Reel Classics: ‘42’

February is Black History Month.  It is also the month when base­ball play­ers gath­er for the begin­ning of spring train­ing.  Today’s Reel Classic brings togeth­er those two with the film that depicts an epic time in the civ­il rights move­ment in our coun­try.  42 depicts the inte­gra­tion of Major League Baseball with the sto­ry of Jackie Robinson, a major force in the Civil Rights move­ment.  It demon­strates his tal­ent as a base­ball play­er, his deter­mi­na­tion to cope with the bru­tal dis­crim­i­na­tion he faced, and his courage to do so in a non-vio­lent manner.

The film depicts his recruit­ment by Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), the own­er of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to be the first mod­ern era black base­ball play­er in the major leagues.  In 1946 there were 16 teams in the major leagues com­posed of 400 white play­ers.  African-Americans also played pro­fes­sion­al base­ball, but were con­fined to the Negro Leagues.  Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) was a play­er for the Kansas City Monarchs and was on Rickey’s list of poten­tial play­ers to sign.  Rickey inter­viewed Robinson in August 1945, and in a famous exchange told him that the key to the  suc­cess of this ven­ture was to not respond to the inevitable racist and hate­ful abuse that he would inevitably receive.  Robinson ques­tioned whether Rickey was look­ing for some­one who did not have the courage to respond.  Rickey’s response was that he need­ed a play­er “with guts enough not to fight back.”   His point was that restraint and efforts to not esca­late the hate would lead to a suc­cess­ful effort at inte­gra­tion.  Robinson agreed and was assigned to the Dodgers’ minor league team in Montréal. 

Robinson per­forms well with the Montréal Royals, and the plan is to pro­mote him to the Dodgers at the start of the sea­son in 1947.  Tension grew with­in the Dodgers’ club­house as some play­ers did not want a black man on their team.  The man­ag­er at the time was the infa­mous Leo Durocher (Christopher Meloni) who stood up for Robinson, telling his play­ers “I do not care if the guy is yel­low or black, or if he has stripes like a f****n’ zebra.  I’m the man­ag­er of this team, and I say he plays.” 

As the sea­son pro­gress­es, some of the play­ers on the Dodgers bond with Robinson and are sup­port­ive of him.  He takes a good deal of ver­bal abuse from the then man­ag­er of the Philadelphia Phillies, Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk), and often finds him­self being hit by a pitch inten­tion­al­ly.  He actu­al­ly fin­ished the sea­son as the play­er most hit by pitch­es.  One exam­ple of his sup­port from a team­mate is the scene in Crosley Field, home of the Cincinnati Reds, where he is being taunt­ed by the crowd.  Pee Wee Reese (Lucas Black), a Kentucky native, walks up to Robinson and puts his arm around his shoul­der.  In a game against the St. Louis Cardinals Robinson is inten­tion­al­ly spiked in the back by Cardinals’ play­er Enos Slaughter.  Robinson calms his team mates and encour­ages them to focus on win­ning the game.

Robinson’s tri­als, tribu­la­tions and achieve­ments are doc­u­ment­ed through­out the sea­son by a black sports­writer, Wendell Smith (Andre Holland).  His efforts help com­mu­ni­cate to the pub­lic at large the impact Jackie Robinson had not only for the Dodgers, but for Major League Baseball and the African-American pop­u­la­tion.  The Dodgers went on to win the National League pen­nant that year and appeared in the World Series against the New York Yankees.

