A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN – 1992
Directed by Penny Marshall
Starring Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell, Megan Cavanagh, David Strathairn, Anne Ramsay, and Jon Lovitz
Genre: Historical Sports Drama
SPOILER WARNING - Ending of movie discussed pretty early....
It’s hard to believe that this movie came out thirty years ago and it had been a while since I first saw this in theaters. It's actually funnier and more resonant than I remember....though still too damn long. Maybe this is more of a '90's thing because we saw it with even greater films from Malcolm X to Schindler's List but director Penny Marshall book-ends this thing with one of the most unnecessarily long modern day framing devices I have ever seen....and this is coming from someone who LOVED baseball at the time of release and was even pumped to go to Cooperstown this same year. 🤔 I get the sentiment behind showing Cooperstown but it really adds nothing to the movie besides forcing the audience to playing that casting game with the older actresses as they each first appear, "Ok is THAT actress supposed to be an older Betty Spaghetti?"
That said, the rest of the movie is still pretty great....with the exception of the somewhat controversial ending to the big game which I’ll get to a bit later. It features a critical face-off at the plate between Hinson sisters who are now on opposite teams – Dottie played by Geena Davis and Kit played by Lori Petty. As they begin this story playing together on the same team, their relationship ends up being the heart of this story.
And speaking of Davis, she does a strong job of leading a pretty stacked cast - this was her during her early '90's peak, right after previous episode Thelma & Louise and the same year as the underrated Hero. She just COMMANDS the screen as the best player in the league....who's a 6 foot tall catcher….ok. 🙄 She's still funny, charismatic, and engaging all the same, looks great at the plate.....as does Lori Petty as her sister whose performance is more sympathetic than I remember. She's the resentful younger sister to the prodigy - it's tropey for sure but Petty sells it and you completely buy them as competitive sisters.
This was also the rare occasion of a Hollywood filmmaker in the '90's knowing just the RIGHT amount of Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell to include in her movie - they both generally stay in their respective '90's persona lanes and they're fun to watch playing off of each other. ;) Yes the extended swing dance sequence in the middle of the movie seems 100% shoehorned in just to allow Ms. Madonna the opportunity to show off some new retro dance moves on the big screen....but it's a fun sequence regardless.
And then there's HANKS....man I miss this Hanks, this was probably his last full-on comedy (non rom-com) performance for at least another decade and he is GLORIOUS. His Jimmy Dugan is a pretty tropey character as well - the drunken slob has-been who finds a new purpose - but he has so many fun outbursts and exchanges, I just didn't care! (Audio clip)
"If we paid you just a bit more Jimmy, could you be just a BIT more disgusting?"
"Well I can certainly use the money!"
No shortage of gems like those thanks to a screenplay from heartwarming comedy stalwarts Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel - those guys always knew how to bring the funny, I just wish Marshall had resisted the temptation to fall into another one of their over-sentimentalized endings. (Parenthood, City Slickers, Splash) Oh well. :(
Overall it’s still a very well-crafted movie loaded with fun period montages and loads of lush period detail - most importantly, the baseball on-screen is dazzling! Penny Marshall does a great job (with help from underrated DP Miroslav Ondricek) of showcasing the geography of the on-field play which is suitably exciting, helped by a cast which was clearly well-trained to play ball. ;) Also of note is the score from my man Hans Zimmer which...works MOST of the time when it's not loading up on the sentiment. You can tell that overall he's having some fun with his brass section to give a more '40's sound if nothing else....
Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film):
This category allows me the opportunity to introduce what I call “The Madonna Rule.” As many might be already aware, Madonna Louise Ciccone (her full name) has spent much of the past 35+ years revolutionizing pop music while also contributing to MANY a movie soundtrack. Starting in the mid 1980’s, she also started acting in movies and it would not be an exaggeration to refer to her acting career as…..decidedly…mixed. Here are the basics of this rule which this film completely coincides with:
1) NO film prominently featuring a Madonna song on the soundtrack which she ALSO co-stars in has ever been less than watchable....and that includes this very movie, Desperately Seeking Susan, Dick Tracy, A League of Their Own, and even a couple of films which she just has cameos in including Vision Quest and Die Another Day. (Not an objectively good movie but highly entertaining).
2) The second part of The Madonna Rule is that NO film she has acted in which DOESN'T feature a song of hers on the soundtrack is even remotely watchable! This group includes the ghastly Swept Away, Shanghai Surprise, Dangerous Game, and Body of Evidence….the latter of which came out a year after former episode Basic Instinct and was such a blatant rip-off, it made that film look better by comparison.
3) The final part of this rule is quite simple: if a Madonna song is prominently featured on the soundtrack for a movie and she is NOT featured in said movie, the likelihood is that the movie pretty much sucks. This includes With Honors, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (sorry I only like the first one), Get Smart, and Crossroads which was the SOLE starring vehicle of Brittney Spears….enough said.
