Anybody remember "Damn Yankees" (the movie)?

[baby_bear]

I've been so dismayed by the election, on top of the end of the baseball season, that I purchased a copy of Damn Yankees from EBay. It just came in the mail.

I loved it when I was a kid. I'm just starting to watch it and it already brings back so many memories. I used to watch it on the old movie channel in Southern California time after time after time. I never got tired of it, but now it's been 20 years since I've seen it.

Nice to get some time off from politics...

s_m

[teach1st]

1. First non-Disney movie I remember...

..as a kid. I loved it then, and I had the soundtrack. But I haven't seen it since then.

[wryter2000]

2. Yup

I remember seeing it on a Christmas day when I was a child. Whatever Lola wants...

[DrZeeLit]

3. YES...Whatever Lola wants!

We watched that movie every time it was on t.v.
Once it was the Million Dollar Movie, which meant it was on every day for a week and several times over the weekend. It rained that week -- I think during Easter vacation.
By the end of the week, we had it memorized and drove our parents NUTS.

It's out on dvd?
Wow!

Tab Hunter, Ray Walston, Vera..? hmmm brain snap.
Still, it's great music.
You gotta have heart!

[baby_bear]

8. Yes, the Million Dollar Movie!!

The featured movie of the week was on once a day on Monday through Friday and twice on Saturday and Sunday. One week during school break or summer I watched it ALL 9 times! I'm sure I drove my mother nuts.

I got a VHS copy (I don't even own a DVD player). Just watched it and it was great as I remembered. It's got some touching moments too.

s_m

[DrZeeLit]

12. Million Dollar Movie story....

The movie was The Crawling Eye.
It was a bad "B" horror movie.
And we had to move from house to house to keep watching it, because every set of parents on the block had kicked us out.

I used to be able to scare my sister at night by just saying the words... crawling eye.

[baby_bear]

13. That's a great story/memory, DrZ eom

[mitchum]

4. Gwen Verdon was Julie Newmar's competition for my 5 year old libido

[starroute]

5. Hey, I remember Damn Yankees! the play

(Dating myself here.)

My parents used to take me to a Broadway show every year for my birthday, and the year I was 9 or 10, it was Damn Yankees!

I gotta say I found it a bit disappointing -- maybe because it wasn't the original cast at that point. But I sure did love slinking around my bedroom singing, "Vhatever Lola vhants, Lola gets, and little man, little Lola vhants you."

[baby_bear]

9. I never saw the play - but I did read the book

"The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant" is what it was called. "Damn Yankees" was a great improvement for the title. Didn't Gwen Verdon perform in the stage production? Or maybe as you say, the original cast wasn't there when you saw it.

Fun movie. Ray Walston was great as the devil.

s_m

[starroute]

11. I think I must have read the book too

At least I can half visualize the cover . . .

But now I've got "Gotta Have Heart" running around in my head:

You gotta have heart
All you really need is heart
When the odds are saying you'll never win
That's when the grin (?) should start
Yes, you gotta have heart

Oh, you gotta have hope
Mustn't sit around and mope

...

Can't quite remember the rest -- maybe "something something batting zero, you'll be a hero something something."

[mac56]

6. Ray Walston as Mr. Applegate.

Perfect casting.

[baby_bear]

10. Absolutely. Great actor, Walston.

The perfect devil!

s_m

[quiet.american]

7. You Gotta Have Heart!

One of the best Broadway tunes, ever.

[Mr. Brown of MD]

14. Sang that song in high school

It was my senior year and I'd never been in the school productions before, but I auditioned because one of my teachers made me do it, and I was cast as Van Buren, the Senators manager.

I had that huge solo in "Heart" and getting to sing it on stage in front of an audience is one of my favorite memories in life. It'll always be one of my favorite Broadway tunes for that reason. :)

-Mark
Only four years removed from the experience