Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

Wait! There was a 1951 Angels in the Outfield!?! The one with Danny Glover, Tony Danza, and Joseph Gordon Levitt was a remake!?! Yes, yes, yes.

I was just as shocked to learn this too. And you know what? It’s not bad! I would put it right up there with It’s a Wonderful Life.

1951 focuses more on the coach who is very much the exact same character as Danny Glover’s character from 1994. He’s surly and short-tempered and swears up a blue streak in front of women, children, and nuns long before most people did that regularly anyway. As this was a good wholesome movie, they (gnomes) had to get creative with how this was portrayed, not wanting to actually expel expletives all over the theater. Danny Glover just spewed this foul sounding jibberish that really didn’t have any meaning while shocked on-lookers looked on. It was humorous and it got the point across.

In 1951 the same character would do something similar but a second sound track of him doing the same thing would play over the top of him already doing it. Did I hear a donkey braying in there as well? The result was a cacophony of noise that sort of had some sense to it and mostly none. I knew what they were trying to do but it was really just annoying.

The ‘cursing and treating the players better’ plot was center stage in 1951. It was more of a side note in 1994. I think this was primarily because the focus of 1994 was shifted to the kid (Joseph Gordon Levitt).

Both films had a kid who saw angels. 1951 had a girl who started seeing them on the field, interacting with players. We never actually see the angels ourselves though; a stark contrast to 1994 where not only do we see cgi enhanced angels who look pretty dang great even by today’s standards but we also have Christopher Lloyd as AL. More on him later.

While both films have an orphan or a foster kid, the orphan is governed by a convent and (this is so strange to me) this is the second film I’ve seen where a kid experiences or wants to experience a miraculous event and the biggest skeptics in their life are the institutions of faith! Is this just a movie trope or is this what the Catholic Church is actually like when someone experiences a miracle? I don’t mean to start a theological discussion. I just wonder why I’ve encountered this twice now? This is a strange antithesis to part of the ending of 1951 where a priest, a rabbi, and a parson are brought in to testify as to their faith and belief in angels. But the nuns in charge of the orphans were a bunch of God-blockers! That’s funny. God-blockers!

In 1951 we get a disembodied voice talking to the coach. 1994 has the aforementioned AL. Christopher Lloyd is a ton of fun and a huge improvement to the humor and overall excitement of the film. 1951 was charming enough but we had no Clarence the Angel to see and connect with emotionally. Lloyd delivers and as he is primarily interacting with the kid (Levitt), it’s a great connection for kids and kids-at-heart in the audience. I believe this key point, Lloyd’s performance, is why the 1994 film was such a success (and inversely why no one today talks about the original). The original was a cute story and should have been made to appeal to kids more. Instead it’s very adult oriented.

Maybe it’s an old movie and therefore a pioneer in this trope but I’m kind of sick of miraculous things happening in a movie or some character sees or hears things that other characters cannot see or hear and the climax of the film is some court, or psychiatrist, or tribunal determining if that character is crazy and fit to do whatever it is they’re supposed to do. It redirects the whole point of the movie which was never to prove or disprove matters of faith or the character’s own sanity. The point of these films is for the characters to get some unlikely help from some unlikely place to achieve their task and learn valuable lessons in the process.

Miracle on 34th Street culminates in this kind of thing. If I was Santa and had to deal with this crap and prove I was Santa every time I decided to slum it down South, I’d just stay in my gingerbread castle.

We do this at the end of 1951 and maybe it was quaint and inspiring back then but I just think it’s stupid. We get it. You’re all a bunch of skeptics. Let’s get on with the movie!

1994 I think has a brief instance with a psychiatrist and I think I remember the kid just stumping the psychiatrist with some deep and humorous theological question he couldn’t answer. Maybe that happened. Maybe it didn’t. Either way, while lots of characters questioned the kids’ sanity, they didn’t really dwell on it which I appreciate.

I feel like the first film walked so the remake could run which is rare for remakes. This should be how we do remakes. Take a film that was just okay and make it great. Both of these films have nice ideas and I found them thoroughly entertaining. The original had some decent laughs throughout. But the remake knocked it out of the park.

A brief note on the original 1951 poster: It sucks. No woman looked like that or struck that pose in the entire film. So stupid.