The Pride of the Yankees (1942) on Netflix
Approved19422h 8mBiographyDramaRomance
Lou Gehrig is a Columbia University student with a gift for baseball. His mother wants him to become an engineer. When she falls ill, he signs with the New York Yankees.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.6/1013,044 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Lou Gehrig is a Columbia University student with a gift for baseball, whose old-fashioned mother wants him to become an engineer. A sportswriter befriends him and persuades a scout to watch him play. When his mother falls ill, Gehrig signs with the New York Yankees to pay her hospital bills, and with his father's help he keeps the change of career from her. He works his way up through the minor leagues. Babe Ruth, his hero, is at first dismissive of the rookie, until steady play wins over the team.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ruth's health had been declining since his retirement in 1935 and by 1942 he weighed nearly 270 pounds, so he was put on a strict diet before filming; the rapid weight loss, on the heels of a heart attack and a car accident and combined with the tough shooting schedule, left him with pneumonia severe enough to require hospitalization.
- Tom Shieber, Senior Curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, has shown that Cooper did indeed learn to bat left-handed and never wore a backwards Yankees uniform; the footage was flopped only once, during a brief sequence of Gehrig's minor league days at Hartford, to make Cooper appear to be throwing left-handed.
- Lefty O'Doul tried unsuccessfully to teach Cooper a convincing left-handed throw, saying he threw the ball like an old woman tossing a hot biscuit; scenes requiring Cooper to throw a ball as a Yankee were filmed using his left-handed stand-in, Babe Herman.
SPOILER
In fact, Mayo Clinic doctors painted an unrealistically optimistic picture of Gehrig's condition and prospects, reportedly at his wife's request: he was given a 50-50 chance of keeping him as he was for the foreseeable future, and was told he may need a cane in 10 or 15 years.
