Match d'amour

A film that proves even the MGM musical formula of the 1940s could result in some real duds. Apparently, several principals involved in the making of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" didn't get along while filming, and it shows. But even if they had, I don't know that the film would have been much better for it. Under the best of circumstances, I'm usually pretty resistant to Gene Kelly's charms, but he's nearly unwatchable in this, mugging constantly for the camera like he's playing to the back row of a vaudeville house. Frank Sinatra fares better as his bumbling sidekick, and Esther Williams is inoffensive if pretty bland as the love interest for Kelly. A dingbat plot is strung together with a bunch of songs, which can work if the songs are good enough, but they're not here. In fact, aside from the title tune, which I associate with the seventh inning stretch of Cubs games anyway, not a single song in the film is memorable, and the musical numbers are all the same -- two or three characters standing in a line singing directly into the camera. My attention wandered greatly during this film; in fact, I might have even dozed off. Three strikes and you're out. Grade: D