Review: The Fireball


Troubled orphan Mickey Rooney (somewhere in between his juvenile and adult roles here) turns his back on caring priest Pat O’Brien and the orphanage in order to make it on his own as a roller-skating champion (apparently a team sport), but an increasingly large ego and lack of team spirit might just be his downfall. Beverly Tyler is the loyal and caring professional skater who helps and befriends Rooney, to the chagrin of her antagonistic professional partner Glenn Corbett. Rooney counters Corbett’s obvious skating superiority early on by heckling him in front of the TV cameras, becoming a minor celebrity, whilst attempting to improve his skating skills too. Marilyn Monroe turns up briefly as the girlfriend of one of Rooney’s biggest fans, and Ralph Dumke is the diner owner who first takes Rooney in as a dishwasher.

 

Dated but likeable 1950 Tay Garnett (“Mrs. Parkington”, “The Valley of Decision”) roller-skating film gets by on Rooney’s (possibly overly enthusiastic) charm, even when his character is being kind of a dickhead). There’s also fine support by Tyler, O’Brien (yes, he’s typecast, but if you’re good at something...), and briefly, a young Monroe.

 

Despite some serious developments later on in the story it’s mostly fluff, but relatively engaging fluff, especially for fans of The Mick. Those will a very low tolerance for him are duly warned. The screenplay is by Horace McCoy (The boxing drama “Gentleman Jim”) and Garnett.

 

Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more