eternal youth and beauty. She is ordered to make Joe forget his wife, a task Lola is confident she can carry out ("A Little Brains, A Little Talent").
Joe succeeds in getting close to Meg by renting a room in his old house; Meg is unaware of his baseball stardom. Applegate and Lola corner Joe in the team's locker room, where Lola confidently tries to seduce Joe ("Whatever Lola Wants"). But she has her first failure—Joe dearly loves Meg and does not fall for Lola's charms. Applegate angrily banishes Lola.
By the end of the season, the Senators are on the verge of overtaking the Yankees, so the Washington fans hold a lavish tribute ("Who's Got the Pain?"). Gloria, having discovered that no residents of Hannibal, Missouri, remember any "Joe Hardy," confronts Applegate about the player's true identity. Applegate implies that Joe is actually Shifty McCoy, a corruptminor leaguer playing under a pseudonym. By the end of the tribute, newspapers arrive accusing Joe of being Shifty. He must meet with the baseball commissioner for a hearing or else be thrown out of baseball—on the day he plans to switch back to being Joe Boyd.
Applegate will claim Joe's soul at midnight. As the hearing approaches the deadline, Meg and her female neighbors arrive as material witnesses, attesting to Joe's honesty and falsely claiming he grew up with them in Hannibal. The commissioner acquits Joe, but as everyone celebrates, midnight strikes and Joe realizes he is doomed.
Applegate has planned for the Senators to lose the pennant on the last day of the season, resulting in thousands of heart attacks, nervous breakdowns and suicides of Yankee-haters across the country. He fondly recalls his other evil misdeeds throughout history ("Those Were the Good Old Days").
After the hearing, Lola lets Joe know she has drugged Applegate so that he will sleep through the last game. They commiserate over their condemned situation at a nightclub ("Two Lost Souls"). Late the next afternoon, Applegate awakens to find the Senators/Yankees game well underway. Realizing Lola has tricked him—and worse, that Lola has actually fallen in love with Joe—he turns her back into an ugly hag.
The duo arrive at the ballpark by the ninthinning, the Senators up by a run. With twoouts and a runner on base, Yankees sluggerMickey Mantle hits a long drive to centerfield. As Joe backs up to make the catch, Applegate impulsively switches him back into Joe Boyd in full view of the stadium. Now paunchy and middle-aged, Joe makes a final lunge at the ball and catches it, winning the pennant for Washington. As his teammates celebrate and fans storm the field, an unrecognized Joe runs through the clubhouse door in centerfield, retrieving his street clothes and escaping from the ballpark.
Late that night, as the public wonders why Joe Hardy has disappeared, Joe Boyd meekly returns to his house. A tearful Meg hugs him and they sing to each other ("There's Something about an Empty Chair"). Applegate materializes once again and offers Joe the chance to resume being Joe Hardy in time for theWorld Series; he also makes Lola young and beautiful again to tempt Joe. Joe ignores him, and a tantrum-throwing Applegate vanishes for good.
Uncredited in archive footage areYogi Berra,Mickey Mantle,Bill Skowron, and other New York Yankees baseball players, plusArt Passarella (umpire)
The film followed the same template asThe Pajama Game in that basically the entire Broadway cast was imported apart from one role given to an established star. InPajama Game it had beenDoris Day, inDamn Yankees it was Tab Hunter, who had become a pop star in addition to being an actor.[4]
Hunter said George Abbott insisted on specific line readings, which the actor found difficult.[5] Also, according to Hunter's memoir, when he suggested a creative change in a particular scene, Abbott refused to consider it. When Hunter asked why, Abbott said "Because that's not how we did it in the stage version." Hunter then wondered why Abbott was considered such a highly revered visionary.
The "Overture" and "Two Lost Souls" are noticeably different from the Broadway production in orchestration, and many of the lines in "Six Months Out of Every Year" were cut from the film. "A Little Brains, a Little Talent" has a few lyrical differences.
Some songs appear in different order than the original Broadway and subsequent versions, and some songs ("Near to You", "The Game", "A Man Doesn't Know", and "Heart (Reprise)") were cut entirely, which left Tab Hunter with very few songs. (An instrumental of the chorus of "The Game" appears in the overture and at various points in the film.) "There's Something About an Empty Chair" was not in the original stage version or in any stage versions since. While Bob Fosse is not credited for the Mambo number, Tab Hunter thanks him by name ("That was terrific, Bobby!") as the dancer goes backstage.
