Damn Yankees! (1958)

Damn Yankees! (1958) – The movie version of the hit Broadway musical.  A middle-aged Joe Boyd makes a deal with the devil (Ray Walston). In return for his soul, Joe becomes Joe Hardy (Tab Hunter), a younger version of himself with all his baseball skills ready to go.  It’s the chance to help his beloved Washington Senators win the American League pennant!

Director- George Abbott/Stanley Donen         Starring- Tab Hunter, Ray Walston, Gwen Verdon

Transferring musicals to the movies is always a challenge.  The worst way to do it is to simply move the stage version to the big screen.  Which is exactly what they did here.  All the cast (only Hunter is new) plus the directors.  It looks like they simply did movie versions of the sets and called “action”. Legend says everytime Hunter suggested some small change, he was told that wasn’t they way they’d done it on Broadway.

Sadly, the result lacks any real visual interest and is a little boring.  In fact, the whole show comes off as rather old.  Some shows age better than others.  Meanwhile, Gwen Verdon suffers her own issues with the move from stage to screen.  She plays Lola, Satan’s number one seductress.  The issue is that some of her best moves (mostly the dreaded hip wiggles that plagued Elvis on TV) were banned by the Production Code.  What you’re left with is a seductress that falls flat.  Maybe it was sexy back then, but by modern standards what’s left is awkward and uncomfortable.  Oh, let me be honest.  My thought as I watched her in the locker room scene was “This feels like you’re middle mom trying to be sexy”.  Not good.  Which is a shame.  Verdon was a great dancer with impeccable comic timing.  Just not quite the irresistible object of masculine desire.

The show does have a couple of classic tunes, “You Gotta Have Heart”, and “Whatever Lola Wants”.  Hunter is charmingly naive as the middle-aged man trying to be a young star.  Joe discovers that fame and fortune don’t make him miss his beloved wife of many years any less.  Meg Boyd (played very much as a classic ’50s housewife by Shannon Bolin) waits quietly at home, certain that her husband hasn’t abandoned her.  Meanwhile, she gets some pretty bad advice from her “friends”.  Jean Stapleton makes her movie debut here as one of the friends.

The movie’s ending is also something from a different age.  Walston has fun chewing the scenery.  Even though this movie version lets her down a bit, Gwen Verdon is fun to watch as well.

Why You Will Like It –  Warm, charming, some fun songs, and a good, old-fashioned happy ending.

Rating – *** Worth A Look