The Pride of the Yankees

Rating:
Summary: I Consider Myself The Luckiest Man On The Face Of The Earth
Review: PRIDE OF THE YANKEES is no doubt the greatest baseball movie ever made. The mythologized life story of the New York Yankees "Iron Horse," Lou Gehrig, who played an astounding 2,130 consecutive games (and this in the days before Sports Medicine, no apologies to Cal Ripken), PRIDE OF THE YANKEES is a celebration of good old-fashioned Americana. Gehrig, as the gifted only child of German immigrants, is the son we all wish we could have. His tragic death at 38 from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) robbed the world not only of a phenomenal baseball player but of an icon of determination and grace.

Gary Cooper, himself iconic, plays Gehrig true-to-life as a dedicated husband, friend, son and teammate. The Norman Rockwell touch is rounded out by the adorable Teresa Wright the 1940s actress who was undoubtedly June Cleaver's mentor. Babe Ruth appears as himself, poking fun at his own legend.

Although the movie is myth-magical, the truth is that Cooper's stainless portrayal of Gehrig is as true to life as it can be. Lou Gehrig truly was a big kid who loved to play ball. And that is all. We could all use a little such PRIDE nowadays.

Rating:
Summary: Sweet and Sentimental
Review: The best movie anyone ever made about baseball. Gary Cooper turns in a spectacular performance as Lou Gehrig, the Yankee baseball star who becomes an American legend, only to be cut down by disease. The ending, in which the doomed Gehrig tells his many fans at Yankee Statium how much baseball has meant to him, are some of the most emotional minites in movie history. Theresa Wright is wonderful as Gehrig's loving wife, Elsa Jansson and Ludwig Stossel are are right on track as Gehrig's old world parents, and Babe Ruth plays himself. It's a sentimental movie, but I like sentimental.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful in black and white
Review: The Pride of the Yankees is perhaps the best movie about sports because it is about so much more than sports: it's about love and bravery and dedication, on and off the field. And unlike so many other dying athlete movies, the sentiment is understated--you can cry unashamedly.

Now to the silly idea of colorizing movies. How's this for a reason not to do it: the filmmakers who created black and white movies never intended them to be seen in color. They were designed, lit, and photographed for black and white viewing. Surely we should have some regard for the purposes and judgments of the artists and craftsmen involved.

So many veteran filmmakers objected to this barbarism, this dumbing down of their work. John Huston in his final illness and drawing breath from an oxygen tank testified before Congress in hopes that legislation protecting black and white films would be passed. Orson Welles told a friend that he didn't want Ted Turner to deface Citizen Kane "with his crayons." (In what would have been the worst outrage of colorization, Turner's company looked into colorizing Kane, only to discover that Welles' contract with RKO forbade any alterations in the final film by anyone other than Welles himself.)

Incidentally, films can and have been restored without colorizing them, of course. But what is the point of restoring the film only to degrade it by coloring it? Furthermore, you do not get a true black and white representation of a colorized film by simply turning down the color control: the application of the color tones degrades the image's grey scale--in other words, the image appears too dark or too light.

Surely not everything must be candy-colored to be enjoyed. Black and white has a silvery spectral beauty all its own. Give in to it, without prejudice.

