L'ultima sfida

I know of no two human lives that are more clearly "stories" than that of the two great Yankee teammates, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Most lives a litany of events, some of which are part of "stories" that cut diagonally across the life rather than encompassing it and driving it forward. Those stories do not emanate from or thus reveal the character of the person portrayed.

Ruth was an undisciplined man-child with a prodigious talent that enabled him to reinvent and save his sport and made him the symbol of his era, a time when America was emerging as a world power and breaking the bonds of its own traditions to create a more modern and exciting way of living. But he offended not only the traditionalists but the businessmen who controlled his sport- or used to until he came along. When age and his lifestyle began to catch to him, they disposed of him for all but ceremonial purposes. Meanwhile his age passed and the world grew more serious. He wound up lonely and depressed and became a cancer victim at the early age of 53.

Gehrig was a serious, dutiful momma's boy, also blessed with a prodigious talent that thrust him into where he most hated to be- the limelight. It's interesting that the worst year of his prime was the one year he didn't have either Ruth or DiMaggio as a teammate, 1935. He fared much better in their shadow. He was noted, by those who noted him, as a strong, reliable workhorse of a man and a player, someone you could count on. He was amazingly beset by a disease which robbed him of his strength, the very quality in him people most admired. And that in turn, thrust him directly into the lime light. People didn't think he could respond but he looked into his heart and said what was there and nobody ever forgot it.

How could you miss telling stories like that? But amazingly, Hollywood has always seemed to get Lou's story right and the Babe's wrong. Even though there were casting problems in all the movies made about them, the quality of "Pride of the Yankees" and of "A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story" is superb on both counts. Meanwhile "The Babe Ruth Story" is one of the worst movies ever made and both the TV movie "Babe Ruth" and the film "The Babe" are deeply flawed.

"Pride of the Yankees" is old fashioned Hollywood sentiment but done by experts. I find Teresa Wright's alternate clowning and crying to be a little too much and I've heard all the stories about Gary Cooper's attempts to learn how to play baseball, (he was a cowboy and an artist but no ball-player). But he was a great actor and he got to the essence of the character beautifully. His delivery of the final speech is perfect, for which reason he was asked to repeat it to the troops over and over during his travels during WWII. I'll be loving it- always.

"The Babe Ruth Story" casts a stumpy, potato-faced introvert, William Bendix, as the big, moon-faced extrovert, Babe Ruth. It's a competent "B" movie version of his life for the first half. It might have just been a disappointing follow-up to "Pride of the Yankees" if they'd left it at that but about halfway through the script suddenly delves into science fiction and turns Ruth into a maker of medical miracles, with one ridiculous scene after another. He is, however, unable to save himself in the end, or even the film.

All I saw of "Babe Ruth" was a few scenes but once I saw Stephen Lang wearing what appeared to be a plastic mask, which tried but failed to make him resemble Ruth, I wanted no part of it.

"The Babe" is the "Gone With the Wind" of Babe Ruth movies, which isn't saying much. But is a good retelling of his life and Goodman enacts the part superbly. It ends at the right moment, with Ruth hitting his last three home runs in one game in Pittsburgh to stick it to those who were jeering him. But Goodman is twice the size Ruth ever was. The Babe, as old photos show, was about 200 pounds when his career started and worked his way up to perhaps 250 pounds when he quit. Goodman must have been a minimum of 350 pounds when he filmed this movie and sent the wrong message: that you can be a blimp and still be the greatest player in the sport, an image that baseball people really resent.

While casting is not the only problem, it could have been improved and that might have helped. Physically, someone like Dick Foran or Wayne Morris would have been a better match for Gehrig than Cooper but they wouldn't have given as good a performance. Kurt Russell, (who played some minor league ball), or Jeff Bridges would have been a much better choice for "A Love Story", than Hermann. That other "Reilly", Jackie Gleason, would have been a much better choice than Bendix for "The Babe Ruth Story", (especially if he had eaten the script). Maybe the best time to do a Ruth movie and do it right would have been after Roger Maris broke his record. Either Claude Akins, (my favorite choice of all), or Simon Oakland would have made excellent Ruths. Ramon Bieri was a good Ruth in "A Love Story". I'm not sure who would play him these days.

Of course the best performance as Babe Ruth was by the guy who played him in "Pride of the Yankees".

In Claire Hodgeson Ruth's fascinating book, "The Babe and I," about her famous husband, she is openly critical of the biopic, "The Babe Ruth Story." The film, according The Babe's widow, was rushed into production and on to the public in mid-1948, while Babe was still alive, although he was less than three months from death. It's easier to exploit a live man's life than a dead one's, Mrs. Ruth suggests. That's a primary reason why the production and everything associated with it was hurried. In the book, she also stated that she would forgo all royalties from the film's showings...if it were to be permanently shelved. It wasn't...but should have been. In fact, it never should have been done, if speed, indeed, were the primary motivation.

Babe Ruth was the greatest American sports hero ever...including those who followed him during the second half of the twentieth century. Babe deserved a much grander---and accurate---portrayal than this '48 laugher.

There were only two positive elements to the story..and both involved casting. Claire Trevor as the Babe's second wife, Claire, and Charles Bickford as Brother Matthias, were excellent choices. But selecting comic William Bendix for the title role was more than a case of poor casting; it was one that completely undermined both the film and its title character.

