All of the kids make fun of little Roogie Rigsby. But then he is all of a sudden blessed with a powerful arm thanks to the "spirit" of deceased ex-ballplayer Red O'Malley, an old beau of his grandmother's. He winds up pitching for the Brooklyn Dodgers with a bump on his arm that is the source of all his power. Kind of a 50's version of Rookie of the Year. Members of the current (at the time) Dodgers appear as themselves including Roy Campanella, Billy Loes, Russ Meyer and Carl Erskine. Campy is bowled over by one of Roogie's pitches too. Plus, at the movie's end, he kicks a football clean over the Brooklyn Bridge. Definitely for the kiddies.
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sandlot326 April 2007
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I saw this movie back in the mid 60's when I was a kid. At that time I thought this was the coolest movie I had ever seen. Of course by todays standards it wouldn't begin to compare. It was in black and white and had few to no special effects. It was cool however because the kid in the movie, Roogie, could have been any kid in the world, including me. That just drew me into the movie and the rest was magic.
For years I often wondered what the name of this movie was. Then one evening, Sylvestor Stallone was on a late night talk show and mentioned this movie as one of his favorites. He described it exactly how I had remembered it, and gave it's name. Even though I now know the name of the movie I still haven't been able to find the movie in any stores. -
rickack992 November 2013I had an experience similar to the reviewer above. I saw the movie as a boy around the time it was released and loved it. I've always remembered certain scenes, such as the boy flying from the mound to home plate after forgetting to release the ball. In another scene, when the boy first learns he has acquired a special power and a 120 mph fastball, he heaves a rock across a river that hits a tower a mile away. In retrospect, I'd infer that the movie visualized fantasy in a way that engaged a young boy's mind -- at least it did in 1954, before computer graphics took our visual expectations to a whole new level.
What I could not recall was the title, which finally came to me when I was chatting with another film buff who remembered it as Roogie's Bump. As far as I'm aware, the original is impossible to find and has never been shown on television. Unfortunately, the 1993 remake by Daniel Stern, released as 'Rookie of the Year', was almost too dreadful to watch. -
mark.waltz16 December 2023"I'm going to show you kids!" That's obviously the gyst of what Remington "Roogie" Rigsby (Robert Marriott) is thinking after he's rejected by the kids in his Brooklyn neighborhood, simply because he's from Ohio. Living with glamorous mother Ruth Warrick (who works in an upscale dress shop), aunt Louise Troy and supportive grandmother Olive Blakeney. This is when the Brooklyn Dodgers ruled, and little boys looked on baseball players as invincible heroes.
"Holy jumpin' jeepers!" Marriott says when his grandmother gives him an old autographed picture of Red O'Malley, but that's not impressive to the bullies of his neighborhood who still reject him. The spirit of O'Malley shows up to guide him, played by William Harrigan, a sweeter variation of William Demarest, and when a mysterious bump shows up on his arm, his pitching improves to the point of being able to throw baseballs through brick walls and in a shocking moment destroy the top of a smoke stack in Manhattan.
When Warrick sends him away to baseball camp, he doesn't want to go but ends up instead at Ebbets Field where he gets to throw a ball out of the field and ends up as part of the team. It's a sweet bit of nostalgic whimsy, low budget yet profound, with real Dodgers playing themselves as a part of this remarkable plot. The cast is superb, with Warrick a far cry from her matronly snobs of "Citizen Kane" and "All My Children" and Harrigan reminding me of the type of mystical characters that Edmund Gwenn played in the 40's. But the scene stealers are Marriott and Blakeney who's the grandmother of every children's dreams, and lovingly pushing him to go after those dreams in spite of his mother's reluctant objections.