Rating: NR
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 04/10/2007
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English/Espanol
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 128 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: MGM
"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
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