Gwen Verdon later said "I don’t think it looks like a movie... I think it looks like a stage show, which is not good. And I’m sure Stanley, who had done great movies, did not want to shoot it that way, but he did it out of deference to George."[7]
Reviews from critics were generally positive.Bosley Crowther ofThe New York Times wrote that Verdon's performance was "one of the hottest and heartiest we've seen years ... Miss Verdon has the sort of fine, fresh talent that the screen badly needs these days. But lest she seem to be the whole show, let us hasten to proclaim that there's a great deal more toDamn Yankees than this wonderful red-headed dame. Like the George Abbott stage show before it, it has class, imagination, verve, and a good many of the same performers who did so charmingly by it on Broadway".[8]
Variety wrote: "That 10 of the top 11 players, plus creators from writer to costume designer, have been transferreden masse from Broadway just about insures a film that is as least as good as its stage counterpart. What stands out like an inside-the-park home run is the skill and inventiveness with which the film is coated, thus makingDamn Yankees a funny picture",[9]
Trade publisher Pete Harrison ofHarrison's Reports called the film "a generally entertaining show even though it does not rate a rave notice. In treatment and presentation it is, for the most part, very much like a photographed stage play, in spite of the fact that the camera allowed for a wider range of activity".[10]
Richard L. Coe ofThe Washington Post wrote of the play's transition to the screen, "It could be argued that perhaps it follows too closely, that this is too clearly a photographed stage musical. That I didn't mind in the least, becauseDamn Yankees is a swell musical comedy and I'm a sucker for musical comedy".[11]
John McCarten ofThe New Yorker found Walston and Verdon "just as delightful" on the screen as they were in the stage version, adding, "Although expository dialogue occasionally hobbles the proceedings,Damn Yankees is for the most part commendably brisk, and the music and lyrics, by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, are uniformly lively".[12]
A somewhat mixed review inThe Monthly Film Bulletin praised Verdon as bringing "great presence and a neatly sardonic humor" to the film while describing the score as "pleasant but unmemorable", and summarized the picture as "a musical made with a great deal of verve and some wit, but without much natural gaiety".[13]
On the film review siteRotten Tomatoes,Damn Yankees has a score of 79% out of 19 reviews.[14] The film opened in Denver at the Centre Theatre and grossed $17,000 in its opening week (equivalent to $199,050 in 2024) .[15] After expanding it became number two at the U.S. box office in the last week of September[16] before moving tonumber one a week later during theWorld Series between theNew York Yankees and theMilwaukee Braves, displacingCat on a Hot Tin Roof.[17]
| Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | Best Scoring of a Musical Picture | Ray Heindorf | Nominated | [18] |
| British Academy Film Awards | Most Promising Newcomer to Film | Gwen Verdon | Nominated | [19] |
| Directors Guild of America Awards | Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures | George Abbott andStanley Donen | Nominated | [20] |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Motion Picture – Musical | Nominated | [21] | |
| Laurel Awards | Top Musical | Nominated | ||
| Top Male Musical Performance | Tab Hunter | 4th Place | ||
| Top Female Musical Performance | Gwen Verdon | Nominated | ||
| Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Written American Musical | George Abbott | Nominated | [22] |
The film is recognized byAmerican Film Institute in these lists:
Most of the baseball action specific to the movie was filmed at Los Angeles'Wrigley Field, a site often used in the 1950s for Hollywood films about baseball. With the minor league Angels no longer operating, the ballpark was available. Filming was done in the spring of 1958.[Los AngelesTimes, May 27, 1958, p. 63]
The film also contains stock footage of action atGriffith Stadium in Washington (the actual home of the Senators)—including the high green wall that protruded into the centerfield area marked 408 feet—which gave author Douglas Wallop the plot device that allowed Joe to escape from the ballpark after the final out. However, Joe's actual escape from the field was filmed in deep center at Wrigley, with its 412 sign visible above the door, and ivy covering the walls which did not exist at Griffith.
The Griffith stock footage includes a couple of clips of Senators sluggerRoy Sievers, wearing uniform number 2, which was the number assigned to the fictional Joe Hardy. The filming at Griffith was done in early July, 1957.[WashingtonDaily News, July 6, 1957, p. 15] The Yankees swept the Senators in that three-game weekend series.[1][2][3] The dissimilarities between Wrigley and Griffith were pointed out by a Washington writer reviewing the film.[WashingtonDaily News, September 25, 1958, p. 52]
In 2009,Craig Zadan andNeil Meron attempted to produce a remake forNew Line Cinema, withJim Carrey as the Devil andJake Gyllenhaal as Joe Boyd. Lola was never cast, and the project has been postponed indefinitely.[26]