Rating:
Summary: "The Luckiest Man.........................."
Review: The Pride Of The Yankees, was released in 1942. A year after Lou Gehrig passed on. Gary Cooper plays 'The Iron Horse' who came up in 1925 and played over 2000 games, never missing one. The film begins with Lou as a boy growing up playing ball. But he is not just any ball player. Right away a talent is recognized, he has power among other things. Lou is the son of immigrated parents who want to see there only living child make it in America. Lou's mother wants him to become and enginer. He can make money, support a family and live a better than average life. Lou doesn't want to, but tries to go with his mothers wish. College is just something in the way of playing for the Yankees. Along the way the film shows Gehrig's transformation from a boy into a fine ball player. He has to deal non-stop with his mother and her DREAM of him going to some kind of university. But his dream is shown to be some place else. Gehrig goes back to the Bronx in 1925 and never looks back. The Babe and Gehrig will go to war on offensive stats (yet share a mutual respect for one another) for the next decade and Lou would go after more when Ruth retires. Along the way in the film we meet Lou's future wife Eleanor. She will be the center of his life and him hers. The film captures the true character of Gehrig and his ups and downs in life. Dealing with everyday opsticles, he does it with class. Walter Brennan plays a always going after it sports writer and several real life Yankee players play themself. Nonetheless no one plays Ruth, except for himself. And does it well. The film captures a life filled with dreams to achieve and that are, a sport that truely is the greatest and a man who shows the true meaning of the human spirit. Gehrig is brilliantly played by Gary Cooper who won an Oscar nomination (and should have one.) Anything less than great would not have done this film and the life of Gehrig justice, yet it does just that. Being a life long Yankees fan, I don't like this film because it deals with the team, although it's a plus. It's the depth that it takes you too. How a man who had nothing early in life, left with it all and no less a great story of Gehrig's wonderful yet short life! Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, it won for Best Editing. It should have won many more, but it doesn't have to win any awards to be effective!
Grade:A

Rating:
Summary: The story of Lou Gehrig and the classiest sports biopic
Review: There are all sorts of little imperfections in the 1943 film "The Pride of the Yankees." The screenwriters rearranged Lou Gehrig's famous farewell speech at Yankee Stadium so that the best line, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth," becomes his exit line (it was the second line in his speech with his actual last line being, "So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for"). Gary Cooper had enough problems batting right-handed let alone left-handed like Gehrig, so the actor wore a uniform with "KROY WEN" on the front, ran to third base when he managed to hit the ball, and then they reversed the print. Gehrig is shown wearing his famous number 4 when the Yankees play the World Series, but that happened in 1926 and 1928 while the Bronx Bombers did not start wearing uniform numbers until 1929 (Gehrig batted cleanup and was 4, Babe Ruth batted in front of him and was therefore 3). The film talks about how Gehrig won the Triple Crown on the day he was married but Gehrig won the Triple Crown in the 1934 season, the year after Lou and Eleanor were married in 1933.

But none of that really matters because "The Pride of the Yankees" remains the standard by which all sports biopics, whether of baseball players or anyone else, are judged. Even those who were not weaned and raised on baseball know that the title character is going to die of Lou Gehrig's disease and the film takes full advantage of that foreshadowing: when Gehrig gets into his first game and refuses to come out after being hit in the head by a thrown ball, 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 baseball theme. It starts off as a rags-to-riches story, where Gehrig's mother (Elsa Janssen) insists her son will be an engineer and does want him wasting time playing baseball. Eventually the fame and money opens her eyes, but then Lou meets Eleanor Twitchell (Teresa Wright) and 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 and his society wife along with the strained relationship that developed between Gehrig and Babe Ruth. The film really only touches on these aspects and Ruth, playing himself, is usually a smiling figure when he shows up on screen, except for when Gehrig is eating his new hat and he is listening to Gehrig's farewell speech.

Cooper was nominated for an Oscar for his performance and even though he is rather awkward and a bit old for the role, he captures the essential dignity and 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" and also one for Best Actress that same year for "The Pride of the Yankees." Wright won for "Mrs. Miniver" and 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 and Ludwig Stössel as Pop Gehrig provide a lot of the comic relief in the film. Brennan's role is rather low-keyed for him while Stössel has several fine moments where he tries, usually without success, to stand up to his wife. Appearing as themselves are Yankee players Bill Dickey, Bob Meusel, and Mark Koenig, and the familiar voice of Bill Stern makes it on screen as well.

Gehrig's tragic death at the age of 38 makes all of his records even more astounding given that his career was cut short. Sportswriter Jim Murray once described the tall, strong Gehrig as a "Gibraltar in cleats," and "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 baseball sequence. The irony that Gehrig could inspire Billy to rise up and 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.

