Why so much hype?

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Karl Malden stomps all over this movie with a demonstrative performance of an over domineering Father. Anthony Perkins gives an almost equal performance as Jimmy Piersall Major league ballplayer. From young Jimmie's High school days in Connecticut to Scranton, PA and on to the Red Sox. Jimmy tried to please his Dad in his attempt to make the Major Leagues. When Jimmy finished third in a batting race in the minor leagues. Father Piersall took the wind out of Jimmie's sails by snubbing the effort which was the common theme in causing Jimmie's apparent metal breakdown. Both actors melded well against each other and I liked the stark expressions on Perkins face as the forceful Father picks at him time after time pushing Jimmy over the edge. Fine job of acting as well for the curious Psychiatrist Doctor Brown (Adam Williams) as a restrained Piersall in full straight jacket is fighting to get out for more physical violence. Dr. Brown just looks at the tragic ball player and say quite simply, "So your Jim Piersall!" Mr. Piersall tries to undermine the Doctor by sneaking into the hospital against his orders of visiting his very disturbed son. All I can tell you is leave the flowers and candy at home. Perkins acting was adequate until he picked up a baseball. The real Jimmy Piersall was flabbergasted by seeing his self portrait destroyed on screen by a lanky doofus who throws a ball like a girl. Other goofs mare this sports drama as Jimmy seems to wear a different uniform from the rest of the team. The Physical aspects were overlooked by director Robert Mulligan as Anthony Perkins can stab a woman in a shower with vigor in Psycho, but on a ball field his body language reminded me more of Tommy Tune or Richard Chamberlain. I grade this attempt four out of ten Red Sox tickets.

I liked this movie fine, though it's rather clichéd and def. from the fifties. Let's see what is good and bad.Good: *Tony Perkins-always played madness so well, a unique talent.*Karl Malden as the concerned overbearing dad living thru sonnyboy's career. You all know the type.*Sympathetic shrink. You know That type too-complete w/ pipe.*All things go back to Freud and daddy.*Enjoyed Joe Cronin(not played by the real Joe C...) and Fenway.Bad: *Perkins as hitter or outfielder. Yikes! *Blaming Daddy issues for his problems. Bi-polar guys, the real Piersall had THAT as a root-cause to his problems. Yes I know it was pre-Lithium etc. But you get the idea.*TV-movie style film-making. Someone said 'Playhouse 90'. Yes.*Bloopers-Fenway lacking the Green Monster etc in the background.*No Ted Williams.I'll give it *** outta **** because it was heartfelt and well acted.

A based-on-fact story of Jimmy Piersall, a major league player of the 1950s who suffered what looks like a major depression with some paranoid ideas. Not much could be done with major league mental illnesses at the time, before the French accidentally discovered anti-psychotic meds. The movie ends, as all such movies do whenever possible, on an up-beat note with Piersall (Tony Perkins) returning to the Red Sox after defeating his demons.I have no idea how closely the movie sticks to the real facts of Piersall's life, but it certainly hews close to the formula line. Basically, everything is blamed on Piersall's father (Karl Malden), who pushed the kid too hard, brutally sometimes, to excel. Nothing would do but that Piersall not only play for the Sox but that he play the OUTFIELD. Shortstop wasn't good enough. Poor kid. While still in the minors, in Scranton, he brags to his pop that he's the third highest hitter in the league. Malden smiles and says, "Well, that's not first." Think about that, next time your kid comes home with a B plus on his report card. You want to drive him nuts? I don't doubt that Piersall's father was pushy about his son's training and career. For all we know there may be as many sports fathers as there are stage mothers. But it seems a bit unfair to make him the sole heavy. It's not easy to drive someone crazy, not as easy as it seems in the movies anyway. It helps a lot, especially with major affective disorders, if you bring something genetic to the party, as numerous studies have shown. Not that genetics explains everything, because one identical twin may "get it" while the other doesn't.Anyway, the movie isn't very satisfying, as a movie. The director, Robert Mulligan, has done better work elsewhere. And Tony Perkins gives a by-the-numbers performance as a madman, with his facial muscles trembling and his eyes bulging. How primitive can you get? He was a much better (if entirely different) kind of psychotic in "Psycho." An improved script might have helped him. Malden is okay as the well-meaning but destructive father whom Perkins finally tells off at the cathartic climax. Perkins' wife's role is underwritten and doesn't contribute much as Malden's potential rival.It would have been nice too if we'd seen a little more about baseball, the sport and the career ladder, and less of the formulaic material on having a breakdown. At least your performance on the baseball diamond is something you can do something about. In the grip of mental illness like Piersall's, you're practically helpless, and that's not too dramatic.

I saw this movie again, on a friend's VHS tape, for the first time in a long, long time. This formed the following question in my mind. What do Gary Cooper, Dan Dailey, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Stewart have in common? Two things. First, all were good-looking, virile screen presences, and all appeared in some outstanding movies and gave outstanding performances. Second, all starred in baseball movies, portraying prominent real-life baseball stars, and none of them exhibited the least bit of capability to throw or catch a baseball, or swing a bat. If any of them had attended your family picnic, not one of these guys (except for his celebrity) would have been better than a late-round choice in a choose-up softball game - even including a group with your fat Uncle Al, elderly Aunt Edna, etc.On the other hand, Dennis Quaid, Kevin Costner, and some others - particularly Robert Redford - have appeared in baseball movies and given performances which make them appear capable of leaving the set and suiting-up with the Dodgers, Yankees, or another major.However, Perkins makes Cooper, Reagan, Dailey and Stewart all look like Albert Pujols or Pedro Martinez. If you gave a ball and gloves, say, to two Bulgarian 10-year-old girls, who had never seen either, they could appear more adept at playing catch than Perkins and Karl Malden did in this flick.I lived in Chicago some years ago, when Harry Caray announced the White Sox games in old Comiskey Park, with Jimmy Piersall as his sidekick and color man. Piersall was thoroughly interesting and engaging in this position, and entertainingly outspoken, and still occasionally a bit "over the edge." While not an all-time super star, he was an excellent player, and the latter portions of this film were a large part of the picture's focus, displaying with the severe problems he had, and subsequently overcame.But another aspect is that displaying his normal film persona, Perkins was probably the one actor who could display even more neurotic tendencies, angst, and hyper/outrageous actions, than Piersall did in his real-life trials.Still a good story, and even more interesting now as something of a "period piece," both in terms of the time period shown and the film style when made.(This is a film where they should have used actual footage, or a stand-in at long range, whenever possible, instead of displaying Perkins' baseball ineptitude.)p.s. If Tony Perkins had attended the "family picnic," for the softball game, would have been best to let him perhaps keep score and make certain nobody tripped over the bats.