Hot Curves

Jim Dolan and his pal Benny Goldberg are the Pittsburgh baseball team's star players. On the field they can't be beat. But off the field, success is going to Dolan's head. Not only is he disobeying the coach, but drinking, womanizing and brawling as well. The coach has no alternative but to suspend Jim. Amazingly the team's winning streak continues straight into the World Series. Despondent, Dolan decides to run away. Fearing the worst for his pal, Benny boards a plane to bring him back. But the team's fate as well as Goldberg's is imperiled when the plane crashes on the eve of the final game.

In the early days of sound, the independent Tiffany studio tried valiantly to compete with the major studios. They had a good eye for talent and director Norman Taurog had a solid production background in light comedy. However his stay at Tiffany would be brief. In 1931 he found himself at Paramount and within 2 years was the youngest person to win an Academy Award for his direction of Skippy, which starred his nephew Jackie Cooper. Taurog had a long and successful career which included every major studio and such hitsas Boys Town, The Adventures of Mark Twain and even an uncredited stint on The Wizard of Oz. He directed eight films with Jerry Lewis and nine with Elvis Presley. He retired in 1968 and died in 1981. Recently his Oscar statuette sold for over $300,000 at auction.

The second of comedian Benny Rubin's two starring features for Tiffany Studios, HOT CURVES is a spoof of baseball manager John McGraw's publicity-conscious efforts to put a Jewish player on the New York Giants. Rubin plays Benny Goldberg, a soda jerk who joins the Pittsburgh Cougars along with his egotistical pal Jim Dolan (Rex Lease). While Benny works himself up to star-player status, Jim falters badly, thanks mostly to his ever-expanding ego and his romantic misadventures with manager's daughter Elaine McGrew (Alice Day) and predatory Margie (Natalie Morehead). He pulls himself together in time to lead his team to victory during the World Series, but not before he's put through the emotional wringer when Benny is reported killed in a plane crash. Featured in the cast as Benny's Irish-Catholic girlfriend is Pert Kelton, three years before her "official" screen bow in RKO's BED OF ROSES.