The Pride of the Yankees is a biopic movie shot in 1942 based on the true story of Lou Gehrig. It portrays the life and the career of the famous baseball player Lou Gehrig as the top player played for the New York Yankees.
As a Biopic, the movie tells audiences how Lou Gehrig was engaged with baseball and became the super star. He showed his talent at the first time when he played the baseball, and that was the first time he didn’t want to follow his mother’s advice and wanted to do something else, something he even didn’t know the name. He just knew that he liked it and the audiences can tell by looking into his shining eyes when he looked at the baseball. Some biopic movies often pick up several important games to build the character. But in this movie, we see some less important games or at least the game wasn’t the main means to characterize Lou Gehrig. The first game Gehrig played in the movie was the one he met Eleanor who later became his wife. The second major game portrayed in the movie was a national game, but the movie focused on building Gehrig’s personalities rather than the importance of the game in that Gehrig kept his promise to a sick boy which was two homeruns in one game. Other games are the same: they help to build a humble, kind, warmhearted, and skillful baseball player Lou Gehrig. From this point of view, it was successful of making a biopic movie.
The main idea of the movie to me is about how Lou Gehrig found his right place in the world. To Lou Gehrig, his place is play balls. The term “play balls” was repeated several times in the movie. The most important scenes that lay out the term were when he recognized his disease and he’s not capable anymore at his last game and the scene when he announced he was officially discharged. When he recognized his disease at his last game, the voices of the audiences shouted “play balls”. The other scene was after he finished the announcement, Gehrig walked to an exit before he disappeared in the dark, and a voice shouted “play balls”. He stopped for a second and then vanished in the darkness. The call can be seen as the last expectation to Lou Gehrig and the recall of the spirit of the Iron Horse.
To find his place, Lou Gehrig had experienced a lot. When he was young, his mother always wanted him to become an engineer and against him to play baseball. When he got into the Columbia University he showed his gift of playing baseballs, his mother wanted him to be an engineer. Even when he got in the Yankees, his mother still wanted him to be an engineer until she saw his games later. Fortunately, Lou Gehrig got his right place and made great achievements.
This movie focused too much on Lou Gehrig’s romance rather than his career. But at the same time, the movie made a fresh person by portrayed his joy and sadness. It is successful as a biopic but not doing very well as a sport movie.
