George Herman "Babe" Ruth Movies
"It's box office poison," producer Samuel Goldwyn is said to have exclaimed when he heard the idea of filming the life story of fabled first baseman Lou Gehrig. "If people want baseball, they go to the ballpark!" The story begins before World War I, when young Lou Gehrig (played as a boy by Douglas Croft) begins dreaming of becoming a professional ballplayer. Lou's immigrant parents (Elsa Jansen and Ludwig Stossel) insist that the boy attend Columbia University to become an engineer. While in college, Lou (played as a man by Gary Cooper) becomes a star athlete, and, with the help of sports journalist Sam Blake (Walter Brennan), he is signed by the New York Yankees and joins their big-league lineup in 1925; real-life Yanks Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, Bob Meusel and Mark Koenig play themselves. He also meets and falls in love with Eleanor Twitchell (Teresa Wright) (an event that actually happened in 1933) and earns the nickname "The Iron Man of Baseball" because he never misses a game. In 1939, Lou discovers that he has a fatal neurological disease called amytrophic lateral sclerosis (now known, of course, as "Lou Gehrig's Disease"). On July 4, 1939, an emotional Lou Gehrig, a scant two years away from death, bids farewell to 62,000 of his fans and friends at Yankee Stadium. Allowing that he might have been given a bad break, he concludes his speech with "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Deftly weaving basic facts with yards and yards of fancy, screenwriters Jo Swerling and Herman J. Mankiewicz serve up one of the most entertaining and inspiring baseball biopics. A more accurate but less dramatic adaptation of the same story, A Love Affair: The Eleanor & Lou Gehrig Story, was produced for television in 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, (more)
- 1928
This was comedian Harold Lloyd's last silent film, and one of his most charming. Lloyd's character here is called Harold "Speedy" Swift, an upbeat young man whose fatal attraction for baseball always causes him to lose his jobs. After his latest firing, he impulsively spends a day at Coney Island with his sweetheart, Jane Dillon (Ann Christy). Ann's grandfather, Pop Dillon (Bert Woodruff), meanwhile, has a dilemma -- he runs the last horse-drawn trolley in New York City, and the railway magnates desperately want his route. Since Pop won't sell it to them, they plan to get it by underhanded means. Pop must make his rounds at least once every 24 hours, so the magnates hire thugs to stop him. Speedy hears about this plan and, being gainfully unemployed, takes over the route to protect the old man. But the magnates then steal the trolley, and the climax of the film involves Speedy's dash to find the trolley and get it back to its route before the 24 hours are up. He makes it just in time and then forces the magnates to buy the route for a cool 100,000 dollars. This picture was shot on location in a Manhattan that now looks almost quaint for all its concrete and steel. Baseball legend Babe Ruth had a cameo role, playing himself as a very harassed fare when Speedy is working as a cabbie. Their wild ride ends at the old Yankee Stadium. Other historically interesting sites include Coney Island's Luna Park, and Columbus Circle and Wall Street as they were in 1928. In the film's climax, the trolley has a spectacular crash at the Brooklyn Bridge -- this accident was not planned, but was left in the film anyhow. At the time of this picture's release, Lloyd was a top box-office draw, a bigger moneymaker than Charlie Chaplin (whose releases during the '20s was infrequent) and Buster Keaton (whose quirky comedy wouldn't be fully appreciated for several decades). While Lloyd made some fairly amusing sound films, he never again matched the quality of his silent work. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harold Lloyd, Ann Christy, (more)
- 1927
Baseball great George Herman "Babe" Ruth's second starring film (the first was 1920's Headin' Home) was the amiable romantic comedy The Babe Comes Home. Babe Ruth plays Babe Dugan, home run whiz of the Los Angeles Angels (a minor-league team in 1927). Babe's habit of chewing tobacco makes him the bane of the Snow White Laundry, which has to clean his juice-stained uniforms after every game. Laundress Vernie (Anna Q. Nilsson) attends an Angels game to see for herself just how one man can be so messy. Babe hits a fly ball, which hits Vernie in the eye. From this bad start, a romance develops, culminating in an engagement. On the eve of the wedding, Babe and Vernie have a rhubarb over his tobacco habit. She walks out, and Babe goes into a slump. But during a crucial game (bases loaded in the ninth, natch!) Vernie shows up in the stands and tosses Babe a flesh plug of tobacco. He stuffs the wad in his mouth and hits the deciding homer. Conceding that it was Vernie's love and not the "chew" that inspired him to win, Babe swears off tobacco forever. The ball-playing scenes in The Babe Comes Home were filmed at Los Angeles' Wrigley Field, which would become a popular location site for future Hollywood baseball flicks. Based on a magazine story by Wid Gunning, The Babe Comes Home was a success with both movie and baseball fans alike (never mind such inaccuracies as showing the catchers wearing their wedding rings), but it's likely that it had no bigger fan than Babe Ruth himself, who later confessed to having sat through the 6-reeler ten times. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Q. Nilsson, Louise Fazenda, (more)
- 1924
Babe Ruth on the big screen in this early version of his story. ~ All Movie Guide