Rating:
Summary: The story of Lou Gehrig and the classiest sports biopic
Review: There are all sorts of little imperfections in the 1943 film "The Pride of the Yankees." The screenwriters rearranged Lou Gehrig's famous farewell speech at Yankee Stadium so that the best line, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth," becomes his exit line (it was the second line in his speech with his actual last line being ""So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for"). Gary Cooper had enough problems batting right-handed let alone left-handed like Gehrig, so the actor work a uniform with "KROY WEN" on the front, ran to third base when he managed to hit the ball, and then they reversed the print. Gehrig is shown wearing his famous number 4 when the Yankees play the World Series, but that happened in 1926 and 1928 while the Bronx Bombers did not start wearing uniform numbers until 1929 (Gehrig batted cleanup and was 4, Babe Ruth batted in front of him and was therefore 3). The film talks about how Gehrig won the Triple Crown on the day he was married but Gehrig won the Triple Crown in the 1934 season, the year after Lou and Eleanor were married in 1933.

But none of that really matters because "The Pride of the Yankees" remains the standard by which all sports biopics, whether of baseball players or anyone else, are judged. Even those who were not weaned and raised on baseball know that the title character is going to die of Lou Gehrig's disease and the film takes full advantage of that foreshadowing: when Gehrig gets into his first game and refuses to come out after being hit in the head by a thrown ball, 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 baseball theme. It starts off as a rags-to-riches story, where Gehrig's mother (Elsa Janssen) insists her son will be an engineer and does want him wasting time playing baseball. Eventually the fame and money opens her eyes, but then Lou meets Eleanor Twitchell (Teresa Wright) and 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 and his society wife along with the strained relationship that developed between Gehrig and Babe Ruth. The film really only touches on these aspects and Ruth, playing himself, is usually a smiling figure when he shows up on screen, except for when Gehrig is eating his new hat and he is listening to Gehrig's farewell speech.

Cooper was nominated for an Oscar for his performance and even though he is rather awkward and a bit old for the role, he captures the essential dignity and 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" and also one for Best Actress that same year for "The Pride of the Yankees." Wright won for "Mrs. Miniver" and 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 and Ludwig Stössel as Pop Gehrig provide a lot of the comic relief in the film. Brennan's role is rather low-keyed for him while Stössel has several fine moments where he tries, usually without success, to stand up to his wife. Appearing as themselves are Yankee players Bill Dickey, Bob Meusel, and Mark Koenig, and the familiar voice of Bill Stern makes it on screen as well.

Gehrig's tragic death at the age of 38 makes all of his records even more astounding given that his career was cut short. Sportswriter Jim Murray once described the tall, strong Gehrig as a "Gibraltar in cleats," and "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 baseball sequence. The irony that Gehrig could inspire Billy to rise up and 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.

