Program Notes: The Spy Behind Home Plate
Program Notes is your resource for a closer look at our programming. This week we’re pleased to present a story that is truly stranger than fiction with Aviva Kempner’s new documentary, The Spy Behind Home Plate.
“The brainiest man in baseball”
That was the moniker bestowed upon major league baseball player Morris “Moe” Berg. An alum of Princeton University, NYU, and the Sorbonne, he was fluent in seven languages and had a propensity for reading ten newspapers a day. While this mediocre, third-string catcher’s command of language, foreign affairs, and other esoteric subjects certainly endeared him to the public, they also made him an ideal candidate for a pursuit known to few at the time — his double life as a spy for the OSS.
“Moe Berg is an American hero, and what’s more American than baseball? If you had told me I was going to be making sports films though, I would have laughed.” — Aviva Kempner
Though she never envisioned herself crafting films about baseball players, this isn’t entirely unfamiliar territory for writer/director/producer Aviva Kempner, whose previous credits include documentaries about Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, and actress Gertrude Berg, better known as Mrs. Goldberg. The daughter of a Holocaust survivor and Jewish-American GI, Kempner has made it her mission in life to celebrate the untold stories of Jewish heroes through her films. Indeed, she made her entrée into the world of sports films with The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1998), an ode to another Jewish major-leaguer.
If this is all sounding terribly familiar, it’s likely because this isn’t the first time this story’s gotten a big screen adaptation. Hemming close to films like The Imitation Game (2014)—another unsung World War II hero biopic—The Catcher Was a Spy (2018) saw actor Paul Rudd step up to the plate as Berg.
“For decades different writers and directors have tried to tell the story of the thrilling life of Moe Berg. I am proud to have made the first factual, feature-length documentary.” — Aviva Kempner
We hope you’ll join us this week for a decidedly less “Hollywood” take on the incredible true story of this unsung hero. You can check our Website or subscribe to our Weekly Email Newsletter for more updates on new films and events.
The Spy Behind Home Plate opens at the Hiway Theater on Friday, Sept. 13th.