Through Bendix's portrayal, audiences see the "Sultan of Swat" as a buffoonish character. Someone who belongs in a cartoon. Not that Bendix didn't try his best. But he was miserably mis-cast. Mrs. Ruth, in her book, stated that she would like to have seen Paul Douglas portray her husband. Not only was Douglas an excellent actor, she said, but he had been an athlete in his youth. He easily could have handled the baseball scenes.

The whole tone of "The Babe Ruth Ruth" story was embarrassingly melodramatic. Again, The Babe deserved much better.

Haste makes waste, the saying goes. It certainly is true here.

As has been noted already here, this film is worse than mediocre; it is ludicrous at best. Why the film was as badly scripted as it was is anybody's guess at this late date. Scenes which should have come across as poignant come across as corny. The Miller Huggins death scene is especially bad, where "Babe" is talking to him thinking he is still alive, and the nurse pulls the sheet over the face because he is already dead. The jump from his youth in the orphanage to major league baseball is disconcerting. William Bendix wasn't a great actor in the sense of a Bogart or Tracy. But, he wasn't that inept either. The production was rushed to completion before Ruth's death and one can only wonder what he must have thought of it, given the chain of contrivances. This film could have been honest and inspiring, instead it is fraudulent and vapid.

When I was a lad I remember taking the book this film was based on out of the Brooklyn Public Library. Babe Ruth's ghost written memoirs by Bob Considine were considered so innocuous that it could be found in the children's section of the library.

The Babe had only been gone from us for about seven years when I read the book and saw the film. The film is as how he would like to have been remembered. Of course it was hardly the character he was. Left out of this film is the hedonism that ran rampant in his persona, the drinking, the womanizing, the brawling.

What gets me about this film is that William Bendix was a huge baseball fan, in fact he was a bat boy for the New York Giants as a kid. So too, was William Frawley when he wasn't drinking you could find him at a game in a given city during the season.

Some of the bare bones facts of Ruth's life are covered and some of the stories attributed about Ruth are presented here. Left conspicuously out of the film are Ruth's first wife and daughter. This was a film intended for kids and that wouldn't have quite fit.

In a recent biography of Ruth, I learned that the Considine book wasn't even Considine's. Bob Considine was a fine journalist and reporter who was not a sportswriter per se. Ruth agreed to the memoirs while he was undergoing treatment for cancer to leave a permanent legacy. But he proved such a difficult subject to interview because he dominated the sessions with his own rollicking anecdotes when he wasn't in pain from the illness. Long time Ruth friend and noted baseball writer Fred Lieb helped Considine with the book with no credit as Lieb ghosted a whole lot of the book himself helped by his encyclopedic knowledge of Ruthiana.

In that era of the Twenties, what has been termed the Golden Age of Sports, Babe Ruth's was the brightest star in the sports world. He was a larger than life figure, down to the fact that his excesses were larger than life. He transformed his sport to one of power from one of speed. He drew sellout in every American League city, transformed the New York Yankees into the greatest sports franchise ever.

Ruth had a couple of good made for TV films about him that were closer to the truth. But he deserved what Lou Gehrig got, a big A budget film from someone like Samuel Goldwyn.

Still he did better in a biographical film than Jackie Robinson.

Some have rightly criticized this movie as being a glossed-over, fictionalized, lower-budget presentation of Babe Ruth, while "The Pride of the Yankees" afforded teammate Gehrig a big-budget, A-list-cast project.

However, both were off the proverbial "mark." Gehrig was not quite the totally-affable individual Gary Cooper portrayed, and his mother not quite the "Aunt Bea" type shown.

Babe Ruth was a larger-than-life persona, bawdy, irreverent, and a national icon which, in more recent times, have only seen perhaps Muhammed Ali and Michael Jordan afforded anything close to the equal amount of acclaim. And one must always remember these two have had the benefit of television, including dozens of cable/satellite venues, and far greater electronic and print media than Ruth ever knew.

There is an interesting film clip I've seen many times. Ruth (who batted third) is rounding third base and going to home plate after hitting a home run, while Gehrig (waiting to bat fourth), has his back completely turned, ignoring him, much less shaking his hand. These two were not on speaking terms for significant amounts of time while teammates - far different from the tone of either of their biographies.

This is quite a fictionalized movie, however, few biopics of this era - sports or otherwise - weren't. But it should be noted that Ruth, now well past a half century since his tragic illness and death, and much further beyond his prime - still has led "Athlete of the Century" and similar lists, with only fore-mentioned Ali and Jordan (along with Jim Thorpe) as close contenders.

I, for one, would like to see a film which would present both Ruth and Gehrig, in a realistic style, made today. Dennis Quaid, after putting on a few pounds, and a little padding and makeup, could portray Ruth. He's left-handed, and can portray a baseball athlete (ala "The Rookie," playing a role of a character a decade younger than he), with Costner as Gehrig. Kevin also can handle a bat and ball (Gary Cooper, playing Gehrig, had the baseball talent of a 12-year-old, and the film had to be shown in-reverse to make him appear left-handed. While Costner is right-handed, his athleticism and better techniques today could overcome this).

They are a little longer-in-tooth now (who isn't?), but both are in excellent shape, look younger than they are, and modern techniques and makeup should be able to overcome any problems of their playing "younger."

Personally, I think a first-class film with two major stars, playing Ruth and Gehrig, in a story presenting the harder edges of their personalities, relationship, family lives, etc. - as well as all the positive aspects we've seen before - could be an amazing flick.

Finally, this film is a lot better now, not because its story or presentation have improved - but for its nostalgic view of 1940's film, and the baseball locations and scenes as they were then.