The Movie 42

Rebecca Lilienfeld

HIST104- Extra Credit

42

Jackie Robinson was not only a baseball hall of famer, but one of the most influential African Americans of the 20th century. The film 42 is a biographical sports movie about player Jackie Robinson. The film focuses on Jackie Robinson’s transition from a player in the Negro Baseball League to the Major League. In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play for a major league baseball team, therefore breaking baseball’s color barrier. The movie takes an in-depth look at the struggles Robinson had to face during the integration process. Essentially, the film depicts Robinson as becoming successful in the Major League and making it to the 1947 World Series Game. Aside from minor details, the film 42 is mostly accurate. Through clothing, people, and events, the movie is able to show its accuracy.

        The movie 42 is mostly accurate with regards to the clothing the characters were wearing. In the movie, the baseball teams were not wearing helmets when they were up to bat. 42 was set in the 1940s, and batting helmets were not required to be worn until Major League Baseball made it mandatory in 1971. Rachel Robinson’s character is always seen in very nice-looking clothes in the movie. There is never a time in the film where Rachel isn’t wearing fashionable clothes. In any picture online, Rachel is shown wearing very similar clothes to those that Mrs. Robinson’s character wears in the movie. The uniforms worn in 42 were almost identical to the uniforms in real life. For the Brooklyn Dodger uniform in the movie and real life both were a solid white/grey, with a blue outline stripe going around the collar and the sleeves. The hats for this team were also identical with the dark blue base color and the light colored “B” in the center. In addition, in the movie the uniforms had the player number on the back, just like it actually was in 1947. The cleats in the movie were shown as being plain black and without logo. The cleats are accurately depicted because at the time they were made with black calf skin and kangaroo leather, and it wasn’t even until 1967 that color was introduced to baseball cleats. With the outfits being almost identical to one another, the movie, 42, was very accurate with the clothing choice.

        The people in 42 were mostly accurate. There were no signs of misused names or characters that did not belong. The actors actually looked quite similar to how the characters looked in real life. Jackie Robinson was in fact the first African American man admitted into the national baseball league. The movie claimed he graduated from UCLA, another true fact. He did also eventually end marrying a woman named Rachel. Branch Rickey, who was the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers that signed Jackie, was also accurately depicted in 42. The movie shows reporter Wendell Smith following and helping Jackie throughout the movie. The film accurately shows Smith’s role in Robinson’s life because it is true he went to Jackie’s games with a typewriter in his lap. Smith followed Jackie throughout his travels, not only keeping track of Robinson’s career, but giving moral support along the way. Even the characters who disregarded Jackie, such as Dixie Walker and Ben Chapman, were all real people. The event with Chapman calling Robinson out during their game was real. However, although Walker was not fond of Robinson, there was never any real documentation of them scuffling. Walker and Higbe were both truly traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Pee Wee Reese, one of the more famous players for sticking up for Robinson, was, too, real. Of course Hollywood tends to make characters more dramatic, however, with this movie, 42, everything relating to the characters was mostly accurate.

        The movie 42 was mostly accurate with respect to the events that happened in real life compared to what was shown in the movie. The movie accurately portrayed that Rickey Branch was the first executive to sign an African American player. The movie also correctly explains how Jackie was arrested and court-martialed for refusing to go to the back of a segregated bus. The scene where Jackie and his wife went to the information desk and were told they weren’t allowed on the plane because there wasn’t enough room is true, but the movie switched some details around. This event did happen, but Jackie and his wife were already on the plane when the flight attendant came to kick them off of the plane. The scene where Jackie walks into the locker room to find he has no locker, just a folding chair, is another scene that is true. In one of Jackie’s memoirs he describes the event how it happened and the movie depicts this event exactly how Jackie says it happened. In addition, the scene where a policeman stormed onto the field of a spring training game to stop the game because Robinson was playing, was true. An additional scene was where Jackie hit a homerun was somewhat true, the homerun did happen but it was after he had a full count and it was his second up to bat. During Panama training, there was a petition being signed by the Dodgers players stating that they refused to play with Robinson. This event happened in real life and was accurately depicted in the movie. Another scene that was accurately depicted in the movie was when Durocher was suspended because Happy Chandler was concerned about the Catholic Youth Organization’s critical stance regarding Durocher’s liberalness. The movie also included a scene showing bad letters being sent to the Phillies’ organization, leading to Ben Chapman and Jackie Robinson having to shake hands and take a picture together. This event did happen as shown in the movie according to an interview between Allen Barra from, The Atlantic, and Ben Chapman. Furthermore, the movie has a scene where Fritz Ostermueller hits Jackie in the head with a baseball. The event is dramatized for Hollywood reasons and what actually happened is that the pitch went toward his head but Jackie deflected it with his arm. Ostermueller’s daughter, Sherrill, says that she does not remember her father being a racist like he was portrayed in the movie. (Boston Globe) An event that was correctly portrayed in the movie was PeeWee Reese going over to Jackie to offer a significant gesture of friendship in front of his hometown. The final scene in the movie is dramatized making it false. Jackie Robinson did not make the winning homerun to advance the Dodgers to the World Series, however, he did steal home for the first time in his career during that game. The movie, for the most part, accurately depicted the events in real life that happened. Besides a few minor flaws, the movie showed just what Jackie Robinson went through in his experience as being the first African American in Major League Baseball.