PRIDE OF THE YANKEES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 189, 5 February 1943, Page 17

PRIDE OF THE YANKEES

(Goldwyn-R.K.O. Radio)

IS is the life story of the late Lou Gehrig, who was a completely ordinary person in every respect but one — he

could hit a ball harder than anybody else in America. This accomplishment has provided Sam Goldwyn with the excuse to produce a full-dress movie and .- Gary Cooper with the chance to win the Academy Award for the best performance of 1942 (it’s just been announced). Since baseball as yet means nothing in my own life, it did not provide me with any reason to leap from my seat in excitement, but I can well imagine that in the U.S.A., where Gehrig was apparently as big a national figure as the* President, this screen biography must be as soul-stirring to the average citizen as a film about Nepia would be to the average New Zealander. It’s just a question of the shape of the ball and the way you knock it about; and on the face of it I suppose it’s also as reasonable for Cooper to win the industry’s highest award by portraying a man who played in 2,000 consecutive | ball-games as it was for him to win a similar honour last year by portraying a man who captured 132 Germans. -singlehanded. Not that Gehrig was half as complex or interesting a character as Sergeant York. He was born, he grew up, and he died (at a fairly early age). He didn’t drink, smoke, swear, or go with fast women. He was a very good son to his proud parents, and an excellent husband to his proud wife. (He was never, apparently, a father). In between, he smacked a ball about all over America, made home runs for the Yankees, and became famous. Only a cynic would deny my assertion that, baseball apart, Lou Gehrig was a completely ordinary person. As presented by Cooper, he is not dull, but obviously he is not the colourful material of which movies are customarily. made, and it is good to see that even Sam Goldwyn has come to realise that there is some dramatic merit in a plain recital of domesticity. At the same time, I cannot myself see an Academy Award in Cooper’s performance. He is becoming the Apostle of Ordinariness, and I think is in some danger of being martyred for it. His acting is beginning to follow a stereotyped. pattern, so that you know in when he is going to do a Mr. Deeds, or when he is going to remind you of Dopey in the Seven Dwarfs. ‘Simple souls may be very lovable, but they can become monotonous. Better deserved, I would say, was the Academy Award to Teresa Wright as "the most outstanding and promising newcomer of the year." She plays the role of Gehrig’s wife, and gives it freshness as well as simplicity. Good, too, are the actor and actress who pu haies Gehrig’s doting parents. — s