Fallon Film Series concludes with ‘A League of Their Own’

Directed by Penny Marshall, “A League of Their Own” stars Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Garry Marshall, Rosie O’Donnell, and Lori Petty. The screenplay was written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, from a story by Kelly Candaele and Kim Wilson.

As America’s stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest. This sports-comedy tells a fictionalized account of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL).

The movie is part of this year’s Fall Film Series presented by the Churchill Arts Center and will be shown Friday. In 2012, “A League of Their Own” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The Oats Park Arts Center box office, Art Bar and galleries open at 6 p.m. with the movie beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are $7, members; $10 nonmembers. Tickets are available at the box office on the night of screening or call CAC at 775-423-1440.

As America’s stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest, funded by publicity-hungry candy maker Walter Harvey (Garry Marshall). Competitive sisters Dottie Hinson (Davis) and Kit Keller (Petty) spar with each other, scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) and grumpy has-been coach Jimmy Dugan (Hanks) on their way to fame. Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell co-star as two of the sisters’ teammates.

The late critic Roger Ebert gave the movie three stars.

“Marshall shows her women characters in a tug-of-war between new images and old values, and so her movie is about transition — about how it felt as a woman suddenly to have new roles and freedom.

“The movie has a real bittersweet charm. The baseball sequences, we’ve seen before. What’s fresh are the personalities of the players, the gradual unfolding of their coach and the way this early chapter of women’s liberation fit into the hidebound traditions of professional baseball. By the end, when the women get together again for their reunion, it’s touching, the way they have to admit that, whaddaya know, they really were pioneers.”

The movie has one of the most classic lines for a sports story, “There’s no crying in baseball!”