I know literally nothing about Baseball. I've never watched a Baseball game. I sort of understand the rules - hit the ball really far and run around all the bases and I'm at least vaguely familiar with some of the terms; Pitcher, Bases, Home Run erm... that's about where it ends really. And above all: I am British. But even I know who Babe Ruth is. Probably the most famous Baseball player in the world. A figurehead of the sport. The man namedropped when talking about legends of Sport.
I literally only watched this film because it wound up on at least 2 "worst film lists" that are my frame of reference. Produced in 1948 literally weeks before Babe Ruth himself dies, it intends to tell the story of the eponymous Baseball player in a neatly sandwiched just less than 54 minutes and boy, to borrow a Baseball term, it's a Strikeout!
Hey I'm learning! So as we have established: I know nothing about Baseball, and even less about Babe Ruth, but I can spot the critical pitfalls of a bad movie when they are presented to me and this film smacks of over glorification and idolatry. The, perhaps less favourable, moments of Babe's life are neatly glossed over or ignored altogether. Very little detail about his first second marriage and it's failure is provided and the fall out with Lou Gehrig is relegated to two passing mentions. There are moments that touch on and suggest that perhaps he might have had a drinking problem but it's all very neatly tucked away to better paint Babe getting back into shape, and fashioning himself as a father figure, teacher and role model to children, everywhere.
They also stuffed more padding inside that 54 minutes than you could fit into a Baseball glove! Sections of the film are direct clips from Headin' Home - a 1920's silent movie starring Babe that actually looked way better than this "film", and from Babe's films for children where he roughs up some poor old bloke. There's a bizarre scene that drags on just a little bit too long of some women exercising, and a cringe scene of some kids asked how they feel about Babe leaving the Yankees?! This whole picture is 51 minutes and 49 seconds, not counting the post-production outro and they still had to pad it out with nonsense.
I wanted to go easy on this, because I didn't want to rag on the legacy of a man who was undoubtedly a legend, despite this being a Sport I know nothing about, and I wasn't sure how much of it was fact and how much of it was embellishment so I took a moment after the film to read up just now and it transpires there is no mention of his actual first marriage. NONE AT ALL?! And the portrayal of Babe by William Bendix bears nothing more than a passing likeness to Babe's body language, attitudes and mannerisms, apparently. The depiction of Babe as a kind-of gentle giant, noble, father figure and his endeavours to just "help all of the children" is also apparently questionable but I have literally no frame of reference to compare that to, so draw your own conclusions.
I didn't want to go in on this, so as to avoid appearing insensitive and ignorant but this is a 52 minute production with a surly Sophomaniac Narrator who practically paints Babe as a Saint, copious amounts of off-tangent padding and a distinct lack of information on the development of Babe Ruth as a person; you know, the whole point of the movie? It accomplished nothing. It's the cinematic equivalent of giving somebody a blowjob. And all of that aside, taking into account my lack of interest in Baseball, and that I'm not entirely well seasoned in the watching of Sports documentaries, it was just boring. Zero stars.