Rating:
Summary: Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig as True Hero
Review: There are movies that involve the audience about the life of its star and there are others that use gimmicks to hide the fact that the audience never gets to look at the star from the inside. In PRIDE OF THE YANKEES director Sam Wood gave us a movie that has already stood the test of time as one of the best movies to come out of Hollywood. The high quality of this film is mostly because of Gary Cooper's startlingly realistic portrayal of a baseball icon whose playing career overlapped the cinematic career of the film icon who played him. The audience sees the man in a way that the fans in the stands could not. Cooper carries the movie in the same way that he carries SERGEANT YORK, by his straightforward radiating of emotion that is often at odds with the face that says one thing but the eyes that say another.
The young Lou Gehrig starts off as a youth loving baseball so much that he has to hide his love from a mother who wants Lou to surpass Uncle Otto as a symbol of success. Lou hears his mother praise Uncle Otto and assures her that he will follow in his footsteps, but his eyes tell another story. In fact, throughout this movie, it is his eyes that speak more eloquently than anything else he can say or do. Lou winds up in Columbia on a scholarship, and during a frat party hazing designed to test his ability to endure a razzing, Lou retreats within himself until he can retreat no more. For the first time in this film, and very nearly for his entire movie career as well, Cooper shows the anger that we all knew lay buried deep. Cooper made a career out of rechanneling emotion into productive ends, and as Lou Gehrig, he can redirect his inner chi into belting baseballs over walls well enough to earn a tryout with the New York Yankees. By this time, the audience is hooked by their caring for a man who combines the best of the American ideals of hard work and talent with the self-effacing that marks most film icons of that time.
Theresa Wright plays first his girlfriend, then later his wife. She is simply wonderful as the cultured girl who falls for the small town hero. They poke fun of each other but the audience knows that what they are really saying is the Real Thing. Theresa Wright knows exactly when to back off and let Cooper be at center stage and when to interact with him to produce some truly stirring moments. There are two scenes that stand out as unforgettable, one with Wright, the other without. The first occurs when Lou has been playing poorly. He has been striking out, dropping easy catches, and running awkwardly. His teammates are puzzled and mix anger with concern. After a loss caused by his poor play, Lou sits on a bench, trying to make sense of a body that had never before betrayed him. As he leans forward to untie his laces, he continues to fall, rolling over onto the floor. His mates pretend not to notice. Lou says nothing but his face tells the audience all that they need to know. The fear that often bubbles just beneath the skin in many of Cooper's movies surfaces, and that fear clicks in the hearts of all. Later, when he has seen a doctor and knows that his illness, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, is terminal, he decides to hide this knowledge from his wife who nevertheless has already guessed the truth, but tries to hide that from him. There is a heartbreaking scene in which she tries to raise his spirits by donning a barker's hat and mustache. As she stares at him, she laughs. As she hugs him, her eyes reveal her own torment. Each actor is absolutely convincing in their respective attempts to hide what they know, while pretending all is well.
PRIDE OF THE YANKEES tells a story well-known to anyone who reads the sports pages. It features Cooper in center stage, with a supporting cast including Walter Brennan and Dan Duryea, both of whom interact credibly with him and Ms. Wright. This is more than a baseball bio of a man who hits it big in his game. It is more the story of a giant who continued to hit it big even after the fans have left the stadium.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST BASEBALL MOVIE EVER MADE!
Review: This is a movie about one of the best
baseball players, of all time! Lou Gehrig
would have played atleast 3000 consecutive
games, if he didn't get sick! Gary Cooper
did a great job playing Lou Gehrig.
This movie is very close to me, because
I also have (A.L.S.)Lou Gehrig's Disease.
I'm proud to know, I share this devistating
disease, with such a legend!

Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorites
Review: This is one of my favorite movies of all times. It's the story of Lou Gehrig, the "Iron Man" of baseball whose wonderful career was ended by the disease named after him. The story is not just about baseball but also about the wonderful personality and life of a truly likeable man. It is a truly heartwarming but bittersweet story.

Gehrig is played brilliantly by Gary Cooper and it was great to see Babe Ruth playing himself in this movie, especially when the movie occasionally pokes fun at his reputation.

Two unqualified thumbs up.


Rating:
Summary: The best baseball picture ever made!
Review: This is the masterpiece of SamWood. Never, in the story of the American Cinema we will have the chance and delight of watching a perfect film, loaded with diginity, humanity and powerful human quality of Lou Gehrig like this one.

To affirm that Gary Cooper at least deserved to share the Prize as Best Actor with James Cagney it would not sound exaggerate.

Nine nominations to the Academy Awards. And winner in just one issue: Set up.

2130 games all the honors and the final speech, radiant humor, adequate balance and kinetic pulse , a splendid cast with Teresa Wright and that Super Nova actor as Walter Breenan was make of this film one of the one hundred American films in any age.

Touching, emotive and poignant portrait. And if besides you are a Yankee fan as I do, the pleasure will be the double.

A feast to the spirit.!