This rather romaticized biopic of baseball legend Lou Gehrig has long been considered a template for sports movies and one of the best about baseball in general. Even if one is uninterested in the American sport of the 1930s, one can still enjoy this film for Gary Cooper's give-it-all performance in the lead.
The magic of cinema (or the appeal of Cooper's persona) allows the viewer to overlook the fact that the actor was 41 when the movie was made and is therefore a wee bit too old to play Gehrig as a Columbia University student of 20 or so. One forgives the moviemakers this conceit by the sincerity and simple charm of his acting. The backstory is that he is the child of poor immigrants who has always loved the sport but agrees to go to university to fulfil his mother's dream of his becoming an engineer like dear old Uncle Otto. He leaves to play ball and earn the necessary money for a good hospital when she becomes ill and for sometime is in cahoots with his dad to keep this deceit from her. How she finally comes 'round to his choice is part of the film's would-be cuteness.
We then watch his rise through over 2100 consecutive games before being struck with the neurolgical disease which now bears his name. In the meantime we meet his wife-to-be endearingly played by the late Teresa Wright, his sportswriter pal Walter Brennan, another originally skeptical writer played by Dan Duryea, plus the real Babe Ruth and other well-known players of the period. The film was nominated for 11 Oscars, but only received one for editing. From sixty-odd years' perspective, one can see that the movie is somewhat fatally padded out to reach its running length of well over two hours including a totally unnecessary night club scene featuring a pair of ballroom dancers which seems to go on forever. However, all this fades into a small quibble when one is moved by the grace of Cooper's final speech before leaving the ballfield forever; despite his imminent death, he deems himself the luckiest man in the world and one feels lucky as well to have known him.
Disappeared!
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