Modern Screen (Jan-Nov 1952)

THE WINNING TEAM It may come as a surprise to baseball fans to find out after all these years that Doris Day won the 1926 World Series pennant for the Cardinals, but that's how The Winning Team has it. Playing Mrs. Grover Cleveland Alexander, widow of the diamond great, she manages to taxi from New York's Astor Hotel to Yankee Stadium between innings and, inspiring her husband (Ronald Reagan) by the sight, saves the day for St. Louis. Her ride, which features the film's final reels, is no mean trick by itself but is hardly anything compared with what the picture pulls on the movie-going public. The script follows Nebraska-born Alexander from his early days on the farm through his farm-club successes and trouble in the minor leagues, where he is hit in the head by a fast ball and develops diplopia, or double vision. Then he regains his sight and arm and soon becomes a major leaguer. Almost before he knows who has hit him he finds himself on the front lines in World War I France, then back in the States — and the big-leagues — again. A mysterious mound seizure drives him rapidly to drink after a physician tells him that if he continues to play ball it will be time out for him permanently. Doris eventually comes to his aid, but not to the baseball fans' or movie-goers'. The many present baseball stars (pitcher Bob Lemon, for instance) who are in the cast are lucky, for they appear only momentarily. Which is more than can be said for Miss Day or Mr. Reagan, who may never recover. And baseball fans are likely to suffer from doubledipsomania for the rest of their natural lives. Cast: Ronald Reagan, Doris Day. Frank Lovejoy. — Warners. MY SON JOHN My Son John is about an American traitor and how he grew. As such, it is as timely as yesterday's headlines and probably much more controversial. The timeliness is due to its subject matter, the controversy to its setting. For My Son John takes place in a typical U. S. small town and happens to an average American family, the Jeffersons. The parents (Helen Hayes and Dean Jagger) have two sons about to go to Korea — and John (Robert Walker), a brilliant young Government official. The latter 's delayed and somewhat truculent visit home provides the picture's main story line: his mother's discovery that her favorite son has ties with a Communist spy ring and the increasingly tragic necessity of deciding what to do, with love of country in constant conflict with mother love. This might be moving; it becomes shocking because of the story's insistence that a native Communist can so easily be the product of a typical home. Producer-directorco-writer Leo McCarey makes his main points again and again, and no one can argue with them: America must be alert against the often deceptively humanitarian doctrines spread by the Reds and their fellow travelers, and such men are not always foreigners. But, unfortunately, John Jefferson's story is told entirely from the outside (the tragedy, as Mr. McCarey sees it, is more the mother's than the son's); one learns to some extent how he got that way, but never why he felt that way. Since no really valid reasons are ever presented for John's fall to treason, his personal peculiarities may appear to be the cause of his downfall. He not only went to Soaping dulls hair. Halo glorifies it ! Not a soap, not an oily cream —Halo cannot leave dulling soap film! Wonderfully mild and gentle ^/y^^^\ —does not dry -^^^ ^-n't'lf or irritate! Leaves hair soft, manageable— shining with colorful natural highlights Halo glorifies your hair the very first ( time you use it. Gives fragrant "soft-water" lather :'M Zj?£§ _needs no ^ special rinse! ^^"^ Removes embarrassing dandruff from both § hair and scalp! [ / '^^S Halo reveals the hidden beauty of your hair!