This is the second of a two-part article about the making of “42,” a movie about the life of baseball legend Jackie Robinson. Partially filmed in and around Chattanooga, the movie debuts in theaters today.
The filmmakers drafted a team of actors to play the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, led by Christopher Meloni as the famed player-turned-manager Leo Durocher, who utters his immortal words, “Nice guys finish last.” When members of the Dodgers start a petition protesting the addition of Robinson to the team, Branch makes it Leo’s responsibility to put them in their place. Meloni recounts, “Leo nips it in the bud by telling them they can like it or lump it, but they’d better get used to it or they can take the train. Color is a non-issue to Leo; he doesn’t care if Robinson is black, white or whatever, as long as he can help the Dodgers win.”
“Branch knew that team chemistry was crucial,” asserts Helgeland. “A team that didn’t have chemistry didn’t win. For that reason, he hoped that the men would just accept Jackie Robinson based on his abilities, but his hopes were probably too high. For one thing, a lot of the players had grown up in the Jim Crow South, where segregation was a way of life, so that mindset had to be overcome, which was a massive uphill climb.”
The petition drive is headed by Dodgers’ right fielder Dixie Walker and pitcher Kirby Higbe, played by Ryan Merriman and Brad Beyer, respectively. Hamish Linklater portrays pitcher Ralph Branca, who is one of the first to extend his hand in welcome to Robinson. “All Ralph cares about is winning the pennant, so his only interest is if Jackie can play, not the color of his skin,” says Linklater.
It takes more time for some of the other Dodgers to come around, and two of them do so in dramatic fashion. The first time is at a game against Philadelphia where the Phillies manager, Ben Chapman, hurls a merciless barrage of racial slurs and epithets at Robinson whenever he comes up to bat. The attack is so relentless, it finally breaks the silence of the Dodgers’ dugout. Jesse Luken, who plays second baseman Eddie Stanky, describes, “When Eddie sees the ring of fire that Chapman is putting Jackie through, he finally says, ‘That’s enough.’ He makes a moral decision to stand up to Chapman because he knows Jackie can’t. And that signifies a change.”
The second demonstration of support comes from Dodgers’ shortstop Pee Wee Reese, played by Lucas Black. At a game in Cincinnati, Reese, a native of nearby Kentucky, reacts to the jeers from the crowd by going over to Robinson and, in a move that stuns everyone, puts his arm around his teammate’s shoulders. In real life, that simple gesture–especially coming from one of the day’s most popular players–was considered such a turning point that there is a statue commemorating it in Brooklyn.
Black says, “I felt honored to be playing Pee Wee Reese, who was such an awesome player and a cool guy. He’s quoted as saying, ‘You can hate a man for many reasons, but color is not one of them,’ so that shows how he ultimately felt about Jackie being his teammate.”
Also appearing as members of the Dodgers organization are: T.R. Knight as Harrold Parrott, the team’s traveling secretary; Toby Huss as Clyde Sukeforth, a member of their scouting and coaching staff; Max Gail as the Dodgers’ interim manager Burt Shotton; John C. McGinley as Dodgers play-by-play announcer Red Barber; and Brett Cullen as Montreal Royals manager Clay Hopper. The main cast also includes Alan Tudyk as Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman; Gino Anthony Pesi as Joe Garagiola; and James Pickens, Jr. as Mr. Brock, who declares Jackie “a hero.”
Apart from the main cast, the production also needed actors to fill out the Dodgers’ roster, as well as those of their opposing teams. “We wanted to have real baseball players,” says Helgeland. “There’s a lot of baseball going on and we wanted it to look natural.”
Second unit director and stunt coordinator Allan Graf was responsible for scouting players for “42,” including veterans of both the major and minor leagues and Division 1 college athletes.
Graf also oversaw the training of Chadwick Boseman, who had to learn to play in the unforgettable manner of his character. Helgeland, who had previously worked with Graf on “A Knight’s Tale,” notes, “Allan was a former football player and has done a lot of football films, so he brought a little bit of that mentality to the set. It was fitting because Jackie was a star running back at UCLA and ran bases more like a running back than a baseball player.”
“Jackie had a very distinctive run,” Graf elaborates. “He used his shoulders and arms like a locomotive chugging, so Chad worked hard to get that down. We also had him stealing and sliding into bases, diving for line drives, hitting the ground, turning and throwing the ball. He trained hard for four months and he ended up looking great.”
Boseman reveals that another one of his biggest challenges was “emulating Jackie’s batting stance because our body types are different, and the technique he used to hit was rather unorthodox. I practiced for hours every day. It was intense, but it was important because, as much as possible, I felt I had to do my own stunts. I couldn’t separate the acting from the stunts because you need to see Jackie’s face; you need to see the courage, the defiance, the fear and even the fun because, at the end of the day, he loves the game. That’s an important aspect of the story.”
