Pride of the Yankees

UPC: 883904102984

Studio: MGM

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:null

Summary: "It's box office poison," producer Samuel Goldwyn is said to have exclaimed when he heard the idea of filming the life story of fabled first baseman Lou Gehrig. "If people want baseball, they go to the ballpark!" The story begins before World War I, when young Lou Gehrig (played as a boy by Douglas Croft) begins dreaming of becoming a professional ballplayer. Lou's immigrant parents (Elsa Jansen and Ludwig Stossel) insist that the boy attend Columbia University to become an engineer. While in college, Lou (played as a man by Gary Cooper) becomes a star athlete, and, with the help of sports journalist Sam Blake (Walter Brennan), he is signed by the New York Yankees and joins their big-league lineup in 1925; real-life Yanks Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, Bob Meusel and Mark Koenig play themselves. He also meets and falls in love with Eleanor Twitchell (Teresa Wright) (an event that actually happened in 1933) and earns the nickname "The Iron Man of Baseball" because he never misses a game. In 1939, Lou discovers that he has a fatal neurological disease called amytrophic lateral sclerosis (now known, of course, as "Lou Gehrig's Disease"). On July 4, 1939, an emotional Lou Gehrig, a scant two years away from death, bids farewell to 62,000 of his fans and friends at Yankee Stadium. Allowing that he might have been given a bad break, he concludes his speech with "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Deftly weaving basic facts with yards and yards of fancy, screenwriters Jo Swerling and Herman J. Mankiewicz serve up one of the most entertaining and inspiring baseball biopics. A more accurate but less dramatic adaptation of the same story, A Love Affair: The Eleanor & Lou Gehrig Story, was produced for television in 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Actress – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Black and White Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Black and White Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Black and White Cinematography – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Score - Drama or Comedy – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Special Effects – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Special Effects – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Special Effects – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Story – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 10 Best Films – Film Daily

Features: cc
The making of The Pride of the Yankees
The man behind the iron horse, what he left behind
Always - The story behind the song
Lou Gehrig's Disease: The Search for a Cure
Curt Schilling: A Legend on a Legend

Pride of the Yankees

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 03/18/2008

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Audio: DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 128 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,Spanish,French

Subtitles: English,Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- The Pride of the Yankees
1. Main Title / Somebody [7:26]
2. Cruel Gag [10:21]
3. Yankees Property [6:24]
4. Mom Finds Out [6:35]
5. Tanglefoot [8:52]
6. Every Man [5:23]
7. Bells Are Ringing [12:13]
8. Real Hero [10:16]
9. New Best Girl [7:38]
10. Lou's Ladies [1:42]
11. Private Life [5:33]
12. Over the Years [10:34]
13. Slump [4:49]
14. Strike Three [8:41]
15. All the Time... [8:24]
16. Luckiest Man / Credits [3:48]

Bruce Eder

Historically, only a few baseball movies have done well at the box office, mostly because audiences are lukewarm to portrayals of heroes of the diamond. Sam Wood's The Pride of the Yankees, however, is an exception, and an improbable one: neither producer Samuel Goldwyn nor star Gary Cooper knew anything about baseball, and it seemed unlikely that anyone was going to pay money to see a story in which everyone knew the outcome. Goldwyn may not have understood the sport (he thought players got promoted up through the bases, from first base to third, and couldn't understand why Gehrig was such a great player if he was "only" a first baseman), but he understood the public better than almost any other producer. The poignancy of Gehrig's story -- he became a sports hero out of a modest upbringing only to see fate strike him down, and then accepted that fate with heroic stoicism -- might've played well at any time, but the fact that America was heading into a war in which people with would be sacrificing themselves made the material even more topical. Though Cooper threw with the wrong hand -- requiring the film to be flipped, so that players had to run from home to third and wear uniforms with reversed numbers -- he portrayed Gehrig with perhaps even more dignity than the real man possessed, and his romantic scenes with Teresa Wright as Gehrig's wife were warm and honest. Director Wood's understated, unpretentious telling of the tale captured the subject of baseball but also provided a snapshot of Americans in general, and how we wanted to think of ourselves on the eve of World War II. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Vaughan Glaser  Actor 
Ray Noble and Orchestra  Actor 
Veloz & Yolanda  Actor 
Lorna Dunn  Actor 
Spencer Charters  Actor 
Frank Faylen  Actor 
David Holt  Actor 
Robert W. Meusel  Actor 
C. Montague Shaw  Actor 
Jack Shea  Actor 
Bill Chaney  Actor 
Harry Harvey  Actor 
George McDonald  Actor 
Billy Roy  Actor 
Max Willenz  Actor 
Edgar Barrier  Actor 
Gene Collins  Actor 
Pat Flaherty  Actor 
John Kellogg  Actor 
Patsy O'Byrne  Actor 
Ted Offenbecker  Actor 
Lane Chandler  Actor 
Eva Dennison  Actor 
Mary Gordon  Actor 
David Manley  Actor 
Rosina Galli  Actor 
Anita Bolster  Actor 
Sarah Padden  Actor 
Dorothy Vaughan  Actor 
Robert Winkler  Actor 
Janet Chapman  Actor 
Vinton Haworth  Actor 
Matt McHugh  Actor 
Dane Clark  Actor 
Tom Neal  Actor 
Jack Stewart  Actor 
Samuel Goldwyn  Producer 
Leigh Harline  Composer (Music Score) 
Herman Mankiewicz  Screenwriter 
Ray Noble  Composer (Music Score) 
Jo Swerling  Screenwriter 
Sam Wood  Director 
Paul Gallico  Screenwriter 
Gary Cooper  Actor 
Teresa Wright  Actor 
George Herman "Babe" Ruth  Actor 
Walter Brennan  Actor 
Dan Duryea  Actor 
Elsa Janssen  Actor 
Ludwig Stossel  Actor 
Virginia Gilmore  Actor 
Bill Dickey  Actor 
Ernie S. Adams  Actor 
Pierre Watkin  Actor 
Mark Koenig  Actor 
Bill Stern  Actor 
Addison Richards  Actor 
Hardie Albright  Actor 
Edward Fielding  Actor 
George Lessey  Actor 
Douglas Croft  Actor 

Country: USA