The Worst Film Ever

One of my all time favorites.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This picture follows the short and exciting life of Henry Louis Gehrig. The Iron horse moniker pinned on him due to his unprecedented streak of 2130 straight games for the New York Yankees. This a wonderful story of a boy from turn of the century Manhattan with struggling immigrant parents who want their son to get a good education and follow in the footsteps of Uncle Otto the family success at engineering. Lou starts out breaking a storefront window as a youth to entering Columbia University when he proceed to break another office window getting attention to Sportswriter/ scout Sam Blake played by supporting actor Walter Brennan. This formula of Brennan and our star athlete Gehrig (Gary Cooper)works well together in this story directed by Sam Wood. One of many movies in which the Brennan/ Cooper duo have their chemistry on all cylinders.Sam Blake is not only a beat writer but a close friend and mentor to the green vulnerable young Gehrig. What puts this movie over the top despite it's inaccuracies and phony claims is the presents of Sports Icon and modern day Santa Claus the BABE himself George Herman Ruth, (The Bambino), (The Sultan of Swat)! Babe does a fine job of acting which makes you wonder why he didn't embrace Hollywood more. I felt he was a natural.The casting of Lou's doting parents Ludwig Stossel and Elsa Janssen reminded me of my Maternal Grandparents from Europe and how strange to see their son becoming a star in short pants," This game with pillows on the field!" as the elder Mrs Gehrig quipped. Finally the casting of Eleanor Gehrig The perky Teresa Wright. From the first time Lou tripped over the bats at old Comisky Park and the nickname "Tanglefoot" is born to the horse shoe of Roses scene when Lou's health begins to fail him.Honorable mention to Dan Duryea who plays the foil to Sam Blake during the entire movie as the rival sportswriter involving bets and seltzer bottles. Favorite scene for me is a St.Louis hospital room.There lies a sickly boy named Billy next to a huge radio as the Babe and other Yankees sign a baseball as the Babe promised to hit a home run for Billy in the World series game that afternoon as the Babe boasts, Center Field no less. Lou hangs around after the Yankees and Doctors/nurses left to be alone with the ailing boy. Lou tells him, "keep your chin up Billy!There isn't anything you can't do if try hard enough!" In response Billy makes a bold request to Lou. "Mr. Gehrig can you hit a home run for me today? Can you hit two? Lou looked dumbfounded as to paint himself into a corner and made this proposal to the lad that "I'll hit two home runs if you hit one for me!" impressionable youth looks in shock and Lou went on to explain that one day you'll have to walk out of this hospital under your own power! Powerful words from a great ballplayer. The truth is that it never happened. The Yanks in 1926 fell to the Cards in that World Series but who cares, the guys in Hollywopod created that legend. Despite the falsehoods and there are many along the way, I watch it over and over again. Frank Faylen of Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is the wiseacre coach of the Bronx bombers and puts in his two cents in the art of straw hat eating. Can't get enough of this movie with the conga line chanting LOU LOU LOU! Cal Ripken are you out there?

I'm not too conversant with the story of American baseball, coming as I do from the other side of the Atlantic although I took a crash-course a few years ago watching Ken Burns's terrific PBS history of the game. So I was only slightly aware if I'm being honest of the Lou Gehrig story, the great New York Yankees batsman and fielder who made a record number of consecutive appearances before being stuck down by the AFS disease which curtailed his life at only 37 years old and which still bears his name in the States.With Gehrig being, by all accounts a modest, family man and dedicated team player, Gary Cooper was probably a natural choice to play him on screen. Thus Coop gives a trademark performance highlighting the humility and selflessness of the man, even if there is a seen-it-before feel to his display, going back to "Mr Deeds Goes To Town", "Meet John Doe" and "Ball Of Fire", to name but three. However, it's impossible to believe the forty-plus Cooper as a college freshman or rookie ball-player, no matter his youthful looks and by the same token he also seems to be way older than his new sweetheart, played by Teresa Wright, who if anything, seems too young in her part. Walter Brennan, with his distinctive voice, is excellent as a supportive journalist and friend, as is Dan Duryea in an early role as a more mud-raking reporter.I must confess that a great deal of the scenes seemed apocryphal to me, none more so than when Gehrig promises to a sick boy to hit two home runs in an important game in return for extracting a vow from the boy to get himself well and who then turns up the day of Gehrig's testimonial day all cured. However, there's no denying the emotional heft when Gehrig delivers spontaneously at the same testimonial his famous and touching "luckiest man" speech.The movie chooses this inspiring moment to end on an uplifting basis, where a modern telling of the story might have shown how the man actually coped with his affliction, but given that as the opening titles make clear, America's young men were at war, I can readily accept this upbeat extolling of one man's bravery against formidable odds.So in the final analysis, a more honest and less sentimental version of Mr Gehrig's life might have rung truer, but even if his story does get the Hollywood treatment, even down to polishing up his climactic speech, there's no denying the emotional impact of the movie as a whole.

