Damn Yankees

Athletes, sex, and a touch of comedy usually wow 'em in the balcony, even those who are watching the movie. But Damn Yankees missed some where. Even the famous and controversial striptease scene fails to come off.

Hollywood has taken a smash Broadway musical about baseball and made it into a cinematized version of This Is Your Life, with Tab Hunter playing the clean-cut All-American boy. In fact, he never ceases to look as though he just stepped out of a Gillette TV commercial. It's not that Hunter can't act, but as a singer he makes a better baseball player, and as a baseball player, fortunately, he has a double.

Liberally spiced with song-and-dance routines, the plot revolves around the story of a fan of the National Pastime who sells his soul to the devil for the chance of leading his team to a pennant victory over the Yankees. Improbable as the plot may sound, especially the part about the Yankees' losing the pennant, it does provide an interesting background for the music.

Ray Walston is superbly funny as the Ivy-League Mephistopheles. Dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit and buttoned-down shirt, tie, coat, and vest, he looks amazingly like a Yalie. And it must be somewhat refreshing to have our suspicions confirmed after all these years that Daddy is a Yale man.

Gwen Verdon plays the sexy siren, Lola, and now that she appears close up, it's easy to understand why she looked so much better from a distance in the musical. To the movie-viewer, Miss Verdon's lines are plain enough except for the aging ones, which remain well hidden until the last. And when she moves about, as she does so well, her facial makeup has a tendency to shift, giving her face an appearance not unlike that of lumpy oatmeal.

To please the moral conscience of the degenerate movie-going public, Miss Verdon does a burlesque on the art of burlesque in the seduction scene. Apparently, movie producers believe the only accepted approach to the pursuit of life is a humorous one. Nevertheless, in the words of a modern bard, wherever Miss Verdon goes, "there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on."

The least encouraging features about the movie are the technical details involved. Sprawled across a wide screen the color appears blotched on. The whole spectacle closely resembles Salvador Dali's view of a Japanese print. The blurred effect of seeing one and one-half people on the screen kept patrons continually wiping their glasses.

All in all, parts of the movie are entertaining, thanks to Walston's antics and Miss Verdon's talent for moving about, but this isn't enough to provide the film with the success the musical enjoyed. Even embittered Milwaukee fans won't pay for the sadistic pleasure of seeing the Yankees lose--though some might bargain for their souls if an offer were made.