It Happens Every Spring



It Happens Every Spring is a 1949 comedy film starring Ray Milland and directed by Lloyd Bacon. The story of a baseball pitcher is completely fictitious, and the main character King Kelly is not based on or related to the actual player.

Plot
A college professor is working on a long-term scientific experiment when a baseball comes through the window, destroying all of his glassware and spilling the fluids that the flasks and test tubes contained. The pooled fluids combine to form the (fictitious) chemical "methylethylpropylbutyl," which then covers a large portion of the baseball. The professor soon discovers that the fluid, along with any object with which it makes contact, is repelled by wood (cf. Alexander Fleming's serendipitous discovery of penicillin).

Suddenly, he realizes the possibilities and takes a leave of absence to go to St. Louis to pitch in the big leagues, where he becomes a star and propels his team to the World Series.

Cast

 * Ray Milland as Vernon K. Simpson / King Kelly
 * Jean Peters as Deborah Greenleaf
 * Paul Douglas as Monk Lanigan
 * Ed Begley as Edgar Stone
 * Ted de Corsia as Jimmy Dolan
 * Ray Collins as Prof. Greenleaf
 * Jessie Royce Landis as Mrs. Greenleaf
 * Alan Hale Jr. as Schmidt
 * Bill Murphy as Tommy Isbell

Production
Alan Hale, Jr. has a small role as a catcher on the college baseball team.

Although the home team is "St. Louis", and both St. Louis major league teams (the Cardinals and the Browns) played at Sportsman's Park at the time, the exteriors for the movie were filmed in Los Angeles' Wrigley Field, which was built to resemble Wrigley Field in Chicago.

A novelization of the film was written by Valentine Davies.

Reception
New York Times critic Bosley Crowther found the film trying, particularly Valentine Davies's "monotonous" script. He did have measured praise for Paul Douglas, however.

Leonard Maltin gives the film three and a half stars, calling it “a most enjoyable, unpretentious picture”.