42: The True Story of an American Legend

Not necessarily.

An Ohio Wesleyan scene could have taken 15 seconds. Show Rickey telling Robinson, flashback to the player crying, show a young Rickey watching, then flash forward.

A Rachel dealing with prejudice scene, and the accompanying Jackie being sympathetic scene may have taken 5 minutes.

The Montreal montage, another 2-3 minutes.

 

OK I give on the time part. I think since it's primarily Robinson's story, they're right to let us experience it as he did/would. I could go either way on Montreal.

They had Rachel getting her first glimpse of a "white only" sign on a bathroom door then going right in. So there's that. And then the lady at the airport ticket desk bumping them off their flight.

 

Nice opening weekend box office ($27 million) for a sports movie, especially for one that only cost $40 million to make.

 

Alan Tudyk steps away from Suburgatory to take on what's a very vilified role. Interesting choice.

 

Reading about Chapman on Wikipedia, sounds like he truly was a piece of work. When he played for the Yankees, he would taunt Jewish fans at the Stadium with Nazi salutes.

 

Wait a minute... Ben Chapman is played by Steve the Pirate from Dodgeball?

 

Damn it!

We were going to go this weekend.

 

If you can dodge racist taunts, you can dodge a ball.

 

Liked catching the name "Dick Whitman" on one of Rickey's organizational depth charts.

As well as seeing George O'Malley and the old Chief of Staff from Grey's Anatomy with roles. I was hoping Durocher would have bagged a threesome with Izzy and Lexi (ya know, artistic license) instead of with the actress.

Otherwise, a well done biopic.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/whitmdi01.shtml

Unfortunately, no Don Draper has played organized ball.

 

That makes sense.

Whitman left baseball for Korea in 1951 where he was "killed in action"...

 

I saw it yesterday. I went in with a bit of trepidation due to Hollywood's past with baseball history (see any movie ever made about Babe Ruth), but overall I thought it was very good. It was reasonably historically accurate--most of the names and places were correct. Although there were a few obvious liberties taken, they didn't seem to alter the movie. It's hard to show everything he went through in two hours, but I thought they kept to the main points. The computer generated images of Ebbets Field, Crosley Field, Forbes Field and the Polo Grounds were neat (although they short-changed the left field terrace at Crosley). The actor who played Robinson looked reasonably like him and did a decent job of imitating his batting stance. I thought the guy who played Durocher was spot on (except they obviously couldn't have an F-bomb every other word and still keep the PG-13 rating), except it was a little cheesy dropping the "nice guys finish last" line while he was in bed with Lorraine Day while receiving the call from Rickey. The ball players for the most part looked like they knew how to play baseball on the field. Also, I think it was good that they resisted the urge to go for an over-the-top Hollywood fakey ending, which would have taken away from the whole thing.

One problem I had was that I don't think they gave Happy Chandler his due. It is my understanding that Chandler played an important role in allowing Rickey to bring in Robinson--he could have easily have gone all Kennesaw Mountain and squashed the whole thing and would have had the support of the majority of the owners. In his short appearance in the movie, Chandler comes off as a a dimwitted characature). Also, it was my understanding that Durocher had been consorting with gamblers and unsavory types and that was as important in his suspension as his scandalous relationship with Lorraine Day.

These are all minor points I think. Overall it is one of the better Hollywood efforts at baseball in a long time.