In Ball Game,Kelly’s Eddie O’Brien and Sinatra’s Dennis Ryan are late reporting to springtraining because they’ve been on the road doing a vaudeville act. But, they have to come back becausethey’re two-thirds of the contending Wolves triple play, along with Munshin’s NatGoldberg (great song about that trio). They arrive to find out that the team owner has died and left the teamto a distant relative, K.C. Higgins. K.C. turns out to be a she, played by Esther Williams. (And, yes, she does have a swimmingscene.) Denny falls for her firstbecause she’s got a great throwing arm, but he also catches the eye of a girlin the stands, Shirley (Betty Garrett). Shirley’s certain they’re meant to be together, and Eddie and K.C. arefalling for each other anyway. There’s an attempt to try to get at Eddie to throw the pennant, butvirtue triumphs.
In On the Town,the boys are back in sailor suits. This time, they’re Gabey (Kelly) and Chip (Sinatra), and pal Ozzie(Munshin) is also along. Gabey andOzzie are set on finding girls while in port in New York; Chip wants to gosightseeing. Gabey sees a posterof “Miss Turnstiles” in the subway and decides she’s the girl for him. She’s real; her name is Ivy Smith(Vera-Ellen), only he’s got to find her. While they’re out searching, Chip gets picked up, literally, by taxidriver Brunhilde (Garrett again), and Ozzie meets budding anthropologist Claire(Ann Miller), who finds him a fine specimen. Gabey finds Ivy, the three couples head out on the town, andwhile there are a few mix-ups, all’s well in the end.
No heavy lifting here, no hard thinking required. Just sit back and enjoy three funmusicals, with Sinatra and Kelly having a good time all around. There are a few extras – text bios ofboth Sinatra and Kelly, the original trailers for all three films, two musicalnumbers that were dropped from Ball Game (both with explanatory text lead-ins), and a brief excerpt from an MGMdocumentary on the creation of Kelly and Tom’s duet from Anchors.
Anchors and On the Town have English and Frenchoptions for both the language track and subtitles (Dolby Mono); Ball Game is English only. All three look just great.
This set is a fine tribute to both Sinatra and Kelly. The closing song in Ball Game includes a reminder that bothhad their predecessors to whom they were inevitably compared (Bing Crosby forSinatra and Fred Astaire for Kelly), but these three films are marvelousreminders of just how good, and how very enjoyable, these two were. True entertainers, and this is agreat way to remember them.
Overall: 10.0 (Legendary)
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