Football season is firmly under way, and a little known movie that TCM ran during 31 Days of Oscar because it received an editing nomination is the biopic Crazylegs. It's getting an airing on TCM tomorrow (November 12) at 6:00 AM, so now is the time for the post on it.
Crazylegs is about early NFL star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch (playing himself); as the movie opens he's on a football field in civilian clothes and it seems like he's about to retire. The movie was released in 1953 and in real life, Hirsch didn't retire until several years later. We then get some narration by Lloyd Nolan, who plays the part of Hirsch's high school coach, Win Brockmeyer. As you can guess, we're about to get the obligatory flashback to Hirsch's high school career....
Elroy Hirsch grew up in Wausau, WI, and got the nickname "Crazylegs" from his odd style of running, which he claimed came from running two miles to school every day and dodging various things in the sidewalks or on the side of the road. He finished high school in 1941, at a time when the college game was in some ways more corrupt, but in others didn't necessarily offer the money that's in it today. Hirsch's girlfriend and future wife Ruth (Joan Vohs) is accepted to the University of Wisconsin, so Elroy follows her there to play football.
But Elroy seems to care so much about football that he doesn't have time foor poor Joan. As a result, it's an on again, off again relationship although they do eventually get married (and in real life they were married 50-plus years until Elroy's death). World War II comes, but Elroy surprisingly doesn't get shipped off to fight. Instead, he enrolls in a Marine Corps program that allows him to do pilot training in conjunction with college, except that it's based out of the University of Michigan. So he goes there and becomes a several-sport star, eventually serving stateside after graduation.
Now, at this time, the NFL didn't exactly offer a lot of money, and there was a rival league, the All-American Football Conference. Hirsch had been drafted by the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL but decided to play for the Chicago Rockets of the AAFC. Unfortunately, he gets several injuries, ultimately getting hit in the head and a skull fracture that threatens to end his football career. But since he only knows football, he starts training like a maniac to try to get back to the professional game. Since this is a biopic, and the movie makes clear in the opening credits that it has several members of the world champion Rams of 1949 and 1951 playing themselves, we know that Hirsch is going to wind up on the Rams and then eventually be an integral part of their championship team.
The are a bunch of problems with Crazylegs. One is that Hirsch's story isn't as cinematic as you might think. There's just not enough conflict to sustain a truly interesting picture. (Contrast this with, say, I, Tonya, which is loaded with conflict.) The movie was made on a fairly low budget, and that shows. A lot of real footage from Hirsch's games is used (this is probably what got the editing nomination), but it's in old newsreel format while the staged action is all blocked for a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. Having to edit the newsreels for that really makes them look poor-quality.
Elroy Hirsch also wan't much of an actor, although at least he's only playing himself. He comes across as an appealing personality, and you can see why people would like him and why someone might want to do a biopic of him. Lloyd Nolan is professional as always, and elevates anything he's in, no matter how dire everything around him is.
So Crazylegs is a bit of a curiosity, and one that football fans might enjoy.
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