maumaucat Gwen Vernon is a force of nature! I'm not sure how long her and Bob Fosse were married, but together they were fire storm! Ray Walston is sheer perfection as the arrogant spoiled man-child Devil...Oh and Tab Hunter, that shy, humble hunk of mid-west corn fed young man...Mmmm Mmmm...I could go on and on about the entire amazing cast...One of the best musicals of all time!

richard-1787 This is a largely uninspired movie. There are a few memorable musical numbers - "You gotta have heart", "What Lola wants" - but even they aren't staged in a memorable way. The musical ran for years on Broadway, so there must have been something to it. But whatever it was didn't transfer to this movie.Some of it may have had to do with casting the then-popular Tab Hunter in the male lead. He wasn't a dancer, so that leaves Gwen Verdon, who was a fine dancer, to dance largely by herself. And that, in a movie musical, is a problem. It's one of the things, for example, that separates the Eleanor Parker movies from the Astaire-Rodgers movies.But the script is also flat. Compare this movie to Music Man, for example, which also only has 3 memorable musical numbers. But that has a great script, incredible energy, wonderful lines. This is simply not at the same level.And no, it really has next to nothing to do with baseball.There's nothing actually wrong with this movie. No one gives a bad performance. It just doesn't have much energy, and doesn't get us to care about any of the characters.Again, I suspect the Broadway show was a lot better.

Spudling2 Forgotten, but undeservedly so,"Damn Yankees"-- as I always think of it -- is a peppy musical based on the Faustian legend in which the Devils' Advocate (Ray Walston) and his temptress assistant Lola (Gwen Verdon) persuade an ageing baseball fan to sell his soul to become Tab Hunter,baseball-player extraordinaire. But there's a problem; he allows his victim an escape clause....It's a strong storyline, then, and nicely realised, which is a good thing as the musical numbers are rather thrown in as if the songwriters had been given the screenplay and asked to fit in whatever songs they could manage wherever they could fit them, and to give everybody a turn, whether or not it advanced the story or just stopped it dead.But the score is a fine one, the Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon dance routines are stunning (even if totally superfluous) and the film as a whole is very much worth a couple of hours of relax time.....

Neil Doyle As musicals go, DAMN YANKEES was a highly popular Broadway hit because it gave the audience GWEN VERDON's way with a song and dance and Bob Fosse's choreography. It may not have been as filled with hit tunes as some, but "You Gotta Have Heart", "Whatever Lola Wants," and "Two Lost Souls" were good enough to make theater patrons happy.When Verdon (and Ray Walston) won their Tony's, it was a good thing Warner Bros. decided to lure both of them to Hollywood for the screen version. For box-office insurance they had hunky TAB HUNTER to ensure that movie fans would show up--and, surprisingly, it all works very well. Hunter is no great shakes as a vocalist, but he's pleasantly unassuming and gets by on his duet with Verdon.GWEN VERDON lights up the screen whenever she goes into one of her routines, and her "Whatever Lola Wants" is worth the price of admission alone. RAY WALSTON has a devilish time in his rib-tickling role and it's all easy to take as a merry mixture of music and comedy.The only drawback is that its stage origins are immediately apparent and there's a certain static quality about some of the scenes. But overall, George Abbott and Stanley Donen keep it fresh and lively whenever the music takes center stage.