Synopsis

As second baseman Dennis Ryan and shortstop Eddie O’Brien, respectively, Sinatra and Kelly play ball in the early 1900s for champion baseball team the Wolves. Ryan and O’Brien are song-and-dance men in the off-season, however, and are more interested in the call of vaudeville than the lure of the diamond – until the beautiful K.C. Higgins, played by Esther Williams, becomes the Wolves’ new owner

Cast & Crew

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Directed by Busby Berkeley

Produced by Arthur Freed

Screenplay by Harry Turgend and George Wells

Story by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen

Cast: Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Esther Williams, Betty Garrett, Edward Arnold, Jules Munshin

Cinematography: George Folsey

Editing: Blanche Sewell

A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture

Description

Color

93 minutes

Get out the peanuts and Cracker Jack as Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly team up onscreen for the second time in the 1949 Technicolor musical comedy TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME. As second baseman Dennis Ryan and shortstop Eddie O’Brien, respectively, Sinatra and Kelly fling the horsehide in the early 1900s for champion baseball team the Wolves. Their part in the crowd-pleasing double-play combo of “O’Brien To Ryan To Goldberg” – also one of the film’s musical numbers – is essential to the team’s success. Ryan and O’Brien are song-and-dance men in the off-season, however, and are more interested in the call of vaudeville than the lure of the diamond – until the beautiful K.C. Higgins, played by Esther Williams, becomes the Wolves’ new owner. “A Homerun Of Laughter, Romance And Fun” was one of the film’s original taglines, and as the boys pitch woo, win the hearts of the women they love and clinch the season’s crucial game, the stats of that slogan prove out.

The last film to be directed by the legendary Busby Berkeley, TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME was the second of three Sinatra and Kelly co-starrers, following up 1945’s Academy Award®-winning Anchors Aweigh and preceding the also Oscar-honored On The Town (1949). Gene Kelly conceived the idea for the film in homage to the early days of baseball, and collaborated with Stanley Donen on musical stagings including a delightful soft-shoe duet he did with Sinatra. In addition to the classic Tin Pan Alley title track (music by Albert von Tilzer, lyrics by Jack Norworth), among the memorable songs are ones with music & lyrics by Roger Edens, Betty Comden and Adolph Green including: “Yes, Indeedy,” “It’s Fate Baby, It’s Fate,” and “The Right Girl For Me,” the latter a wonderful ballad from Sinatra.

Warner Home Video’s DVD release of TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME as part of the signature Frank Sinatra Collection presents special features including: the deleted musical numbers “Baby Doll” and “Boys And Girls Like You And Me,” three theatrical trailers, notes, on Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly and subtitles in English and French.