Baseball player Lou Gehrig was an inspirational athlete and an iconic figure; this movie about his life, starring Gary Cooper, was highly acclaimed in its time and still well-regarded.
Specs:
Just over two hours, black and white
Our family's average rating on a scale of 1-10:
8.0
More about the film and our reaction to it:
The film is good primarily because Gehrig, an athlete worthy of hero status, has a powerful, touching and very sad life story. Gehrig was a massively talented and popular player on the New York Yankees, playing ball in the 1920s and 30s. He was known as The Iron Horse for his amazing streak of simply going to the park and playing the game, day after day after day for years on end. For over 2100 days in a row -- a matter of 16 years -- he played every ballgame. He even played on the day he got married. Caring and upstanding, a good man and a great ballplayer, he is the kind of hero America would be lucky to have more of.
His story is a love story too and the movie traces his relationship with his supportive wife and their flirty, friendly love. In addition to the skill and the love, there is the tragic piece of his debilitative disease that prevents him from playing ball (and ultimately takes his life, though the movie ends with him very much alive after giving his famous "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech). It is a moving moment and if you watch this film, prepare for tears (probably your own).
Gary Cooper's performance as Gehrig (the man) is wonderful, though it's been criticized for not being athletic enough to give a sense of Gehrig-the-ballplayer. Its true he doesn't seem to bring love of baseball to the role (the way, say, Kevin Costner does in Field of Dreams); but ultimately baseball is more of a backdrop to this story -- the real importance is Gehrig as a man, and Cooper nails that. His performance of the speech scene is so excellent, it is almost as good to watch as the footage of Gehrig's actual speech.
The movie may suffer a bit from lack of focus, pulling in a bit too many odd little details and it also drags on a bit long. It is too flawed to say its a "great movie," but we have no problem saying it is a "great story" and is therefore definitely worth watching.
Iconic shot:
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