Official Synopsis:
His talent made him a legend. His courage made him a hero. Gary Cooper is "nothing short of wonderful" (The Motion Picture Guide) in this moving true story of Lou Gehrig, the Hall-of-Fame ballplayer who reached the heights of stardom... only to face tragedy with a dignity that inspired a nation. Nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, The Pride of the Yankees is a "glorious and inspiring" (The Hollywood Reporter) sports classic.

Our Take:
As both a cinephile and lifelong New York Yankees fan, it’s somewhat amazing that it has taken me this long to see The Pride of the Yankees.  What some may find even more amazing is that I did not absolutely love it. 

The Pride of the Yankees is one of those films that is such a part of American culture (as is the story itself, at least if you grew up a Yankees fan) that you feel like you’ve seen the movie before you actually see it.  So, knowing the entire story going in to the movie, my enjoyment really hinged on the film itself, which unfortunately is not that noteworthy.  Sam Wood directs in his typical fashion, unassuming, so there isn’t much going on; the camera is motionless and we watch Gary Cooper be stoic and decent.  Not to mention, this is an “American dream” type story and Gehrig, our ill-fated all-American hero, is squeaky clean. This, while making him a great guy, does not make for a great film.  Things just keep getting hokier and hokier, from Gehrig as a young boy feeling so guilty about breaking a store window with a hit baseball that he earnestly offers to drop out of school and work to pay it off himself to the portrayal of Gehrig as a mama’s boy who had no other women in his life before his wife.  The film gets a lot better towards the end as things get much worse for Gehrig only because it allows Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright to expand their performances emotionally. 

The baseball portion of the picture is superficially pleasing, but substantively disappointing.  On a very basic level it’s nice to see such Yankee greats as Babe Ruth and Bill Dickey on film playing themselves, but unfortunately the game sequences are not only too few, but uninterestingly filmed.  For whatever reason, even during the big two home runs for the sick kid at bats, we never see a ball leave a ballpark.  We merely see the ball being hit, then cut to the stands where a bunch of extras (fans) try to catch the baseball indicating that it was a home run.  Now, obviously Wood was hamstrung by the technology available to him at the time (the film was released in 1942), but a little originality could have saved these moments.

The Pride of the Yankees: Collector’s Edition, which still lacks a commentary track, is a slight upgrade over the previously available DVD due to the following short extra features:

* The Making of The Pride of the Yankees (8 minutes).

* The Man Behind the Iron Horse (6 minutes) – Lou Gehrig biographer Ray Robinson tells some personal anecdotes about Gehrig, but is forced to share the mere six minutes with film clips.

* What He Left Behind (5 minutes).

* Lou Gehrig’s Disease: A Search for a Cure (6 minutes).

* Curt Schilling: A Legend on a Legend (3 minutes) – As a Yankee fan, this is a very bitter pill to swallow, regardless of the fact that Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling named his son Gehrig.  Schilling and his son speak briefly about how much Lou Gehrig means to them and if an appearance by a Red Sox rival on the DVD isn’t bad enough, the Word Series trophy is clearly visible in the background throughout.

The Pride of the Yankees is a juicy hanging curve for Yankee fans and baseball fans with a love for the history of the game, but cinephiles may find this one too far outside the strike zone.

 
Overall Picture:
Movie: B
DVD:  B -

- Matthew Orlando
Staff Writer