洋基的骄傲 The Pride of the Yankees(1942)
简介：
- 卢（加里·库柏 Gary Cooper 饰）出生在一个贫困的家庭之中，虽然他对于棒球这项运动有着狂热的爱好，但是母亲却希望他能够成为一名建筑师，因为在母亲的观念里，建筑师才能赚大钱。卢通过不懈的努力考进了哥伦比亚大学念书，同时也没有放弃自己的棒球梦想。在一次校级比赛中，卢的全垒打让他受到了球队经纪人的注意，与此同时，卢的母亲患上了绝症急需一笔医药费，为了拯救母亲，同时也为了自己的梦想，卢在20岁那一年签约成为了洋基队的职业球员。
演员：
影评：
- 在完成了一段日后百年内被奉为最伟大的英语演讲之后，Lou压低了他的帽檐，在整个洋基球场的掌声注目下，缓缓地走向球员通道，渐渐淹没在阴影之中。
就当我们还沉浸在感伤中时，身后的洋基球场内却响起一记利索的喊声：Play Ball！顿时忧郁被打破，球场再次沸腾……
C'est la vie
由于没见过Lou Gehrig本尊，Gary Cooper的形象自然成了今后对Lou之印象的唯一参照。男女主角的表演都很到位，带着那个时代难忘的特征，是我喜欢的。值得一提的是Babe Ruth的本色表演，这个和Lou一起站在美国棒球顶峰的男人，虽然长着一张配角脸，但他的抢镜实力丝毫不逊于Gary Cooper，至少我这么认为。
奥斯卡的经典，费了些劲才弄到...赶明儿做个0day出来，省的棒球迷和Gary迷瞎折腾 
Sam Wood’s movie tribute to the iconic New York Yankee’s first baseman Lou Gehrig (1903-1941), who succumbed to ALS just one year prior of the movie’s release, epitomizes the template of a rousing Hollywood biopic, finding commonality to connect with its audience but largely leaving what makes its subject worthy of such a deferential treatment untapped.
As a movie about a baseball player, the story largely skirts over Gehrig’s extraordinary professional expertise, all we are told is that he is talented, there is no field-day toiling, physical exertion on show. The truth is, the whole visualization of umpteen baseball matches is presented in a discrete and desultory fashion that any chance to convert a new baseball fan is nigh, and Cooper, not only squarely too old for the role - a 40-something to imitate a college undergraduate looks rather silly now, he is also ill-equipped to play a baseball player, there is no zest in his bat-wielding, another reason why the film tries to conceal this weak point by toning down the fieldwork.
So, Wood and his scribes instead, focus on Gehrig’s private lives, domestic bliss in particular, the bond with his parents, a good-natured father (Stössel) and a loving but martinet mother (Janssen) who is bent on that Lou should become an engineer, followed by his romance and marriage with Eleanor (Wright). Overcoming the initial squabble over the mother-daughter-in-law discord, the story sails to a tremendously touching homestretch, when the couple must contend against the death knell, by putting on a strong face while biting back tears (or not, in the case of the weaker sex), culminates in Lou’s famous “The luckiest man on the face of the earth” farewell speech at Yankee Stadium in 1939, Cooper’s delivery is well-adjusted to match Lou’s understated but earnest gratefulness. By and large, he acquires an acumen to play Lou with a moderated anonymity laced with a schoolboy bashfulness that is quite pleasing and more inclined to reflect the real Lou’s temperament than build up a heroic image, an afterglow Oscar-nomination is a nice reward.
A gamely emotive Wright also cops an Oscar nomination (a borderline leading role), but it is her turn in William Wyler’s MRS. MINIVER (1942) wins her an Oscar the same year in the supporting actress category, and she also keeps a record of earning 3 Oscar nominations from her very first 3 movie roles; among the rest of the cast, treble Oscar-winner Brennan, playing sportswriter Sam Blake, has a whale of time quibbling with rival writer Hank Hanneman (Duryea), and Janssen spiritedly enlivens the switcheroo from a Teutonic sports-disparager to a seasoned baseball zealot.
For all its patriotic ideology of singing the hymn to the almighty American dream especially when WWII was raging on, THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES is a somehow retrospectively banal, but satisfactorily populist mood-booster, like its good-humored pranks, everything becomes anodyne when kismet plays the archvillain.
referential entries: Wood’s FOR THOM THE BELL TOLLS (1943, 7.4/10); Billy Wilder’s THE FORTUNE COOKIE (1966, 7.4/10).