For two months prior to filming, baseball trainers Dennis Reitz and David Iden coached Boseman exclusively. But as they got closer to shooting, he was not the only one in training. All of the men appearing as players were immersed in weeks of physical conditioning and practice at a training camp run by Graf and baseball coaches Peter J. Smith and Bradley C. Bouras. It wasn’t enough for the actors to be convincing as professional baseball players; they had to adopt what Graf calls the “rock-n-sock” style of the game in the 1940s.
Helgeland explains, “I think in the ‘40s baseball was more of a contact sport than it is now, and we wanted to get that across. I told Allan I wanted to make it gritty and tough with a lot of impact. I didn’t have to say another word. You say ‘impact’ to Allan and you’re off and running,” he laughs.
“I don’t believe it could have been any more physical,” Boseman attests. “I was jumping six feet in the air, sliding in the dirt, diving for balls, sprinting...and we never knew how many takes we were going to do. It was tough and there were times it took its toll on us. But on those days when I was running on fumes, what got me through was thinking about how hard it was for him. I told myself I had one, maybe two more in me because he would have had one, maybe two more in him.”
DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH
The approach to the game wasn’t the only thing that was different. From the ballparks, to the towns and cities, to the cars and buses, to the uniforms and clothes, every facet of the production had to reflect a time gone by.
One important aspect of Brooklyn Dodgers baseball that was long gone was the beloved home of the team, Ebbets Field. In fact, all of the old major league ballparks have, over the years, been upgraded or completely torn down and replaced by new stadiums. Helgeland corroborates, “Even Fenway and Wrigley Field have been modernized, so we would have had to do too much to sell them as being in the period. We were also shooting during baseball season, so that made it unfeasible.”
Executive producer Jason Clark and location manager Eric Hooge scoured the South, where they had learned a number of those old ballparks still exist. They found three that were able to be used in the production: Engel Stadium in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Luther Williams Field in Macon, Georgia; and Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, which is America’s oldest existing ballpark. Perhaps most interestingly, Jackie Robinson had played on all three fields, which was inspiring to the filmmakers, cast and crew. Boseman says, “Whenever I came up to bat, I always grabbed a little bit of dirt and rubbed it in my hands as a way to pay homage to him.”
Engel Stadium was selected to serve as Ebbets Field, which turned out to be mutually beneficial to the production and the stadium. Hooge says, “They were considering tearing it down because it was in such disrepair. We had to make some modifications, but at the same time, we revitalized it so it can be used again.”
Production designer Richard Hoover pored over numerous images of Ebbets Field, studying it from every angle. In his research, he was also lucky enough to discover digital copies of the original drawings of the stadium online. He states, “We wanted to be as accurate as possible and also to do justice to the memory of one of the original baseball palaces in this country.”
Using the photos and drawings as a reference, Hoover’s team resurfaced the diamond and the outfield; built an entire section of bleachers set at an exact angle to the baselines; and plastered 1940s-era ads on the walls, among other elements. They even created an exact replica of the Ebbets Field scoreboard.
Nevertheless, certain components could not be achieved materially, so, Hoover worked closely with visual effects supervisor Jamie Dixon to recapture Brooklyn, circa 1947. Helgeland says, “The two of them figured out a way to marry the practical sets to the computer extension in a way that is seamless.”
The crew constructed an enormous green screen wall by placing telephone poles at 10-foot intervals, which were then sunk 10 feet into the ground to fortify the massive structure. Once secure, they attached sheets of plywood and painted the entire wall green. Measuring approximately 1200 feet long and 40 feet high, the green screen wrapped around the entire back of the stadium and extended down each side, allowing the VFX team and design teams to establish the Brooklyn skyline of 60-plus years ago, the crowded second deck of Ebbets Field, and whatever else was required for each scene.
The vast green screen also enabled the filmmakers to repurpose Engel Stadium for the Dodgers’ away games: using VFX to turn the stadium into the home fields of the Philadelphia Phillies and the Cincinnati Reds.
Luther Williams Field was used for segments involving the Dodgers’ and the Montreal Royals’ training camps. Notably, Rickwood Field was the actual site of a game between the Kansas City Monarchs and the Birmingham Black Barons, during Robinson’s time in the Negro League. Helgeland and his cast were thrilled to re-imagine moments from that game in the very place it had happened.
Baseball action in “42” was captured by both the first and second units, but the goal for both was the same: bring the audience directly into the game. Helgeland notes, “The DP, Don Burgess, and I decided we weren’t going to do a lot of sweeping shots of the stadium. We wanted it to feel like you were there–sliding into base, seeing if the runner is safe or out, anticipating a pitch in the batter’s box, or standing on the pitcher’s mound.”
Burgess says he and Helgeland and the design teams also established a specific color palette “to bring the audience along on the journey with Jackie Robinson from a visual standpoint. We broke it down by year, from ‘45 to ‘47, and I used different gel filters in the lights to create a certain atmosphere for each year. And all the departments made sure the tone remained consistent in the sets and costumes.”
Hoover adds, “We talked about keeping a somewhat desaturated color scheme until we entered the major league stadiums, where everything is heightened, or in the Dodgers’ locker room, which features a strong red wainscoting. We also incorporated the theme of darkness and light, like when Jackie is coming out of the tunnel at Ebbets and going towards something new.”
