Rating: NR
Genre: Drama
Release Date: 03/06/2001
SubTitles: French/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD
Run Time: 77 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: MGM

Despite its lack of production values and box-office "names," The Jackie Robinson Story is one of the best and most convincing baseball biopics ever filmed. Brooklyn Dodgers second baseman Jackie Robinson plays himself, and quite well indeed. The film traces Robinson's career from his college days, when he excelled as a track star at Pasadena College and as UCLA's All-Sports record holder. Upon his graduation, Robinson tries to get a coaching job, but this is the 1940s, and most doors are closed to black athletes. After serving in the army, Robinson plays with the Negro Baseball League, where his uncanny skills attract the attention of Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Anxious to break down the "color line" that exists in major-league baseball, Robinson is chosen in 1946 to play for the Brooklyn farm team in Montreal. In a harrowing sequence, Rickey lets Robinson know what he's in for by bombarding him with insults and racial slurs. The manager is merely testing Robinson's ability to withstand the pressure: he wants a black ballplayer "with guts enough not to fight back." Robinson agrees to ignore all racial epithets for the first two years of his Brooklyn contract. Despite the unabashed hatred to which he is subjected during his year with Montreal, Robinson steadfastly continues to turn the other cheek, and in 1947 he graduates to the Dodgers lineup. After a slow start, Robinson justifies the faith put in him by Rickey. The Dodgers win the pennant race, and slowly but surely the ban on black players vanishes in the Big Leagues. Though a model of restraint by 1990s standards, The Jackie Robinson Story is surprisingly frank in its detailing of the racial tensions of its own era. It falters only in a couple of silly vignettes involving comic-relief ballplayer Ben Lessey. The cast is uniformly fine, including Louise Beavers as Robinson's mother, Ruby Dee as his wife Rae (Dee would later play Robinson's mother in the 1990 TV movie The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson), Joel Fluellen as his brother Mac, Minor Watson as Branch Rickey, and best of all, Richard Lane as Montreal manager Clay Hopper.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Be the first to review this product!

Cast:
Jackie Robinson - Himself
Ruby Dee - Rae Robinson
Minor Watson - Branch Rickey
Louise Beavers - Jackie's Mother
Richard Lane - Hopper
Harry Shannon - Charlie
Ben Lessy - Shorty
Bill Spaulding - Bill Spaulding
Billy Wayne - Clyde Sukeforth
Joel Fluellen - Mack Robinson
Bernie Hamilton - Ernie
Kenny Washington - Tigers' Manager
Pat Flaherty - Karpen
Larry McGrath - Umpire
Emmett E. Smith - Catcher
Howard Louis MacNeely - Jackie as a boy
George Dockstader - Bill

Production:
Alfred E. Green - Director
Mort Briskin - Producer
David Chudnow Herschel Burke Gilbert - Composer
Arthur H. Nadel Maurie M. Suess - Editor
Arthur Mann Lawrence Edmund Taylor - Screen Writer
Ernest Laszlo - Cinematographer
Louis Pollock - Screen Story

Soul of the Game
    Delroy Lindo / PG13 / 1996
The Great White Hope
    James Earl Jones / PG13 / 1970
The Jesse Owens Story
    G / 1984
Jim Thorpe: All American
    Burt Lancaster / NR / 1951