Babe Ruth: rebelde, amante y leyenda

As someone familiar with the historic record of Babe Ruth's life, the many "playings around" with the facts were noticeable. In some of the cases, presenting the story accurately wouldn't have changed the filmmakers' intent at all. Example: In the movie, Babe already is married to Clare when Dorothy dies in the fire. Dorothy died a couple of years before Babe got married. He was a Catholic, remember; they weren't living together.

I'm still pretty sure the Baby Ruth candy bar was named for Grover Cleveland's daughter, not the Babe. I am old enough to have attended many ballgames in Forbes Field, and they didn't even try to make the park in the movie look the same. Where was the ivy?!

In real life, Clare wanted Babe to retire after the 3 homers in Pittsburgh, but Babe had promised people he would appear in several more games. Nothing happened in those games, and, dramatically, having him quit after Pittsburgh made good sense for the movie.

I'm also glad the picture ended when it did, not showing Babe in his last frustrating years waiting vainly for the Yankees to call him. We didn't need to see his - and Clare's - decline.

I take serious issue with the critic here who apparently likes the William Bendix movie better. Keep in mind that was made while Babe was still alive. The Babe they presented there was so perfumed and sugar-coated as to be completely unrecognizable.

I can't help but wonder if this film wasn't made more from an excuse to cash in on the popularity of John Goodman at the time of this film than an honest desire to portray the baseball icon. It would certainly explain the film's inaccuracies and rushed feel. I remember that around that time (late 80's, early 90s), Goodman seemed to be fairly popular. Can it be coincidence that somebody wanted to make a film about Babe Ruth at around the same time Goodman started receiving recognition in Hollywood? Honestly, I don't think so. At any rate, Goodman is miscast as Ruth. For one thing, Ruth wasn't really fat; more like broad and stocky. He was quite athletic and able to play the field - remember, there was no such thing as a designated hitter back then. In other words, offense isn't the only part of baseball; Ruth played defense too. Does this film ever show Ruth in the outfield? Can't say for sure because I didn't really watch the entire thing, but it's hard to imagine paunchy John Goodman fielding fly balls. The other thing is Goodman is simply unlikeable as Ruth. As we can see from film footage (including Pride of the Yankees), the real Ruth was energetic and charismatic. Goodman's Ruth is simply loud, crass and grating.

John Goodman steamrolls his way through this film, with just about everyone else pushed into the background.

Purists no doubt will cane this film for historical inaccuracies. Heck, I'm from another country and know jack about baseball, but 15 minutes on the Internet was enough to show me that the film took serious short-cuts with Babe's life and career, not to mention a number of errors and distortions of fact.

Does this matter? Well, yes, probably. But you have to feel for the filmmakers. How do you condense a 20-year sporting career, not to mention a study of a complex and flawed individual, into a couple of hours of cinema? It's not easy, and the film suffers from events that are merely touched on Example 1: Ruth is introduced to mobsters in a speakeasy, but this seems to lead nowhere. The obvious question is: what happened next?. Example 2: The conflict between Ruth and Lou Gehrig is not portrayed accurately, and its resolution is not shown at all.

An excess of sentiment also hurts the film. There are moments that look like cliched scenes from countless other sporting movies - especially the sick kiddie in hospital extracting a promise of 2 home runs from Ruth, who dutifully delivers, and the same kiddie, now fully recovered and grown up, showing up at Ruth's swansong. It's emotionally manipulative film-making and I regret to say it works, but it also pulls this film back from greatness.

All up, just above average, unlike its subject matter.

The 2 biggest complaints I had were the sequence of events in the movie and the character that Mr. Goodman portrayed.

It seemed that the movie attempted to show all events which dealt with Babe Ruth's life. Most actually seemed accurate, but the positioning of each event was off. For example, if Babe was so much against divorcing his first wife, why did he go ahead and marry Claire while still being married? The fact is, that he did not marry Claire until his first wife tragically died. This is not portrayed this way in the movie. Also, the movie suggested that Babe met claire as a rookie in Boston. He met Claire in New York in 1923. Does anyone actually think that Babe Ruth would have continued playing for the Yankees if he dangled his manager (his boss) off a moving train???

As for the acting. Babe Ruth NEVER approached the weight displayed by Mr. Goodman. Babe hovered around 200-210 for the most part of his career although his weight did fluctuate. It was a truly sick thing trying to watch Mr. Goodman swing or run around the bases. The guy could barely fit into a uniform. I did think that Mr. Goodman really did well in his facial expressions, speech and overall demeanor of the Babe. It was the physical acting that was left to be desired.

I would have liked the movie to concentrate more on Babe's lifestyle off the field. His womanizing (not enough in this movie), his appetite (not enough in this movie), and the fact he just was a social boob (i.e. couldn't remember names, had no manners). His on the field statistics speak for themselves.

Back in 1948 when Babe Ruth was dying of cancer a small independent film The Babe Ruth Story came out with William Bendix as the star. It was based on Babe's own G rated memoirs with the same title ghost written by Bob Considine and ghost ghost written by Fred Lieb. It was how I'm sure Ruth wanted to be remembered. But even people knew then the facts said otherwise.

John Goodman in the title role of The Babe is a lot closer to the swaggering hedonist who was just a kid at heart who never out grew his childhood. Abandoned and left to the care of the Christian brothers at St. Mary's Industrial School in Baltimore, the over-sized trouble-making youth was saved from probably a criminal existence by the way he could both hit and pitch a baseball. One of the many things forgotten was how good a pitcher he was and the crucial decision made by Ed Barrow his manager at the Red Sox to put Babe exclusively in the outfield to keep his bat in the lineup every day. When Ruth left for the Yankees, Barrow followed him and he's not even a character in this film.

So much in this television film is left out and just plain made up. Third baseman Joe Dugan was Ruth's teammate on the Yankees, never the Red Sox as in this film. Played by Bruce Boxleitner he was not especially close to Ruth, as close to him as any of his other teammates which was not. The Babe partied hearty with them, but was not a soulmate per se.

Trini Alvarado and Kelly McGillis play his first and second wives and their portrayals ring true. Wife number one Helen Wofford was just a nice kid from the country who liked country life and Ruth was a city boy all the way. Claire Hodgson Ruth was a showgirl and a very shrewd manager of the money the free spending Babe liked to shovel out as fast as he made it. She also managed the image we have of him for the rest of her life.

Colonel Jacob Ruppert is done a terrible disservice in this film. To me Colonel Ruppert was the ideal owner of a sports team, in fact baseball and sports in general would be better with more Rupperts running things than Steinbrenners. Ruth got it in his head he wanted to manage, I think because contemporary stars like Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Rogers Hornsby all got to manage. Ruppert was quite right and we saw a whole film showing how much Ruth couldn't manage himself. It never happened that Claire Ruth slapped Ruppert, NOBODY did that to him. But she knew better than anyone how much the Babe couldn't manage himself and she was not going in the dugout with him.

Some good acting featured in The Babe. But it contains way too many inaccuracies for a higher rating.