In 42 the sto­ry focus­es not only on base­ball, but also on the per­son­al sto­ry of Robinson with his wife, Rachel (Nicole Beharie).  The strength and sup­port from his wife and the impact of hav­ing his child all are part of what makes Jackie Robinson the coura­geous and car­ing man he was.  This aspect of Robinson was touched on in an arti­cle by Adam C. MacKinnon for the Society For American Baseball Research:  “To help bal­ance the temp­ta­tions of over­sim­pli­fy­ing the sto­ry with stay­ing authen­tic to the life of the man him­self, Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s wid­ow, was brought on to ensure that it was being told prop­er­ly.  She told Fox Sports Detroit ... “I did­n’t want them to make him an angry black man or some stereo­type, so it was impor­tant for me to be there.”   We see Jackie dot­ing over his new­born baby son before going off for a game.  We see him play­ful­ly flirt­ing with his wife, being atten­tive, affec­tion­ate, even vul­ner­a­ble with her.  These are traits that more often than not are left out of char­ac­ters in order to make them seem more deter­mined, focused on the task at hand.  To see this emo­tion­al range is a com­pli­ment to the act­ing of Boseman and writ­ing of Brian Helgeland, but on a high­er lev­el, it is a cred­it to Rachel Robinson and her involvement.”

Though the film looks at Robinson’s first year in Major League Baseball, it also does point out in an epi­logue the achieve­ments of those depict­ed over the course of time. Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey and Pee Wee Reese were all induct­ed into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Wendell Smith, who was a civ­il rights activist as well as a sports­writer, was one of the first African-Americans to be a mem­ber of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.  His ven­tures of fol­low­ing Jackie Robinson through 1946 led to his writ­ing and releas­ing a book enti­tled  Jackie Robinson: My Own Story in 1948.

In 1997 Bud Selig, the com­mis­sion­er of base­ball, retired Jackie Robinson’s num­ber 42.  In 2009 on April 15, declared as “Jackie Robinson Day,” all uni­formed play­ers wore the num­ber 42 in his hon­or and that tra­di­tion con­tin­ues today. 

The film was released in April 2013,  and the 30 teams with Major League Baseball host­ed screen­ings for thou­sands of stu­dents from eighth to 12^th grades through­out the United States and Canada.  First Lady Michelle Obama also host­ed a White House screen­ing for high school and col­lege stu­dents that includ­ed a ques­tion-and-answer ses­sion with Rachel Robinson, Chadwick Boseman and the film writer Brian Helgeland. 

To pre­pare for his role as Robinson, Boseman met with Rachel Robinson and also with Hank Aaron.  Robinson’s and Aaron’s careers over­lapped, and Aaron was able to give Boseman some insights into the racial ten­sions with­in the game at the time.  Boseman lat­er cred­it­ed these meet­ings with help­ing him bet­ter under­stand Robinson. 

Prior to choos­ing Harrison Ford for the role of Branch Rickey, a cou­ple of oth­er inter­est­ing choic­es were con­sid­ered includ­ing Robert Redford and Jack Nicholson.

The Critics Consensus on the Rotten Tomatoes site states:  “42 is an earnest, inspi­ra­tional, and respect­ful­ly told biog­ra­phy of an influ­en­tial American sports icon, though it might be a lit­tle too safe and old-fash­ioned for some.”  Critics were not over­ly com­pli­men­ta­ry of the film, but it did well at the box office.  The film grossed over $97 mil­lion with a bud­get of $40 million. 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates 42 at 7.5 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 81% and an Audience Score of 85%.  In search­ing my Roku device, I could find no free stream­ing sites but there is a copy of the DVD on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library. 

In sum­ming up, it is impor­tant to note that both Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey were essen­tial fig­ures in the inte­gra­tion of one of America’s biggest nation­al sports.  Robinson went on to con­tin­ue work in the Civil Rights move­ment and became friends with anoth­er nation­al hero in the move­ment, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  King described Robinson as “one of the tru­ly great men of our nation” and as “a pil­grim that walked in the lone­some byways toward the high road of free­dom.”  He also described him as a “sit-inner before sit-ins and a free­dom rid­er before free­dom rides.”  Jackie Robinson appeared with King at the famous 1963 March on Washington. 

42 gives us a brief glimpse into the man and hero Jackie Robinson was.  A very fit­ting film for Black History Month and for the begin­ning of spring training. 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.