Damn Yankees [VHS]

Damn Yankees [VHS]
by George Abbott, Stanley Donen

Damn Yankees [VHS]

List Price: ~~$19.98~~
Category: VHS Video
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Product details

Actor: Gwen Verdon, Ray Walston, Russ Brown, Shannon Bolin, Tab Hunter
Director: George Abbott, Stanley Donen
Writer: George Abbott
Producer: Stanley Donen
Producer: Frederick Brisson
Producer: Harold Prince
Producer: Robert E. Griffith
Writer: Douglass Wallop
Edition: VHS Tape
Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Running Time: 111 minutes
Release Date: 1992-04-01
Audience Rating: Unrated
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Studio: Warner Home Video

VHS Movie Reviews of Damn Yankees [VHS]

Movie Review: I'm happy
Summary: 5 Stars

This is an old-time favorite at our house. The quality of the DVD was excellent.
I have nothing to complain about.

Movie Review: WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?
Summary: 5 Stars

1958 DAMN YANKEES directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen. Movie based on the big stage hit of the same name, uses all the actors from the play with the addition of a "Hollywood" name, Tab Hunter, who is very good in this movie. Story about a man who sells his soul to the devil, played by Ray Walston, (in the role that made him a star), so he can play baseball for the Washington Senators and help them win the Pennant. Gwen Verdon, dancing Bob Fosse choreography, is certainly one of the reasons to see this film. She plays the Devil's assistant. She is great in the "Whatever Lola Wants" and the nightclub dance nuimbers. And you can see her future husband, Bob Fosse, dance with her in the "Who's got the Pain" dance sequence. The "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo." number with the baseball team is fun. Great songs, great dancing, great acting/story, what's not to like?

The print and color on this DVD are gorgeous.

Movie Review: The Washington Senators have got heart... miles and miles and miles of heart (and, okay, a deal with the Devil)
Summary: 5 Stars

Throw in some baseball and several catchy songs, and dust off that old Faust legend, and you get this breezy 1958 musical from Warner Brothers. Originally a hugely successful Broadway play, DAMN YANKEES returns most of the original stage cast, with Tab Hunter taking over in the lead role. And, having seen the uber-bland, very clean cut Tab Hunter in other films, I probably should've scoffed at his being cast in a showy song & dance flick except that, surprisingly, the man actually unveils a more relaxed, fun-loving side to him. So it all works.

Joe Boyd (Robert Shafer) is a middle-aged, die-hard fan of the Washington Senators, and because the Senators are pretty awful, Joe is also a long-suffering fan. After grousing over another of his team's inept showings on television (with the Senators again getting pummeled by the Yankees), Joe exclaims "One long ball hitter, that's what we need! I'd sell my soul for one long-ball hitter." Moments later, the mysterious dapperly-dressed Mr. Applegate appears on his porch and an infernal bargain is struck: a long ball hitter for a soul. But with an escape clause which allows Joe Boyd to change his mind before a set deadline.

Soon the woeful Senators have a new player on the roster, a 22-year-old powerhouse slugger named Joe Hardy (Hunter), or as one female reporter dubs him: "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo." Joe Hardy promptly leads his team from the cellar to contention and, ultimately, to a pennant race with the New York Yankees. You'd think Joe Hardy and Mr. Applegate would be ecstatic. But, no.

It's that thing about absence and how it makes the heart grow fonder. Joe Hardy is having second thoughts. He misses the wife he'd abandoned, misses his old life as Joe Boyd. He's wandered back into his old neighborhood and managed to rent a room in his old house, all just so he'd be closer to a wife who's now decades older than him. And, of course, all this is stressing out Applegate. Fearing that he might lose out on this soul, he sics the demonic temptress Lola on Joe (She's irresistible, you fool!).

For old-school folks like me, DAMN YANKEES is great fun. This movie rides on the playful, gleeful performances of Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon, and on the songs, several of which have managed to stick with me even after all this time. I savor them all, from Shafer and Hunter's poignant "Goodbye, Old Girl" and the exuberant "(You've Gotta Have) Heart" and "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo" to Verdon's seductive showstopper "Whatever Lola Wants." And then there's the mambo treat "Who's Got the Pain" (Erp!), also performed by Verdon and partnered up by noted choreographer Bob Fosse (and also Verdon's hubbie).

So, yeah, this movie is tailored more towards comedy and musical numbers, so the baseball sequences aren't exactly what you'd call gritty or suspenseful. However, I dig the mythic, folklorish quality which Joe Hardy achieves, and I'm even reminded a bit of THE NATURAL's Roy Hobbs. Tab Hunter unexpectedly shows a lighthearted personality, and that doesn't hurt. But Ray Walston is exceptional as the beleaguered Devil, and Gwen Verdon really sells her sexy demoness part. Watching these two actors, I can see how the Broadway show ran for an astonishing 1019 performances.

And, for whatever it's worth, the DVD also includes the theatrical trailer which, by the way, trumpets the title of this movie as "What Lola Wants" with "Damn Yankees" in tiny parenthesis right below it.

Movie Review: Best 10 bucks I have ever spent !
Summary: 5 Stars

For a little over $ 10 , I got a piece of my childhood back...I have only seen this movie once in my life, and being a child I didn't see just how wonderful it is....and ALL the talent that was there!!!

Movie Review: Damn Yankees
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a classic. My husband really enjoys this movie from his youth. Good storyline and a musical taboot. Very enjoyable Tab Hunter and Ray Walston oldie.

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Summary of Damn Yankees [VHS]

America's pastime gets a Faustian twist in this 1958 studio musical, which recounts the ballpark bargain struck by an aging Washington Senators fan obsessed with helping his team trump the Yanks. With echoes of the real-life 1919 Shoeless Joe Jackson scandal, and tart observations on the tradeoffs between youth and experience, Damn Yankees fuses a classic dramatic dilemma with musical comedy to often charming effect.

In transferring George Abbott's Broadway hit to the screen, codirectors Abbott and Stanley Donen are smart enough to retain Richard Adler and Jerry Ross's clever songs, Bob Fosse's sizzling choreography (with Fosse himself on camera for the sultry mambo number), and stars Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon, reprising their devilish turns as the Horned One himself, Mr. Applegate, and his temptress, Lola. Where the team strikes out, unfortunately, is in their concession to marquee politics, handing the pivotal role of Joe Hardy to handsome, vapid, celluloid heartthrob Tab Hunter, whose thin voice and unsteady screen presence argue that he should have stayed in the dugout.

Walston is reliably spry and acerbic as the canny archangel, and Verdon, in one of her rare starring screen turns, confirms the comedic timing and sexy, muscular grace that made her a deserved draw in subsequent stage hits including another Fosse triumph, Sweet Charity. With her combination of feline grace and alternately steely, flirtatious femininity, Verdon makes you believe her when she sings, "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets." --Sam Sutherland

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