"Kill the Umpire" director Lloyd Bacon's sci-fi sports saga "It Happens Every Spring" is a frivolous but entertaining baseball comedy. Ray Milland plays a bespectacled college chemistry professor who invents a mysterious liquid during a sabotaged experiment that he is conducting to develop a substance that repels insects from wood. Everything comes to a screeching halt after a baseball shatters the window of his laboratory and smashes his glassware equipment. Vernon K. Simpson (Ray Milland of "Dial M for Murder") cleans up the debris and discovers that the fluid applied to a ball swerves around wooden objects. The initial test looks extremely flawed because Simpson hangs the baseball by a string and passes wood in close proximity to it and the ball bounds. Problem is you know that somebody had to be tugging the string off-screen because we are not shown in the medium shot where the string is attached to a stick. (This didn't bother me that much but some may object to it. Anyway, this enables Simpson to throw a pitch that with which no batter can connect.
Vernon rushes over to see university president, Professor Greenleaf (Ray Collins of "Perry Mason"), to persuade him to approve his request for an impromptu leave of absence. Greenleaf agrees, and our baseball-obsessed hero tears off so he won't miss his train. Greenleaf had been warned by a colleague that Vernon goes flaky during the summer months, but nobody knows exactly what governs Vernon's erratic behavior. He just loves baseball, and a radio broadcast from a baseball game during his class lecture distracts him. Meantime, Vernon visits the main offices of a non-specific St. Louis baseball team and struggles to convince hostile club manager Jimmy Dolan (Ted de Corsia of "The Steel Jungle") and club owner (Ed Begley of "Hang'em High") that he can win the pennant for them if they allow him to hurl. Naturally, these guys are astonished that he can throw a ball that nobody can swat. The complication is that Vernon doesn't want anybody, particularly the president of the university, Professor Alfred Greenleaf, to find out what he is doing. Furthermore, what he doesn't know is that catcher, Monk Lanigan (Paul Douglas of "Fourteen Hours"), has been sneaking his stuff to grow hair. The scenes of Monk and later Dolan combing their unruly hair is funny. As it turns out, Vernon and Professor Greenleaf's daughter Deborah (Jean Peters of "Apache") are romantically involved, and Vernon is hoping that his scientific discovery will land them a fortune because his university teaching position pays peanuts. Nevertheless, Vernon proves his value to St. Louis and they sign him to a contract. Vernon comes up with a fake name King Kelly to throw anybody off the scent of his identity. He dazzles everybody until the smashes his fingers, and he cannot catch Vernon's pitches. Eventually, Monk meets Deborah and learns about Vernon's secret identity. Things take a turn for the worst when Vernon finds out that the last bottle of his stuff is gone. Director Lloyd Bacon believes in playing comedy with emphasizing the humor. Nobody in the cast behaves as if they were in a comedy, and this makes these shenanigans doubly invigorating. The final catch is that Vernon snags a line drive during the pennant game and it fractures his hand so he can no longer play baseball.
The theme of the discrepancy between the salary of athletes and college professors crops up repeatedly. Interestingly enough, the filmmakers could care less that what Vernon is doing raises ethical questions. Vernon's discovery allows him to take advantage of the opposing team rather than steroids enable an athlete to grow bigger muscles. Vernon's special ability strikes me as being at odds with good sportsmanship. "It Happens Every Spring" qualifies as wholesome but amusing hokum.
Vernon rushes over to see university president, Professor Greenleaf (Ray Collins of "Perry Mason"), to persuade him to approve his request for an impromptu leave of absence. Greenleaf agrees, and our baseball-obsessed hero tears off so he won't miss his train. Greenleaf had been warned by a colleague that Vernon goes flaky during the summer months, but nobody knows exactly what governs Vernon's erratic behavior. He just loves baseball, and a radio broadcast from a baseball game during his class lecture distracts him. Meantime, Vernon visits the main offices of a non-specific St. Louis baseball team and struggles to convince hostile club manager Jimmy Dolan (Ted de Corsia of "The Steel Jungle") and club owner (Ed Begley of "Hang'em High") that he can win the pennant for them if they allow him to hurl. Naturally, these guys are astonished that he can throw a ball that nobody can swat. The complication is that Vernon doesn't want anybody, particularly the president of the university, Professor Alfred Greenleaf, to find out what he is doing. Furthermore, what he doesn't know is that catcher, Monk Lanigan (Paul Douglas of "Fourteen Hours"), has been sneaking his stuff to grow hair. The scenes of Monk and later Dolan combing their unruly hair is funny. As it turns out, Vernon and Professor Greenleaf's daughter Deborah (Jean Peters of "Apache") are romantically involved, and Vernon is hoping that his scientific discovery will land them a fortune because his university teaching position pays peanuts. Nevertheless, Vernon proves his value to St. Louis and they sign him to a contract. Vernon comes up with a fake name King Kelly to throw anybody off the scent of his identity. He dazzles everybody until the smashes his fingers, and he cannot catch Vernon's pitches. Eventually, Monk meets Deborah and learns about Vernon's secret identity. Things take a turn for the worst when Vernon finds out that the last bottle of his stuff is gone. Director Lloyd Bacon believes in playing comedy with emphasizing the humor. Nobody in the cast behaves as if they were in a comedy, and this makes these shenanigans doubly invigorating. The final catch is that Vernon snags a line drive during the pennant game and it fractures his hand so he can no longer play baseball.
The theme of the discrepancy between the salary of athletes and college professors crops up repeatedly. Interestingly enough, the filmmakers could care less that what Vernon is doing raises ethical questions. Vernon's discovery allows him to take advantage of the opposing team rather than steroids enable an athlete to grow bigger muscles. Vernon's special ability strikes me as being at odds with good sportsmanship. "It Happens Every Spring" qualifies as wholesome but amusing hokum.