THE BUSHER
IMDB
AFI
Título original: The Busher
Director: Jerome Storm
Año: 1919
País: USA
Guión: R. Cecil Smith, Earle Snell
Producción: Thomas H. Ince Corp.
Intérpretes: Charles Ray, Colleen Moore, John Gilbert, Jay Morley, Otto Hoffman, Jack Nelson
Duración: 55 min.
Argumento: Un joven lanzador de béisbol es descubierto por un manager de las Grandes Ligas y se le concede la oportunidad de participar las Grandes Ligas. ¿Pero estará listo para aceptar el desafío?
Datos Técnicos:
Spoiler:
1919. The Busher (J,Stern).Charles Ray,Colleen Moore,John Gilbert.DVD=Z.avi [674.44 Mb] 
Encontrada en mis rastreos del emule, donde siempre aparecen cosas interesantes.
Subtítulos en español de Eddie Constanti:
https://www.subdivx.com/X6XNTY0ODU1X
Comentarios:
- William K. Everson:
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Made when Charlie Ray (whose screen personality we discussed at some length in our notes for "Sweet Adeline" a year or so ago) was at the height of his popularity, "The Busher" gave audiences what they wanted in a Ray picture with not too many surprises in terms of plot, but some departure from formula in the character of Ray himself. For once his small-town-boy isn't non-aggressive to a point in near-infantilism, and his pleasant bashfulness is agreeably restrained. Since he "proves himself" early in the proceedings (usually it was a last-minute matter in most Ray vehicles), the raison-d'être this time is to have the hero become a conceited boor, and redeem himself. It gives added depth to the Ray character, and helps to keep the plot a little more consistently on the move than were those of "The Clod-Hopper" and "The Pinch-Hitter". On the whole, it stacks up as one of the better Ray pictures, and despite its baseball background, it is still elements of
rural romance and comedy that predominate. Photographically it is quite lovely, with some really charmingly composed scenes. The backgrounds, being so obviously the real thing, have a great deal of interest too, with their authentic advertisements in the baseball park, and in streets, drug-stores etc. There is some occasional slight animation in the titles which warrants a mention too. Nobody has too much to do apart from Ray, but Colleen Moore makes a thoroughly pleasing heroine, and John Gilbert plays well as the flashy hick Beau Brummel who is Ray's rival for Colleen's hand.
Incidentally, slight essays in Americana like this one - films with no dominating themes, and more by-play than sustained scenes, are particularly troublesome to score, and I apologise in advance for a score which I know does not recapture the spirit of the original score. Surprisingly however, Mendelssohn does pay off in the least likely place! The print is a lovely toned original, and appears to be quite complete. - Mike Grost:
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The Busher
The Busher (1919) is a comedy-drama about a small town baseball player.
The Title
The Busher derives its title from "the bush leagues": American slang for minor league baseball teams in remote areas. The phrase "bush leagues" is still in common use today. But the related term "busher" for a player in those leagues, has vanished from contemporary use.
The hero in The Busher plays on a small town baseball team. But it is not made clear, strictly speaking, that his team is an actual Minor League team in the technical sense the word is used today. His small town team looks completely amateur and non-commercial, and not even advanced enough to be part of a real Minor League.
Media
A surprising amount of The Busher is taken up by looks at the media:
• The box social is auctioned with the women standing in silhouette behind a screen, like a screen in a movie theater.
• The film's best scene involves a telegram.
• The heroine reads newspaper accounts of the hero, and saves a clipping of his picture in the paper.
An interest in films-within-films and telegraphs can be found in the early 1910's work of such Gaumont directors as Louis Feuillade and Léonce Perret.
Transforming the Hero
Perret's L'Enfant de Paris (The Child of Paris) (1913) shows its poverty stricken hero undergoing a transformation into a more prosperous character. He gets to dress up in a decent suit, and experience all sorts of middle class activities that were previously denied him.
The hero of The Busher undergoes a somewhat similar transformation. Like Perret's hero, he begins the film as a man pathetically cut off from modern life. Eventually, he gets good clothes and a new life in the city. There are scenes of him startled by elements of city life, from telegrams to hotel portals with fancy doormen.
However, unlike Perret's film, The Busher shows a dark side to all this. Perret's hero simply goes from poverty to a fuller life. The Busher instead moves from an honest-but-limited country life, to a corrupt city one. He also neglects and rejects his friends.
Gambling
The Busher shows gambling as a vice accompanying baseball. Like most Americans before roughly 1975, The Busher views gambling as a social evil.
The Busher was released in May 1919, just four months before the infamous Black Sox scandal began in early October. Clearly, gambling was a major problem in baseball of the era. The problems in The Busher are minor compared to this real-life scandal, but the film's idea of a link between baseball and gambling is accurate.
Masculinity
The hero and his rival show up at the start, each brandishing their own phallic symbol. The hero carries his baseball bat, the rich banker's son drives his fancy automobile. The hero's emblem exemplifies his skill, and is a symbol open to all classes. The banker's son's symbol is something he has purchased, and is only open to the wealthy. It does not represent his own skill.
Most of the professional ball players the hero later meets seem much older then him. They also have bigger bodies. They seem to represent a "world of men", one that is older and more established than the young hero. However, they tend not to be as tall as the hero.
Architecture
The pyramidal structure on the farm at the start is striking. Its tilted walls are used to make the compositions more interesting.
Uniforms
Uniforms play a key role in the film's visual storytelling. The characters wear many types of baseball uniforms, depending on the kind of team for which they are playing.
The hotel doorman is also in a fancy uniform.
