Gentleman Babe

While I enjoyed the movie and John Goodman's performance, The Babe's weight was never near that of John and made him look like a lumbering athlete, which in fact he was not. While the Babe was not a role model, he was truly a hero ............. then and now.

He did not make the comments about Lou Gehrig shown in the movie. His problem with Lou Gehrig had to do with a party his wife went to ahead of the when Lou got to the party and Gehrig was upset his wife might have been intimate with The Babe, which is doubtful. Ruth and Gehrig had been close friends until Lou got jealous.

The Babe was not a bumbler on the ball field, only in life, due to his lack of class, which was caused by the lack of a loving family. He did have a great care for children, due his lack of having that during his upbringing. It was a good movie in terms of many things, but left those who have read the read biographies of The Babe, disappointed with how the so called facts were presented. The Babe will live on long after this movie, which I avoided for many years, due to figuring it was tainted ............. and it was, very tainted. I do have to say I still enjoyed most of the movie. Like many biographies to much poetic license was taken.

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.

Despite critical reviews, this is really an interesting movie. A different look at legendary home run slugger Babe Ruth. Very low budget and historically incorrect. A major league turn around from the William Bendix BABE RUTH STORY(1948). Rowdy and ribald and one of baseball's original heroes is shown drinking, cavorting, skirt chasing and deep in gluttony. The real "Bambino"? Not candy coated, but not honestly factual either. John Goodman is outstanding as the slugger of mammoth and mythical home runs. Kelly McGillis plays Clare Ruth. Also in the cast are Bruce Boxleitner, Joe Ragno and Peter Donat. Take it all in stride. It is only a movie and not engraved in granite.

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.