“Pride of The Yankees” directed by Sam Wood, and starring Gary Cooper, was a film released in 1942, a year after the passing of the movies centerpiece, Lou Gehrig. “Pride of The Yankees” is a sports movie, clearly, but it is not a focus of a team and their struggle through adversity to succeed in their sport, rather, it is the tale of a humble, homely, sincere, affectionate, and all around kind human being: Lou Gehrig.
Gehrig was a softhearted man who valued family, friendship, and love more than anything else. The stumbling onto a baseball field and discovering an utter talent beyond belief was simply a pleasant surprise. Lou stumbled upon this surprise when struggling to pay the bills to support himself and his family, a true depiction of his great character. The film did a great job with depicting things such as these to show what a great man Lou really was.
While the storyline of a great character arc was truly remarkable, I had a difficult time appreciating a sports movie, which focuses on one of the greatest baseball players of all time, yet didn’t have that much actual baseball in it. The movie primarily works on showing the great character of Lou himself, and does an excellent job of winning the viewers over into appreciating its main character; however, I would have enjoyed seeing Lou crush the ball a little more.
Overall, I thought it was a pretty solid movie. However, I don’t think I would put it into the qualifications of one of the greatest sports movies of all time, but it is clearly a classic, and is essentially about one of the most influential and loveable sports figures of all time, therefore it still won me over as a good movie in general.
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