Film Record: Pinch Hitter

Title still from Pinch Hitter in Movie Makers, Nov. 1937, 539.

Date produced: 1936

Filmmaker(s):

Charles J. Carbonaro

Languages:

English

Length:

400 ft

Format:

16mm

Colour:

B&W

Sound Notes:

Silent

Awards/Recognition:

ACL Ten Best 1936 - Honorable Mention General Class

Description:

"Pinch Hitter, a photoplay by Charles J. Cafbonaro, has been given Honorable Mention because of its continuously sustained technical brilliance in the face of many problems of cinematic story telling. A suave situation comedy, it presents the dilemma of a girl who is asked once too often by her roommate to substitute for her on a temporarily undesired date. In time, the pinch hitter goes to bat for herself, knocks out a home run and leaves her roommate caught flat footedly out. In presenting this comedy of manners, Mr. Carbonaro has been helped by good acting from his players but hindered by not quite a light enough touch in the film's pace and direction. The lighting and camera work, which are genuinely of top flight quality, go far but not quite far enough in disguising this one weakness." Movie Makers, Dec. 1936, 550.

Resources:

Discussed by Charles J. Carbonaro in "Fun in Titles" (Movie Makers, Nov. 1937, 538-539, 558-560).

"The basic plot of Pinch Hitter was evolved by Charles Carbonaro, ACL, from a casual note in a tabloid gossip column. " Movie Makers, Dec. 1936, 565.

The film won "best film of the competition" and "took first award in the dramatic films division" in an Eastern seaboard interclub movie contest in 1936. (Movie Makers, March 1936, 114).

The film was available in the ACL's Club Film Library.

Locations:

• New York City, N.Y. (Filming)

Subjects:

• Ethnology
•      Manners and Customs
•           Dating (Social customs)

Genre:

• Comedy

Form:

• Short

Screenings:

• Screened by the Movie Group of the Telephone and Camera Club of Manhattan in 1936: Manhattan, N.Y.
• Screened by the Staten Island Cinema Club in 1937: Staten Island, N.Y.
• Screened by the Hartford Cinema Club in 1937: Hartford, CT
• Screened by the Chevy Chase Cinema Club in 1937: Washington, D.C.
• Screened by the Jefferson City Cinema Club in 1937: Jefferson City, MO
• Screened by the Boston Cinamateur Club in 1938: Boston, MA
• Screened by the Pictorial Photographers of America at the quarters of the Architectural League in 1939: New York City, N.Y.
• Screened by the Cinema Club of the Triple Cities in 1940: Binghamton, N.Y.
• Screened by the Metropolitan Motion Picture Club in 1942: New York City, N.Y.

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