The Pride of the Yankees

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The Pride of the Yankees
1942 film poster
Directed by	Sam Wood
Produced by	Samuel Goldwyn
Written by	Paul Gallico (original story) Jo Swerling & Herman J. Mankiewicz (screenplay)
Starring	Gary Cooper Teresa Wright Walter Brennan Babe Ruth Dan Duryea
Music by	Leigh Harline
Cinematography	Rudolph Maté
Editing by	Dan Mandell
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date(s)	July 14, 1942
Running time	128 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Pride of the Yankees is a 1942 biographical film directed by Sam Wood about the New York Yankees' star baseball player, first baseman Lou Gehrig, who had his Hall-of-Fame career cut short at 36 years of age when he was stricken with the fatal disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, more commonly known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease"). The movie was released one year after Gehrig's death.

It starred Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig and co-starred Teresa Wright as his wife Eleanor and Walter Brennan as a sportswriter friend. Real-life Yankee teammates Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Mark Koenig, and Bill Dickey played themselves, as did sportscaster Bill Stern.

The movie was adapted by Herman J. Mankiewicz, Jo Swerling, and an uncredited Casey Robinson from a story by Paul Gallico.

The Pride of the Yankees was critically and publicly acclaimed at the time of its release and is considered a classic.

The Pride of the Yankees won one Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: for Film Editing. In addition, it had 10 more nominations for:

This film is widely known for the reenactment of Gehrig's farewell speech in Yankee stadium. The famous line "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth" was voted #38 in the American Film Institute (AFI) list of the 100 greatest movie quotes of all time.

In another memorable scene, Gehrig visits a crippled boy named Billy (Gene Collins) in a hospital and promises to hit two home runs for him in a single World Series game; Gehrig fulfills his promise, and an older Billy (played by David Holt) attends Lou Gehrig Day and shows Gehrig that he can walk, having made a full recovery inspired by his hero's determination. This event, a takeoff on something that happened to Babe Ruth, was parodied on a 1995 episode of Seinfeld ("The Wink," in which the promise was made by Kramer on behalf of Paul O'Neill), in "The Babe Ruth Story" sketch of SCTV starring John Candy as Babe Ruth and in the movie BASEketball.

The American Film Institute ranked The Pride of the Yankees #22 in their list of the top 100 most inspiring movies in American cinema.

[edit] Plot

The film emphasizes the personal relationships of Gehrig's tragically short life, first, with his parents, especially his domineering mother, his friendship with the sportswriter, Sam, and, finally, the "storybook romance" and marriage to Eleanor. Although The Pride of the Yankees is often hailed as the greatest of all sports movies, the details of Gehrig's baseball career are somewhat slighted, represented by montages of ballparks, pennants and Cooper swinging bats and running bases. His record of 2,130 consecutive games is prominently mentioned, yet the viewer is left to surmise his motive for such dedication. The real Lou Gehrig's irrepressible exuberance for the game, his boyish delight in making the ball "jump" off his bat and in galloping around the bases as fast as he could, never quite makes it onto the screen.

[edit] Gehrig's farewell speech

In Gehrig's actual speech on July 4, 1939, the line "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth" was actually at the beginning of the speech but was moved to the end of the speech in the movie.

Here is the text of the actual speech given that day by Gehrig:

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

"Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

"So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for."

---

Here is the speech from the film:

"I have been walking onto ball fields for sixteen years, and I've never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. I have had the great honor to have played with these great veteran ballplayers on my left - Murderers Row, our championship team of 1927. I have had the further honor of living with and playing with these men on my right - the Bronx Bombers, the Yankees of today.

"I have been given fame and undeserved praise by the boys up there behind the wire in the press box, my friends, the sportswriters. I have worked under the two greatest mangers of all time, Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy.

"I have a mother and father who fought to give me health and a solid background in my youth. I have a wife, a companion for life, who has shown me more courage than I ever knew.

"People all say that I've had a bad break. But today...today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."