Use your calculator and figure out when Gary Cooper played the Lou Gherig role in this 1942 film. Mr. Cooper was born in 1901, so when he played this role, he was already an over 40 years old middle aged guy, yet according to what we have seen in this film and BIOS of Gherig, he indeed attended Columbia University. So he would be a very young man as most of us normally graduated from high school at 18 and then enter the university for advanced education. But what we saw in the movie, an already over 40's guy, Gary Cooper, played a college student who should and would be under 22. So the supposed to be still a very young Ghrig played by Cooper appeared on the screen to serve the food for those Columbia students, what we saw was an 40-year old guy! And well, in order to allow the middle aged Cooper not showing too old among those Columbia undergraduates, those young students were also played by a bunch of over 30 or around 40s guys, just for the purpose not to make Cooper's middle aged face became so apparently old like a sore thumb! Gee, what a joke!When Cooper entered the kitchen of the university, the female actor who played Ghrig's mother, after 10 years when her son broke the store's window, she looked exactly the same as 10 years ago when the movie started. Gee, what a lousy arrangement we got here again. According to Ghrig's BIOS, "...A native of New York City and attendee of Columbia University, Gehrig signed with the Yankees in 1923.....Lou Gehrig died at his home on June 2, 1941 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)" So according to Ghrig's death year and the release of this particular film about him, we inevitably realized that Samuel Goldwyn Company just took the opportunity to shoot a picture about a guy just died, on the surface, the movie was paying tribute to the great late Ghrig, but under and behind the facade, the Jewish movie company just used the rare opportunity to cash in, and indeed, not only the box office successful, but also won a lot of Oscars. But to me, this film was just opportunist wet dream played by a bunch of wrong cast of the wrong ages. By all means, do not be so easily to be touched and fooled. When you watched those movies churned out around that period, we often saw some very old guys, especially Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott, John Wayne and lot of other older faces, played much much younger characters and young lovers, but the wrinkles on their faces just screamed off the silver screen, they were just a bunch eye-sore old Romeos forced to play those young roles by those movie companies in Hollywood. You have to lower your reasoning to accept those roles played by these old bunch. I can't give any star of this film, because I really don't like really old guys to play those characters who should be 20 years younger.

Last night I watched "The Stratton Story," also directed by Sam Wood, and tonight "The Pride of the Yankees." To me, there is no comparison. "Pride" falls short of "Stratton." Some of that is a matter of personal taste. For me, James Stewart was one of the greatest Hollywood actors. In "Stratton" I see him develop his character a piece at a time. I never get a sense of who Gehrig is in this movie, but then, Gary Cooper has never made an impression on me.I'm no great fan of June Allyson, but she does a decent job in "Stratton," and there is real chemistry between her and Stewart. You truly believe that they are a couple in love. Theresa Wright's short success has always mystified me, and I find no chemistry between her and Cooper - who has never seemed to have any chemistry to me.This movie also runs too long. Until Gehrig finally falls ill, near the very end of a 2+ hour movie, there is no real tension. It is just one success after the next. At one point, for example, there is a suggestion that there is a rivalry between Babe Ruth and Gehrig, but that goes nowhere. To me, this a a poor, loose script.Cooper does a fine job with Gehrig's speech before the microphone when he is honored in Yankee Field. It would be hard not to be moved by that speech, no matter who read it, but Cooper does a fine job.Other than that, I didn't get much out of this movie, and very much prefer Wood's later effort, "The Stratton Story."