Item: Girls Can Play
Rating: 5.8
Author: Archivist John

Look, if you’re hoping for some lost masterpiece, keep moving. Girls Can Play is only worth your time if you love dusty 1930s B-movies, or if you’re a Rita Hayworth completionist who needs to see literally everything she ever touched. 🍿

Anyone expecting an actual sports movie or something with the artistic weight of Morocco will probably turn this off after ten minutes. But for those of us who find comfort in cheap, fast-talking crime flicks, it is a fun little relic.

The World's Weirdest Front

So, the premise is pretty wild. A bootlegger named Foy Harris is running a women's professional softball team as a front for his illegal booze business.

He’s also dating the team's catcher, Sue, played by a very young Rita Hayworth. She doesn't have the famous red hair yet, but you can already see the star power leaking through the cheap screenwriting.

The actual softball scenes are hilarious. They look like they were shot in a dusty public park with about fifteen extras who were probably paid in sandwiches. 🥪

And the way these women throw the ball? Let's just say "professional athletes" is a very generous description for whatever they are doing on that field.

Enter the Dumbest Reporter in Cinema

Then we get Jimmy Jones, a sports reporter who is supposedly "dim-witted," but honestly, everyone in this movie is operating on about three brain cells. He’s trying to romance the ace pitcher, Ann, while also stumbling his way into a murder investigation.

Yes, someone gets murdered! One of the teammates gets poisoned, and the reaction from the rest of the characters is incredibly casual.

The team is basically like, "Oh, bummer about Sarah—wait, was her name Sari? Whatever, anyway, who's pitching on Thursday?" It’s that classic 1930s lack of empathy that I secretly love in these movies.

"A girl literally drops dead and the reporter is basically like, 'Oh wow, anyway, let's go get some pie.'"

The Weird Little Details

There’s a detective named Lieutenant Flannigan, played by Guinn "Big Boy" Williams. He spends most of his screen time looking like he’s trying to remember his next line or find his car keys.

I also noticed a scene where a character pours a drink, and the sound effect of the liquid pouring starts about two seconds before the bottle even tilts. It's those little mistakes that make these old poverty-row movies so charming. 🎥

If you liked the gritty, low-rent crowd energy of The Barker, you might appreciate what they were trying to do here, even if they had about a tenth of the budget.

It’s barely an hour long, which is honestly its greatest strength. It gets in, does some weird sports-crime mashup things, shows off Rita's smile, and gets out before you have time to complain about the plot holes.

Don't expect greatness. Just grab a cheap drink, turn your brain off, and enjoy the fast-talking nonsense. 🍺