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The Pride of the Yankees Movie Review

The Pride of the Yankees is a 1942 biographical film directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright. It is a bland Oscar-nominated biopic.

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“Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth“

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This is the story of the life and career of famed baseball player Lou Gehrig. First off, I am not a sports fan and I especially do not like baseball. Thus, this movie was a very hard sell for me from the start. It also did not age well because Gehrig was huge back then, but not so much now. Thankfully, the film isn’t focused on baseball extensively. In fact, very little of the games are showcased here with most of the attention having been directed toward his personal life.

We get to see his marriage, his endearing dynamic between his wife, his wonderful relationship with his mother and the eventual illness that ended up taking his life. The only section of the movie that is dramatic and eventful is that final act that is fittingly very tragic and emotionally resonant. But the rest of the film just goes through the motions.

I have a hard time understanding why they’d even decided to make this film in the first place. Gehrig was a huge star in this period, yes. But baseball is a small part of this story. The rest consists of a series of repetitive sequences that are all about the American way of life. And I just find these overly earnest movies about these boring people lifeless.

This was a very repetitious role for Gary Cooper as he did this same shtick the year before in his Oscar-winning ‘Sergeant York’ starring performance. He is the same here, which means that he is excellent, believable and so easy to like and care about, but again it’s more of the same. Teresa Wright was also nominated for an Oscar and she was quite charming as his wife.

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But The Pride of the Yankees had no business being nominated for the staggering number of eleven Academy Award nominations. Not only is it technically only serviceable, but the directing from Sam Wood is pedestrian, the screenplay is very uninspired and the dialogue is only okay. Most of the film plays out in this territory of only serviceable, which makes it highly overrated at the end of the day.

You’d think that a film that was nominated for the staggering amount of eleven Oscar nominations would be something special, but you’d be sorely mistaken as The Pride of the Yankees is anything but unique. This is a pedestrian biopic about an uninteresting sports figure that features a reliably excellent, but repetitious performance from Gary Cooper playing his usual shtick of an all-around swell fellow. The third act is definitely moving, but the rest of the story is uneventful to a ridiculous degree. It’s also technically only serviceable.

My Rating – 3