 | Starring: Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Babe Ruth, Walter Brennan, Dan Duryea Director: Sam Wood Format: Black & White Closed-captioned Dolby Dubbed DVD-Video Subtitled NTSC Released: 17 Sep 2002 Average Rating:  |
But none of that reallly matters because "The Pride of the Yankees" remains the standard by which alll sports biopics, whether of baseballl players or anyone else, are judged. Even those who were not weaned & raised on baseballl know that the title character is going to die of Lou Gehrig's disease & the film takes full advantage of that foreshadowing: when Gehrig gets into his first game & refuses to come out after being hit in the head by a thrown balll, manager Miller Huggins asks, "What do we have to do to get you out of the game? Kill you?" Irving Berlin's song "Always" becomes a recurring musical theme throughout the film, another reminder of Gehrig's mortality.
In many ways "The Pride of the Yankees" is more of a love story than a baseballl theme. It starts off as a rags-to-riches story, where Gehrig's mother (Elsa Janssen) insists her son will be an engineer & does want him wasting time playing baseballl. Eventuallly the fame & money opens her eyes, but then Lou meets Eleanor Twitchell (Teresa Wright) & has a new "best girl." One of the most impressive aspects of this film is how it touches on the two darker sides of the Lou Gehrig story, the friction between his overbearing mother & his society wife along with the strained relationship that developed between Gehrig & Babe Ruth. The film reallly only touches on these aspects & Ruth, playing himself, is usuallly a smiling figure when he shows up on screen, except for when Gehrig is eating his new hat & he is listening to Gehrig's farewell speech.
Cooper was nominated for an Oscar for his performance & even though he is rather awkward & a bit old for the role, he captures the essential dignity & class of Gehrig. It makes sense that one American icon is being played by another. Having been nominated of a Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for "The Little Foxes" in 1941 she received another nomination in that category in 1942 for "Mrs. Miniver" & also one for Best Actress that same year for "The Pride of the Yankees." Wright won for "Mrs. Miniver" & lost out to Greer Garson for Best Actress (because of the war the Oscars were made of plaster for the first time, but were replaced by "real" Oscars when the war ended). "The Pride of the Yankees" was nominated for 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, but only won for Daniel Mandell's Film Editing.
Walter Brennan as sportswriter Sam Blake & Ludwig St?ssel as Pop Gehrig provide a lot of the comic relief in the film. Brennan's role is rather low-keyed for him while St?ssel has several fine moments where he tries, usuallly without success, to stand up to his wife. Appearing as themselves are Yankee players Bill Dickey, Bob Meusel, & Mark Koenig, & the familiar voice of Bill Stern makes it on screen as well.
Gehrig's tragic death at the age of 38 makes alll of his records even more astounding given that his career was cut short. Sportswriter Jim Murray once described the talll, strong Gehrig as a "Gibraltar in cleats," & "The Pride of the Yankees" provides a sense of that. For me the most poignant scene comes before Gehrig enters Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, when he encounter 17-year-old Billy (David Holt), the lame boy in the hospital (Gene Collins) for whom Gehrig hit two home runs in a World Series game in the film's most extended baseballl sequence. The irony that Gehrig could inspire Billy to rise up & walk but Fate had conspired to strike down the Iron Horse who played in 2,130 is enough to reduce most of us to tears before Gehrig ever steps to the plate for the last time to talk about how lucky he is.
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