Ladies' Day (1943) User Reviews

Can't Get His Head In The Game

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 22 April 2010]

RKO came out with this innocuous baseball comedy that had a few laughs in it Ladies' Day. So named because its the baseball wives who decide to take matters into their own hands.

Eddie Albert plays the lovestruck star pitcher who when he gets involved with a woman his head just isn't in the game. And he's got himself really involved with a moviestar this time, Lupe Velez. Now she's enough to take anyone's mind off the athletic contest. It's driving manager Cliff Clark to distraction.

But the wives of the other players led by Patsy Kelly and Iris Adrian want that World Series money real bad and that won't happen if Albert isn't pitching his best. They conspire in a series of Lucy Ricardo like maneuvers to keep Eddie and Lupe apart.

Although Velez and Albert have the top billing, Patsy Kelly and her cronies steal this film totally from the stars. These dizzy dames pull off some interesting schemes and it doesn't let up for a minute.

Also look for Jerome Cowan who is a banker whose bank owns the team now and he's the bean counter sent to manage the money. The fact his bank also has Velez's studio in receivership makes him think he can combine both his jobs and that leads to some interesting situations.

RKO was a second line studio and this is clearly a B picture for them which is different than a B film for Paramount or MGM. Still Ladies' Day is not bad at all and baseball fans and fans of any of the cast members will get more than a few laughs.

A fun diversion in the midst of WWII.

[bbibsboy · 6/10 · 14 March 2000]

Lupe Velez was a wonderful Latin version of Lucille Ball. She must have been a riot to direct. For early baseball buffs this B movie would be fun. A nice blend in the cast of two stars (Velez and Albert) and an assortment of skilled character actors.

Anybody who dares kidnap the Mexican Spitfire is going to end up regretting it.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 18 September 2018]

Whether playing Carmelita in the "Mexican Spitfire" series or Pepita in this baseball comedy, Lupe Velez is simply playing a variation of herself, and irregardless of the lack of originality, she is still very funny. Rather than being a Mexican singer as she was in that series of 8 films (1939-1943), she's a hot blooded movie star, temperamental when things don't go her way, but like her name, very peppy and lovable otherwise. Selling war bonds at a professional baseball game, somehow she ends up kissing star pitcher Wacky Waters (Eddie Albert) who begins to screw up his game every time he falls in love. Several of the baseball wives (lead by Patsy Kelly and Iris Adrian) realize what a threat she is to their husband's success and decide to put her in hiding when their team ends up in the world series. But they don't realize that you can't hold a Mexican spitfire down, especially from the man she loves, and when the tides turn, the results are completely unpredictable.

Even though her ending would be sad, Lupe Velez still here seems so full of pep and life, even though it is apparent that her days as a big star were gone thanks to the number of B films she was making. This film, barely an hour, shows her at her zaniest, with her kiss for Albert having quite accidentally after she lost the man she was supposed to kiss, having given her $100 for war bonds and a quick peck, and with her eyes closed and her lips puckered, Wacky Waters takes advantage of that, getting a verbal bill from Velez when she opens her eyes. But it is apparent that she enjoyed the kiss, so it's no surprise when she starts showing up at every game to cheer him on. That makes it clear to funny ladies Kelly and Adrian that they've got to do something, and this leads to some raucous comedy that will have the audiences laughing even if baseball fans will roll their eyes over this interpretation of the great American past time. A good supporting cast includes Max Baer as Kelly's husband and George Cleveland as the team doctor, and the three ladies are the ones in there really pitching, getting home runs in laughs alone.

Madcap baseball comedy is loud but unconvincing

[csteidler · 5/10 · 11 June 2019]

The Sox are in a pennant race. The ballplayers' wives are more excited than the players: they need that extra Series money for their winter plans. The team's chances center around star pitcher Wacky Waters, who is not married and--according to his manager--needs to swear off dames and concentrate on pitching.

When Wacky meets glamorous movie star Pepita Zorita, who is making a ballpark appearance to sell war bonds, it's love at first sight. Wacky and Pepita are quickly married; Wacky's pitching suffers; the team sinks into a losing streak. The player's wives decide that something must be done.

Eddie Albert smiles a lot as the overly enthusiastic Wacky, but the character really is a dunce. Lupe Velez at least shows some spirit as Pepita, and has a couple of good scenes where she displays her skills as a fast-talking spitfire.

Patsy Kelly, Joan Barclay, and Iris Adrian are the players' wives who decide that if the Sox are to have a chance at winning, then Wacky and Pepita must be separated. They waylay Pepita in a hotel in Kansas City and make plans to keep her there until the Series is over.

Jerome Cowan is kind of amusing as the team owner who knows nothing about baseball. Cliff Clark is predictably hard-boiled as the team manager. Tom Kennedy is funny as a suspicious hotel detective. Max Baer is actually pretty good as the burly ballplayer who is completely intimidated by wife Patsy Kelly.

