The Pride of the Yankees has always been one of the best of the old Hollywood biopics.
What made "The Pride of the Yankees" the biopic to beat was the way it delved deeply into the personal life of a very private athlete, showing fans the man behind the legend. And it is a beautiful love story, on two levels. Mrs. Gehrig kept a scrapbook during the 15 years or so that she was a baseball wife, and in one scene in the movie she has a little fun at the sportswriter's expense by implying Lou hasn't been coming home, and that he's been unfaithful. But then she drives him to a sandlot where he's umpiring a stickball game for the local kids. Any time you can take somebody out of the newspaper headlines and pump that paper body full of real life, it's an achievement. And that's why "The Pride of the Yankees" still works today. There's the Yankees mystique, the Murderer's Row mystique, and the Iron Horse mystique. But when you get right down to it, it's what Gehrig did off the field that's just as fascinating . . . if not more so.
Video:
Some versions of this film have been colorized, but this is the original black-and-white, presented in the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. There's a slight graininess in many scenes, but this is a wartime film, and an old biography, and so it's hardly noticeable. The contrast is pretty decent.
Audio:
The audio is a no-frills English, Spanish, or French Mono, with subtitles in Spanish and English (CC). There's the usual flatness that accompanies Mono, but at least the amount of distortions (hiss, pop, scratchiness) is kept to a minimum.
Extras:
I first saw this film as a young boy and continue to think it's one of the best old-Hollywood biographies, and so I'm a sucker for ANY bonus features. All of the featurettes are short, but they manage to cover a lot of ground. An unexpected pleasure is "Always--The Story Behind the Song." One of the main songs in this, which signifies the Gehrig's love, is the Irving Berlin song "Always," which we learn was Mrs. Gehrig's favorite song, and one she requested for the film. There's a lot of biographical information on Berlin as well, which, as I said, was an unexpected treat. A making-of feature tells basic background information on how the film came together, with the young Goldwyn telling about his famous forebear's role in bringing the film to the big screen. A couple of bonus features also tell about Gehrig and his prowess, as well as the collection of memorabilia that was left behind. Rounding out the extras are what amounts to a pair of PSAs--one that features the president of the ALS charity talking about the disease, and the other focusing on current baseball pitcher Curt Schilling, who's made ALS his own cause for the past 15 years.
Bottom Line:
Biographies were all the rage between 1940 and 1960, and "The Pride of the Yankees" has always been one of the best of the old Hollywood biopics. We learn about Lou Gehrig, and, in the process, we gain inspiration for how to better live our own lives. And that's what those old biopics were all about. They were sentimental but effective lessons in citizenship . . . and life.
Video:
Some versions of this film have been colorized, but this is the original black-and-white, presented in the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. There's a slight graininess in many scenes, but this is a wartime film, and an old biography, and so it's hardly noticeable. The contrast is pretty decent.
Audio:
The audio is a no-frills English, Spanish, or French Mono, with subtitles in Spanish and English (CC). There's the usual flatness that accompanies Mono, but at least the amount of distortions (hiss, pop, scratchiness) is kept to a minimum.
Extras:
I first saw this film as a young boy and continue to think it's one of the best old-Hollywood biographies, and so I'm a sucker for ANY bonus features. All of the featurettes are short, but they manage to cover a lot of ground. An unexpected pleasure is "Always--The Story Behind the Song." One of the main songs in this, which signifies the Gehrig's love, is the Irving Berlin song "Always," which we learn was Mrs. Gehrig's favorite song, and one she requested for the film. There's a lot of biographical information on Berlin as well, which, as I said, was an unexpected treat. A making-of feature tells basic background information on how the film came together, with the young Goldwyn telling about his famous forebear's role in bringing the film to the big screen. A couple of bonus features also tell about Gehrig and his prowess, as well as the collection of memorabilia that was left behind. Rounding out the extras are what amounts to a pair of PSAs--one that features the president of the ALS charity talking about the disease, and the other focusing on current baseball pitcher Curt Schilling, who's made ALS his own cause for the past 15 years.
Bottom Line:
Biographies were all the rage between 1940 and 1960, and "The Pride of the Yankees" has always been one of the best of the old Hollywood biopics. We learn about Lou Gehrig, and, in the process, we gain inspiration for how to better live our own lives. And that's what those old biopics were all about. They were sentimental but effective lessons in citizenship . . . and life.
Average user rating (1-5):
Not yet rated.
Not yet rated.