The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

The story of the life and career of the famed baseball player, Lou Gehrig.

Director:

Sam Wood

Writers:

Jo Swerling (screenplay), Herman J. Mankiewicz (screenplay),

Stars:

Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Babe Ruth

Won 1 Oscar. Another 10 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Gary Cooper	...	Henry Louis 'Lou' Gehrig
Teresa Wright	...	Eleanor Twitchell
Babe Ruth	...	Babe Ruth
Walter Brennan	...	Sam Blake
Dan Duryea	...	Hank Hanneman
Elsa Janssen	...	Christina 'Mom' Gehrig
Ludwig Stössel	...	Henry 'Pop' Gehrig (as Ludwig Stossel)
Virginia Gilmore	...	Myra Tinsley
Bill Dickey	...	Bill Dickey
Ernie Adams	...	Miller Huggins
Pierre Watkin	...	Frank Twitchell
Harry Harvey	...	Joe McCarthy
Bob Meusel	...	Bob Meusel (as Robert W. Meusel)
Mark Koenig	...	Mark Koenig
Bill Stern	...	Bill Stern

Storyline

Biopic traces the life of Lou Gehrig, famous baseball player who played in 2130 consecutive games before falling at age 37 to ALS, a deadly nerve disease which now bears his name. Gehrig is followed from his childhood in New York until his famous 'Luckiest Man' speech at his farewell day in 1939.

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Plot Keywords:

baseball | speech | domineering mother | hat | train | 

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Taglines:

THE Private LIFE OF A GREAT Public HERO! (original print ad - mostly caps)

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Genres:

Biography | Drama | Family | Romance | Sport

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 March 1943 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Yankee-k dicsősége

Filming Locations:

Pelham Parkway, Bronx, New York City, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Samuel Goldwyn Company, The

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Multiple published sources have asserted that Cooper, who was right-handed, could not master a convincing left-handed throw or swing. To remedy the problem, the story went, he was filmed throwing right-handed while wearing a mirror-image uniform, and for batting sequences he would swing from the right side of the plate, then run to third instead of first base; technicians then reversed the print of the film. However, Tom Shieber, a curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, has shown that Cooper did indeed learn to bat left-handed, and never wore a backwards Yankees uniform nor ran to third base after swinging. Film footage was "flipped" only once, during a brief sequence portraying Gehrig's minor-league days at Hartford, in order to make Cooper appear to be throwing left-handed. Scenes requiring Cooper to throw a ball as a Yankee were filmed using his stand-in, Babe Herman.

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Goofs

One of the strikeouts between Gehrig's two homers for Little Billy was on four strikes. The first strike was announced twice.

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Quotes

Lou Gehrig: All the arguing in the world can't change the decision of the umpire.

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Connections

Spoofed in The Cleveland Show: California Dreamin' (All the Cleves Are Brown) (2013)

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Soundtracks

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game"
(1908) (uncredited)
Music by Albert von Tilzer
Played during the opening credits and often in the score

User Reviews

Nice Movie About A Great Player and Genuinely-Nice Man

A lot of non-baseball fans still liked this movie a lot, and that's probably because it's more about a nice guy than it is about a ballplayer. New York Yankee great Lou Gehrig is the subject. Gehrig was often in the shadow of the great Babe Ruth, but was tremendous player in his own right and a far better human being.

It's tough to find many nicer movies than this one: a totally inoffensive, sentimental and old- fashioned film about a super-nice guy, played by a popular actor: Gary Cooper. Except for one sportswriter, there were no villains or nasty people in this movie.

Teresa Wright plays "Eleanor Twitchell," who becomes Gehrig's wife and Walter Brennan plays sportswriter and friend, "Sam Blake." The real Babe Ruth played himself, which was nice to see.

Even though Gehrig died at a fairly young age of a disease now named after him, overall this was a feel-good movie of the highest sort. This was so nice a story that even the cynical critics dared not criticize it. It leaves you with tears in your eyes at the end.