Too Many Women: A College Comedy That Forgets the Baseball

If you're looking for a serious sports movie, keep walking. Too Many Women is basically just an excuse to watch guys in letterman sweaters run around trying to juggle dates. It is silly, it is loud, and it is exactly what you would expect from the era.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Too Many Women (1932) through its definitive frames.

Mickey Daniels is supposed to be this hotshot baseball player. But the guy can barely look at a pitcher because he is too busy looking at every girl that walks by the dugout. It is a one-note joke, but he plays it with enough goofy intensity that it kind of works for the short runtime.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Too Many Women (1932) through its definitive frames.

The pacing is all over the place. One minute they are at a game, and the next they are caught in some weird social mix-up that feels like it was written on a napkin during lunch. Honestly, it reminded me a bit of the chaotic energy in Mickey's Choo-Choo, just with more flirting and less train track danger.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Too Many Women (1932) through its definitive frames.

There is this one scene in the cafeteria where someone drops a tray and the whole room just goes silent. It drags for a solid five seconds too long. You can almost feel the director thinking, "Is this funny yet?" It wasn't, but I sort of admired the commitment to the awkwardness.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Too Many Women (1932) through its definitive frames.

The extras in the background are doing the most. I spent way too much time watching a guy in the back row who clearly forgot his lines and was just mouthing 'watermelon' over and over again. It is those little, messy details that make these old shorts worth clicking on.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Too Many Women (1932) through its definitive frames.

Look, it is not a masterpiece. It doesn't have the grit of The Fight or the weird, historical weight of The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924. It is just a goofy relic.

Quick Observations:

• The baseball uniforms look incredibly itchy.
• Nobody actually plays baseball for more than thirty seconds total.
• The way they do transitions between scenes is so jarring it almost gives you whiplash.
• I’m pretty sure the same background actor appears in three different scenes wearing a different hat each time.

Don't overthink it. Just watch it if you want something light and don't mind the fact that it makes absolutely no sense by the end. Sometimes a movie just needs to be a bunch of guys running around in circles. ⚾️