Follow the Sun

I have seen this movie several times since owning it and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in history, golf, Ben Hogan, or generally being entertained.

Upon creating any movie about a real person, Hollywood may choose to cast a light in a certain manner and in the vein of entertainment, what is the harm? Some may indicate that Mr. Hogan was not as cheerful and compassionate as Glenn Ford's version but that is simply opinion. The bottom line is that Follow the Sun is very well made and acted and if you are a fan of Ben Hogan, you will love it as I do.

I am looking forward to a DVD release.

Rather odd Ben Hogan biopic is a curiously contracted affair. Episodic in the extreme and boasting repressed thespian renderings from Glenn Ford (Hogan), Ann Baxter (Valerie Ford) and Dennis O'Keefe (Chuck Williams), it resembles a feature length episode of "Leave It To Beaver" and is deathly afraid of tarnishing (or humanizing)the Hogan legend. As a result, it is very bland. Director Sidney Lanfield and writer Frederick Hazlitt Brennan are incapable of injecting any edge into Hogan's struggle to be a professional golfer and focus instead on the golfer's tense relationship with a sports journalist (Larry Keating) and his lack of ease with the "gallery" that follows the golfing tour.

To the film's credit, there is some good golf played. Several tee shots, fairway chips to the green, and putts to the hole were obviously filmed for real, adding some much-needed authenticity to the barely human story. Location filming at Pebble Beach, California, is welcome, too.

I didn't dislike this odd little biopic. The sequence leading up to Hogan's accident is quite suspenseful, and Ford's performance, despite its mechanical nature, is interesting to watch for its freak value. But the treatment of Hogan, a respected golfing legend, is too careful, too reverential.

Some other reviewer made a comment that this was the worst sports biographical film since The Babe Ruth Story that starred William Bendix as the Bambino. He might not have seen the independent productions about Jackie Robinson or Joe Louis which The Babe Ruth Story also was. There's less excuse for Follow the Sun because it was made by a major studio, 20th Century Fox.

Ben Hogan did come from poverty, he earned money as a kid as a golf caddy and learned the game and learned it could be a way out of the dire financial straits his family was in. Yet that part of the Hogan story was never really developed in Follow the Sun.

But the comeback he had after that near fatal automobile accident in 1949 is the stuff legends are made from. That part of the film is absolutely true and it was in fact the reason the film was made at all. Otherwise if someone wanted to do the Ben Hogan Story again, we'd certainly have the vantage of historical perspective now. In fact Tiger Woods is approaching the kind of numbers and the kind of impact that Hogan had in his day in the world of golf.

A whole lot of Hogan's rivals and great golfers in their own right like Dr. Cary Middlecoff, Jimmy Demaret, and Slammin' Sammy Snead all play themselves in the film. That in itself shows the respect his peers had for their rival. Grantland Rice who has never been approached in his title as dean of American sportswriters also appears as himself.

Glenn Ford is not given all that much to work with as Hogan, he was very much on the scene and could have sued if he didn't like what he saw. Anne Baxter is the best in the film as Hogan's wife Valerie who both narrates the film and has her best scenes tending to and watching over her injured husband.

Dennis O'Keefe plays the fictional Chuck Williams and too bad he was fictional because I really liked the guy. He's a happy-go-lucky sort of golfer, earn just enough to stay on tour. He has some great scenes clowning in the way Al Schacht and Nick Altrock used to do for baseball. June Havoc is his wife.

Larry Keating has a strange role as a golf writer who doesn't like Hogan because he's not accessible to the press. That frankly is his business and Keating should have known that. It was a wholly artificial plot device.

Even worse was when Ford as Hogan bears down like the competitor he always is and beats his good friend O'Keefe. Havoc takes all kinds of umbrage at that and O'Keefe is a bit put out. That was just plain dumb. Golf was the man's business and Hogan was the best and never gave less than his best. That plot device was worse than the feud with the writer.

But the scenes involving the accident and recovery were well done and maybe Ben Hogan's story could use some historical revision now.

When the film began, I noticed that although it was supposed to be in the late 1920s, hairstyles were right from 1951. This isn't uncommon...and it's a minor complaint about an otherwise very good biopic. I say very good because although it took some liberties with the truth (such as creating the Chuck Williams character who did NOT exist), it stuck closer to his life story than most biopics seem to do!

The film follows Ben Hogan's life from his teens through his recovery from a near death auto accident. It's all very nice and inspiring and although the film never excited me, it did keep my interest. Worth seeing...especially if you love golf.

I was impressed that this movie stuck to the facts, rather than played fast and loose with them, as do so many Hollywood biopics. I admit I had to check the facts tom find out, as before watching this, I had never heard of Ben Hogan!

Now that I have, I know he was a man to be admired, determined to overcome his injuries and not let any disabilities keep him from playing golf. And he sure kept to it, with all the championships he won, after that near fatal car accident! (Did he actually drive in all that fog, or was that just put in for dramatic effect?)

Glenn Ford was his usual outstanding self as golf champion Ben Hogan, a man who was introverted and didn't know how to talk to the press and charm the fans, the opposite of fellow player Chuck Williams (Dennis O'Keefe), who goes too far in the other direction.

He was misunderstood by the public (who thought him cold and unfriendly) and he in turn misunderstood them, not realizing until after the accident that people cared. As he said, he had to learn to take his eye off the golf ball and look at people once in a while.

Anne Baxter was also good as Ben's wife (and biggest fan), Valerie, as was June Havoc, who played Chuck's wife, Norma.

I saw a familiar face from TV; Larry Keating (best known as Harry Morton on "Burns and Allen") played sportswriter Jay Dexter, who could have used a better attitude.

There were also appearances of real-life golf pros: Sam Snead, Cary Middlecoff, and jimmy Demaret (whom I remember from an "I Love Lucy" episode).

Even if you're not a golf fan, it's still a movie worth watching.