THE BOYS OF SUMMER
Colors and textures were equally important to costume designer Caroline Harris, who, like Hoover, spent months researching the styles of the day. “America in the 1940s was documented by many different photographers with many different viewpoints,” she offers. “I gathered reams of images and covered my walls with them to immerse myself in the era.”
She had Harrison Ford’s wardrobe made especially for him, designing it to denote a man of Branch Rickey’s formidable stature. Every suit was also carefully fitted to the actor’s padded physique. Harris comments, “I particularly enjoy tailoring and so does Harrison Ford. He came in with such enthusiasm and knowledge of the character; he was so great to work with.”
Harris designed Nicole Beharie’s costumes, as Rachel Robinson, to reflect an elegant woman who always dressed impeccably but in a way that seemed effortless. “Jackie and Rachel Robinson were both fashionable dressers,” she says, “and Chadwick Boseman and Nicole Beharie wore the 1940s clothing exceptionally well.”
Beharie shares, “I fell in love with the period, when the men were such gentlemen and all the women were poised and dressed like ladies. It was almost like being in another world, and then suddenly you go home and people are in skin-tight jeans and the music is blaring,” she laughs.
Harris and her team were also responsible for making sure that everyone–from the main characters to the passersby on the street to the hundreds of spectators crowding the stands–was outfitted in ‘40s garb. Christopher Meloni recalls, “The costumes absolutely transported back me to that time–the peanut and popcorn vendors in their white suits and little trays and everyone dressed to the nines to go out, even to a baseball game. It was beautiful.”
“The ball players, especially, were riding high,” Harris says. “They were into how they looked and liked to blow some cash on their wardrobe, so the period clothes some of them wear have a bit of flash to them.”
Their choice of attire on the field, however, was far less personal. “The baseball aspect needed to be precise,” Harris confirms. “The material was pre-washed before the uniforms were cut and assembled because the heat and humidity was sure to cause sweating and I needed to be sure the fabric wouldn’t surprise us by shrinking or falling apart on the players.”
In addition, the team names, logos and numbers were recreated to be exactly as they were at the time, down to making sure the correct number was on the back of each player at the corresponding times. For example, Ralph Branca went from 20 to 13 during the 1947 season, taking a teammate’s number when that player was traded.
Major League Baseball was consulted on every detail and was an invaluable resource in ensuring authenticity on everything from the uniforms to the size of the bats used by particular players.
Harris also uncovered a collector who had a personal stash of vintage Dodger uniforms. She offers, “We checked the material and the colors and saw immediately that they were not in the same blue we refer to today as Dodger Blue. Back then, the team used a much darker blue so we had to make sure it was the appropriate shade for that decade.”
Color is not the only thing that has changed over the years. The period equipment, particularly the old-style gloves, made it harder even on the most seasoned players. Lucas Black verifies, “I grew up playing baseball and it took me a while to get used to that glove. But it was amazing to learn more about the game and about this story. My love of baseball grew so much while making the movie.”
The baseball uniforms of the times, including the caps, were predominantly made of wool, and, in the quest for verisimilitude, so were the uniforms in the film. That was unfortunate for the men on the field in the southern summer months. “The heat and humidity was tough on the guys having to wear wool,” Helgeland nods. “But I couldn’t allow myself to think about it too much because we would never have made it through the day. I had to say, ‘Look, if you want to play baseball, you’re gonna be out in the sun.’ But they were all troupers and I appreciated that.”
Despite the discomfort, however, the uniforms proved only to add to the positive experience for the actors. “Putting on the jersey with the number 42 was one of the most magical moments of the whole movie for me,” Boseman affirms.
“When we put on the uniform, we became a team,” Ryan Merriman declares. “We hung out together, sweat together, laughed together and got it done together.”
Helgeland offers, “I knew going into this film that the relationship between Robinson and Rickey was important, and the relationship between Jackie and Rachel was essential, but I didn’t realize how significant the relationship between him and his teammates would be. I read a quote about Jackie that said he changed the world but refused to let it change him–he came into this situation and everyone around him would change...or not. That’s what happens when he walks into the locker room in the movie. And I was surprised at the power that took on, which even I didn’t expect it would have.”
The filmmakers hope that the power of the story will resonate with moviegoers–those who know about Jackie Robinson and those first learning about him.
Thomas Tull reflects, “I think ‘42’ is not only fascinating in the way it captures a pivotal chapter in our history, but it’s also an exciting and compelling story–one that is both informative and entertaining.”
“I believe the spirit of the country is that it is always struggling to be better, that it always wants to improve,” Helgeland concludes, “and Jackie Robinson joining the Dodgers in 1947 was a kind of beachhead in that fight and in the civil rights movement. The fact that he integrated baseball didn’t mean the issue went away, but it was a place to start to win the battle. Thanks to him and to those that followed, we’ve made incredible strides, but it’s not won yet.”
Source: Warner Bros.