Fear Strikes Out

In his autobiography, baseball star Jim Piersall described his childhood (Depression-era poverty, Catholicism, aggressive father, mentally unstable mother), his career with the Boston Red Sox and his years of battling with schizophrenia. The film is in effect a psychoanalysis of the book, concluding (big surprise) that Jim's breakdown was all Dad's fault. The '50s-style confrontations between autocratic Malden and sensitive Perkins draw quite entertainingly on the precepts of Freud and the conventions of melodrama. It's a little poky and tentative, but a promising start by the Pakula-Mulligan team.