Trailer trash?

Reading Ron Shelton’s wonderful book, The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit — which I reviewed for an upcoming post on Bookreporter.com — I was interested in seeing the trailer again. I wondered if it was “true to the final product.” Many of those offer the so many key highlights that the rest of the movie turns out to be a disappointment.

Judging by the “official trailer,” it obviously promotes the love story over the baseball, so you be the judge of how accurate it is.

Of course, this opened up a rabbit hole and I wondered about trailers for other baseball movies.

The clips here are for theatrical releases only. There have been a number of made-for-TV films  ostensibly about baseball (although is any baseball movie really about the national pastime?) — Don’t Look Back: The Story of Leroy “Satchel” Paige, Babe Ruth (featuring Stephen Lang), and A Winner Never Quits (about one-armed outfielder Pete Gray) among others — but I had to draw the line somewhere.

I’ve given each entry two grades. The first is for the film itself and the second is for the accuracy of the trailer, so it’s not unlikely to have grades of D/A-plus. You’ve been warned.

Also bear in mind that this is just one person’s opinionated opinion. Sensibilities over what constitutes a good movie changes with time. One wonders how Casablanca or Citizen Kane would be received today; probably too slow, boring, and not explodey enough.

A League of Their Own.

Bookshelf ratings: A/B-plus. Extra credit for Vin Scully doing the voice-over; would have been an A but for the cheesy variation on “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

This one came out to mark the 30th anniversary of the film’s release and gets an A/A.

And FWIT, here’s the trailer for the upcoming Amazon Prime TV show. Looks a lot better than the horrible version that lasted just six episodes. Here’s the pilot for that one via Youtube.

Field of Dreams.

Very true to the spirit of the film. Grades: B-plus/A.

Bang the Drum Slowly.

It’s interesting to see how trailers change over the years. BTDS came out in 1973, a more innocent time for storytelling. Grade: B-plus for both.

The Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings.

Terrific tagline: “In the 1930s, to play in the major leagues, you had to be white. To play in the negro leagues, you had to be great.” Fun and pretty accurate for something that came out prior to the days of deep-dive baseball research. Grade: A/A.

Moneyball.

Needless to say, I’ll watch just about anything on baseball. But even if I wasn’t a hardcore fan I would want to see Moneyball based on the trailer. It exudes drama and humor. Grades: A (despite the total miscasting of Philip Seymour Hoffman as Oakland As manager Art Howe)/A-plus.

Trouble with the Curve.

Having seen this one, I’m prejudiced. I hated it and the trailer only confirms my feelings. Grade: D/A.

42.

Fast cuts are perfect for this fast-paced pioneer. Grade: B-plus for both because of the hammering home of “lessons.” (My review of 42.)

One also has to notice that the actors who portray athletes these days have to have skills to be convincing, not like William Bendix or Anthony Perkins. Although kudos for the producers of Fear Strikes Out for the progressive decision to portray mental illness. Grades: The Babe Ruth Story. F/C. Fear Strikes Out: D/A.

Cobb.

Did you know that Ron Shelton directed another baseball movie? Cobb, released in 1994, was not well received by most critics. But I think the trailer was pretty true to the film, which was based on the book co-written (ghostwritten?) by Al Stump, which was not without its own controversies. Grades: D-plus (for an over-the-top Tommy Lee Jones)/B-plus.

The Babe.

Remember what I just said about contemporary actors needing some athletic ability to portray ballplayers? Evidently they didn’t get the message when they cast John Goodman — one of my favorites, actually — as The Babe in this 1992 production. The hefty actor was way too big to represent a strapping young Ruth. And like Bendix, he was too old to convincingly depict the Hall of Famer as a younger man. The Babe is considered one of the worst baseball films and the trailer does little to counter that. Grade. D/B-minus.

Major League.

Another “misfits beat the odds” movie. Heralded when it first came out, perhaps because of the cast, but I don’t know if it stands the test of time. Grades: B/C.

The Bad News Bears.

The trailer for the original 1976 release is a bit long (more than three minutes) and I was shocked at the racist language coming of of these moppets’ mouths. But it’s still pretty cool. Grade:A/B-plus. Like Major League, I didn’t bother with any of the sequels which I consider money-grabs.

The 2005 version on the other hand raises the age-old question: was this trip really necessary? But again, it was pretty representative of how crappy the latter was, so judging by that alone, I have to give it an A-minus/D. (I also thought the kid in  wheelchair was totally gratuitous and a mean joke rather than an uplifting message about inclusion.)

The Pride of the Yankees.

What’s the term for movies that you will watch over and over? For me, that movie is TPOTY tops the list. Again, set in a more simple era when heroism was totally valued. Grade: A-plus.

Eight Men Out.

One of the first baseball books I read, it remains a favorite, even if later volumes are much better and more accurately researched. The John Sayles production is very true to Elliot Asinof’s original. Grades: B-plus/B.

Mr. Baseball

A fish-out-of-water cliche but still one of my favorites. Grades: B/B (downgraded because of the use of Tim McCarver and the song “Turning Japanese.” Would love to interview Dennis Haysbert — who also played Pedro Cerrano in Major League one of these days.

It Happens Every Spring.

Remember when one of the stars of the movie served as “host” for the trailer? Probably not. Grade: C-plus.

The Monty Stratton Story.

Here’s another, with June Allyson playing the Paul Douglas role. Grade: B-plus/C-minus because not enough emphasis on the ballplayer over the romance. I guess studio execs wanted to appeal to the women in the audience. Plus the timeline is scrambled. (Vaguely reminiscent of a seen in Bull Durham where Nuke pitches to Millie in Annie’s back yard.)

And finally, my all-time pick for worst (and that’s going some: The Yankles.

Cliched, stereotyped, and poorly acted: the triple crown of bad cinema. But if you’re not paying attention to the trailer, you deserve what you get (despite all the film festival accolades. Guess they felt it would be anti-Semitic to criticize. Grade: F/A-plus for the yeshiva version of The Bad News Bears.