As the leader of the wives, Patsy is loud but at least looks like she knows what she's doing. Unfortunately, most of the picture is not so convincing. Albert and Velez are fine but their characters are just not very interesting, and the whole goofy plot just doesn't really have any surprises. That's too bad because it is a fun cast.

"He's a push over for anything in skirts."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 19 December 2015]

Something curious about this picture - how is it a Mexican actress is selling American war bonds at a baseball game? Something to think about.

Well this is my first look at actress Lupe Velez and I'll have to temper my reaction and be fair by checking her out in another picture. Here I thought she was just a bit too overbearing and the movie itself was more slapstick than I anticipated. The premise of an all star pitcher being off his game whenever he got involved with a woman was probably a good one to start off with, but with Eddie Albert in that role it didn't really work for me. On the mound he looked just plain goofy.

Cool to see boxing champ Max Baer though, having seen him previously in the Bogart film "The Harder They Fall" in which he portrayed a version of himself from real life. As the catcher for Wacky Waters' (Albert) team The Sox, he had a decent chemistry with Patsy Kelly as his wife Hazel. Funny how The Sox and their on field opponents didn't have home towns.

If you like baseball films you might want to check this one out, although the game is obviously secondary to the hi-jinks involved with the players' wives and girlfriends, and how they try to insulate newlywed Pepita Zorita (Velez) from her husband Wacky (or is that Wacky husband?) so the team can make the World Series. For Eddie Albert, this would be kind of a warm up being married to a foreigner with a heavy accent, something he would do once again in the late Sixties hit comedy "Green Acres" with co-star Eva Gabor.

Wacky is girl-crazy.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 1 April 2020]

Eddie Arnold plays Wacky Waters, a talented but extremely selfish baseball player. Again and again, he gets involved with women and soon his play on the field is horrible. His exasperated coach asks him to promise to stop chasing women and Wacky promises...and within minutes begins chasing yet another woman. This time it's the actress Pepita (Lupe Valez) and they go from dating to married almost instantly. Not surprisingly, his teammates are annoyed and Pepita doesn't exactly inspire confidence in anyone, as she's pretty obnoxious. So the players' wives come up with a plan to kidnap Pepita in order to keep her and her negative influence away from Wacky.

This film is anything but subtle. In fact, the word shrill comes to mind--especially when you combine Patsy Kelly, Lupe Valez and Iris Adrian starring in the film as the baseball wives! All three are loud, brash and intense...and together they are a bit hard to take.

The bottom line is that this film is seldom seen on TV...and I can see why. Despite some good ideas, the movie is cursed with an unlikable couple and brashness that borders on obnoxiousness. A misfire that could have been much much better given a bit of subtlety and style.

In perhaps the most poignant baseball film of All Time . . .

[cricket30 · 7/10 · 18 August 2018]

. . . "Pepita Zorita" wields her magical bat ("Wonder Boy") to great effect during LADIES' DAY. Pepita does a number on a Kansas City Imperial Hotel bellboy with her wondrous lumber in the doorway of Room #2116. In fact, Pepita maintains an OPS percentage of roughly 2.116 throughout LADIES' DAY, thanks to her whacking stick. LADIES' DAY also tops such more recent cinematic diamond gems as SANDLOT and A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN in the humor department. Anyone who split a gut during Tommy Hanks' five-minute whiz in the girls' locker room while viewing the latter flick is sure to blow a gasket as "Fighting Sox" catcher "Hippo" waltzes out of the team shower with $300 for the brassy broad blocking his access to clothes in a key LADIES' DAY scene. ("Just In Verlander" once observed that "There's no drying in baseball," and the sopping-wet Hippo certainly proves this to be True.) Speaking of the guy who provides the first syllable for the Houston "Astros," Pepita and her groom, fast-baller "Wacky Waters," could not be more accurate in forecasting the likes of the future Mr. and Mrs. Upton with their continual on-screen magazine spreads sprinkled here, there, and everywhere amid LADIES' DAY.

10/10

[debutoftheseason · 10/10 · 13 November 2021]

Wacky Waters, the biggest thrower in baseball, burns the championship until he meets Pepita Zorita, a bunch of Mexican dynamite from Hollywood. Soon Wacky can't think of thinking of Pepita. The team is in a losing streak. Catcher Hippo Jones, teammate Smokey Lee and Marty Samuels, an educated ball player are trying to train, warn and psychologically distract Wacky from Pepita, but nothing works. The wives of the ball players, led by Hazel Jones, are working out a plan to get rid of Pepita. Banker / owner Updyke is persuaded to buy the picture rights to "Twenty-one Nights" and send Pepita back to Hollywood to star in the film. It works the way Wacky starts to win the throw again, but Pepita breaks all records for him for finishing a movie and goes back. The wives fly to Kansas City, meet Pepita with a baseball bat and other kidnapping equipment, and Pepita wakes up in a bathroom on the 22nd floor, tied up and tied up with two guardians in a hotel. After quarreling with everyone from the house detective to the Civil War veteran, Pepita escapes and heads east, where the team plays Wacky on the pile in the seventh and decisive game of the World Series.