4) Two GLARING exceptions to this are previous episode The Devil Wears Prada and At Close Range which to be fair starred her THEN husband Sean Penn and apparently, she spent a lot of time on-set. No rules are perfect.
Oh yeah, the song she performed for THIS movie and which also received an Oscar nomination for? “This Used to be My Playground” which plays over the end credits and is pretty damn good. (Audio clip)
Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film):
The late, great Penny Marshall was undoubtedly a trailblazing director – with the movie Big which came out a few years before this, she became the first woman to direct a $100 million blockbuster which is a feat she repeated a few years later with this film too. And I enjoyed most of her movies including this and Big…..also Jumping Jack Flash and Awakenings. But one issue I often had with her movies was how she handled the endings.
And this brings me back to that final collision at the plate in the final game of the World Series between Dottie and Kit….sorry but I'm just not crazy about how Marshall frames this key moment. For one thing, the score kicks in with triumphant music as we see Kit celebrating their victory with the other team…..why?? Yes it can serve the story overall to divert from expectations this way. I’m just at a loss rewatching this decades later as to why this moment is presented to the audience as a positive given that the Rockford Peaches have lost - THEY are the team we have been following this whole time and it's a team sport, it's OK to acknowledge it as a bummer for almost all of main protagonists. Just a strange choice.
And just before that is another one…..right before that, the camera closes in on Dottie’s hand dropping the ball when Kit runs into her at the plate. It’s filmed in a manner that KINDA makes it look even intentional on her part and it’s just confusing. Revisiting everything leading up to this moment, it’s easier to believe that Dottie did NOT drop the ball on purpose....but I can tell you when I first saw this in theaters, I thought the opposite and I wasn’t alone. Yes she was very sympathetic to Kit….but she had a FIERCE competitive spirit and it's a stretch to think that she would ACTUALLY throw the game after all of this - I mean she drove all the way back from Yellowstone for this! :) Kit was a runaway freight train rounding those bases, it tracks that she simply overpowered Dottie at that key moment. I just wish it was filmed differently and it’s not helped by the film suddenly CELEBRATING Kit’s victory immediately afterwards. Overall, it’s just frustrating to see such a top-flight filmmaker fumble the ending of what could have potentially been one of THE great sports dramas. (Audio clip)
Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):
EVERY memorable sports movie needs to have that one critical ingredient, one essential moment……the inspirational speech. And this movie has a doozie which happens to be delivered by Hanks late in the movie, just a couple of scenes before that critical final game. Amidst increased anxiety from other members of the ‘Peaches as to whether their husbands will be returning home safely from the war (World War II)….and following a heartbreaking scene where one of them receives a letter that his husband died in combat overseas, Dottie’s husband HAS just returned home safely and she has decided that it’s time to just go home with him and restart their lives together…..just before the ‘Peaches are about to enter the World Series no less!
Well just as she’s leaving to go on the road after this impetuous decision, she’s confronted by Jimmy who tells her what’s what – it’s relatively short for an inspirational speech but it’s still DAMN effective. (Audio clip)
MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):
At the end of the day, Geena Davis is the true standout in what I would consider to be one of THE best athletic acting performances of all time – a genuinely impressive combination of acting chops as she’s playing a relatively complex character while also being a true leader on the baseball field. No small feat honestly as you can find plenty of actors who can play convincing athletes, so many more who can portray convincing characters…..but VERY few who can pull off both so well at the same time, it’s truly an elite group: Kevin Costner in Bull Durham & Tin Cup, Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday, Woody Harrelson in White Men Can’t Jump, Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard, and more recently Margot Robbie in I Tonya. Davis is just among the elite physical actresses out there and it’s a shame that she wasn’t given enough roles to capitalize on that…..seriously check out The Long Kiss Goodnight which remains one of the more underrated action movies of the ‘90’s which unfortunately flopped at the time even though she was FANTASTIC in it.
Her Dottie Hinson is just a great character who we both care about and admire….and naturally, she was based on a real-life ballplayer named Dorothy Kamenshek who played for the REAL Rockford Peaches in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during the ‘40’s and ‘50’s. Dottie (as she was also nicknamed) played first base and was the all-time leader for the league in both hits an total bases - she was a true trailblazer for women’s sports and was eventually selected by Sports Illustrated as one of the Top 100 female athletes of the 20th century. For convincingly helping to bring her story (among others) to the big screen, Geena Davis is the MVP. (Audio Clip)
Final Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Is this the BEST baseball movie ever? Not likely but it's certainly in the conversation, easily Top Ten.....possibly Top Five. To be fair, even many of the best baseball movies (The Natural, Field of Dreams, Major League) have often fallen victim to too much sentimentality at times. 🤔 Still overall a fun and rewarding rewatch!
Streaming on Prime Video
And that ends another FIVE TOOL review
