The Pride of the Yankees (1942) - Sam Wood

Gary Cooper plays Lou Gehrig, the first baseman for the Yanks who suffered from a crippling and incurable disease. Even when Gehrig was a student at Columbia University, the press had already pegged him as a top ballplayer. Soon the New York Yankees selected Gehrig for their lineup, and he became an overnight sensation on the baseball diamond. But this dedicated player–who had never missed a game once he stepped onto a Major League Baseball field–suddenly fell ill with a mysterious disease. As his body began to fail him, Gehrig had to say good-bye to the fans who idolized him and to the sport he loved so dearly. The film's final scene is a deeply moving portrait of human courage. Also not to be missed is Babe Ruth's cameo appearance as himself. Cooper's performance is outstanding, measuring up to the drama that surrounded the real-life events. THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEEES remains one of the greatest biopics ever filmed, in addition to being perhaps the best sports film of the 20th century. (rottentomatoes.com)

Review:
Historically, only a few baseball movies have done well at the box office, mostly because audiences are lukewarm to portrayals of heroes of the diamond. Sam Wood's The Pride of the Yankees, however, is an exception, and an improbable one: neither producer Samuel Goldwyn nor star Gary Cooper knew anything about baseball, and it seemed unlikely that anyone was going to pay money to see a story in which everyone knew the outcome. Goldwyn may not have understood the sport (he thought players got promoted up through the bases, from first base to third, and couldn't understand why Gehrig was such a great player if he was "only" a first baseman), but he understood the public better than almost any other producer. The poignancy of Gehrig's story – he became a sports hero out of a modest upbringing only to see fate strike him down, and then accepted that fate with heroic stoicism – might've played well at any time, but the fact that America was heading into a war in which people with would be sacrificing themselves made the material even more topical. Though Cooper threw with the wrong hand – requiring the film to be flipped, so that players had to run from home to third and wear uniforms with reversed numbers – he portrayed Gehrig with perhaps even more dignity than the real man possessed, and his romantic scenes with Teresa Wright as Gehrig's wife were warm and honest. Director Wood's understated, unpretentious telling of the tale captured the subject of baseball but also provided a snapshot of Americans in general, and how we wanted to think of ourselves on the eve of World War II. (allmovie.com by Bruce Eder)

Awards:
The Pride of the Yankees was moninated for 10 oscars: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Cooper), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Teresa Wright), Best Original Story (Paul Gallico), Best Screenplay (Herman J. Mankiewicz & Jo Swerling ), Best Black and White Cinematography, Best Black and White Art Direction, Best Score - Drama or Comedy, Best Sound & Best Special Effects. It won oscar Best Editing.