Joe E. Brown: Comic Baseball Bits
Toledo Boy Starred in Films Featuring Ring Lardner Characters
Born on Randolph Street in Holgate, Ohio -- forty-five minutes west of Toledo -- Joe E. Brown, an eventual Toledo native, as well, played two Ring Lardner characters that set his film career on fire in the 1930s and changed his mind about abandoning film for baseball. Brown wanted to play baseball, but he was a comedian at heart, and the art of film eventually provided him with a life style that consisted of the best of both worlds.
Three Baseball Characters for Brown
Fireman, Save My Child, 1932, a story -screenplay by Ray Enright, Arthur Caesar and Robert Lord; Elmer the Great, a 1933 screenplay by Tom Geraghty and Whitney Bolton, from the Ring Lardner-George M. Cohan play; and Alibi Ike, (1935), another story character created by Lardner and put to screenplay by William Wister Haines made Brown the master of the comedic sports figure on film.
Lardner's Heroes and Brown's Characterizations
Lardner (1885-1933) used baseball as comic fodder for some unique literary successes. His characters were non-literary wonders, who created brainless moments on the diamond, yet were just in the nick of time with an outstanding effort and moral stability to save the day in sport.
If ever there was a comedian to bring those characters to life, it was Joe E. Brown. Wide of mouth, humble, all "oh, gosh" and "zowie" with the ladies, and true blue, Brown, in life, as well as in character portrayal was the perfect early role model in Hollywood. His personality, and his acting ability, could not have better suited Lardner's fictional heroes.
Humility is heroic, and true blueism is the core of humility in Lardner's writing. And he makes it all fun, easy to digest, even admirable. Brown's natural characteristics made portraying Lardner's heroes an easy task. The comedian was a parental choice. Youngsters were permitted to see his films without parents first testing the cinematic waters. Parents trusted Brown with their children.
Brown promoted healthy family life as beginning with responsible parents. He believed Hollywood marriages on the rocks would benefit from the addition of children and taking responsibility for them.
Elmer the Great Brown's Biggest Hero
The Broadway original of Elmer the Great was less successful than the production that starred Brown. For Brown, it remains the film performance most associated with his Hollywood years. The story premise for both Elmer the Great and Alibi Ike came from Lardner's short stories in the Saturday Evening Post. The stories in book form were titled You Know Me Al: A Busher's Letters, which amounted to fictional letters written by Jack Keefe, a rookie Chicago White Sox pitcher, to hometown friends relating his big league experiences.
Brown's cinematic baseball experiences derailed his pursuit of the diamond life. And the world gained a true blue comic hero.
(Resources: Wes D. Gehring's Joe E. Brown Film Comedian and Basebll Buffoon and author's own experience.)
