We’re working on a Sports Movie issue for WEEKEND, and I hadn’t gotten around to seeing “The Pride of the Yankees” despite how I knew it was essential inspirational Old Hollywood.
And now that I have, it is certainly a staple of the old studio system. It’s corny, tame, rousing and a complete lark. It stars Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, a huge star at the time who must’ve only been cast because of how damn well he could deliver that ending speech in front of Yankee stadium, the infamous, “Today, I feel like I’m the luckiest man on the face of the Earth” speech.
The rest of the movie, I hate to say it, Cooper’s a bland, nervous and clumsy mama’s boy. He only knows baseball, he’s awkward in front of everyone but his parents and his stabs at personality are captured only in his own lame prat falls and his frolicking wrestling matches with his wife.
Gehrig’s a saint without hangups, pretensions or scandals, but he’s a dope. I have no idea what Gehrig was truly like in his public and private lives, but I know how Hollywood movies were made during this time period, and many hands must’ve been busy pawing at this important script that documented the life of an American public figure. Nothing that would go against the production code and no action that would be required to be “punished” or “justified” would be tolerated.
So much of the film is without much drama. It opens in a hilariously cheesy homey setting where a young Gehrig has smashed a window with a powerful home run. His parents want him to be an engineer, and he has devout loyalty to not disappoint them. His decision to go into baseball is to earn money to save his ill mother, who lives to guilt his future wife about wallpaper choices.
Another memorably dopey segment comes when Babe Ruth is signing a young sick boy’s baseball and promises to hit him a home run during the World Series. Ruth actually plays himself here, and while it’s a treat to see the Great Bambino in the flesh, his performance is as hammy as his actor costars. The real surprise however comes when Gehrig promises the boy he’ll hit TWO home runs, and journalists in the stadium feed the commentator bulletins about this news that is treated with life and death significance.
Even when Gehrig contracts the inevitable Lou Gehrig’s disease, the movie is ho-hum about it, making it look like he’s just getting old, and never names it or even shows him in too much pain. It seems to sweep it all under the rug in favor of a more cheerful, if tepid, film throughout.
But that last scene is quite moving. This movie practically deserves its 11 Oscar nominations for that scene alone. It’s also a good looking film at times, but none of the cinematography, least of all during the baseball games, ever smacks you in the face with impressive visuals. The most striking visuals come from a very good scene that belongs in another movie entirely. There’s a musical number inside a ritzy Chicago club, and the dancing, camera movement, set and music all seem pulled from a Astaire and Rogers musical.
My favorite performance however was Teresa Wright’s. This was her third film, and she is the only actress in history to be nominated for all three of her debut performances. Her second film, “Mrs. Miniver,” which won Best Picture that year, actually won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress when she was nominated for “The Pride of the Yankees” for the lead. She’s a doll as Gehrig’s wife Eleanor from Chicago. But she’s a South-sider. Meh.
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