The Pride of the Yankees

The Pride of the Yankees tells the story of Lou Gehrig, the New York Yankees first baseman whose consecutive-games streak earned him the nickname "The Iron Man." The son of German immigrants, Gehrig grows up in modest circumstances and dreams of a baseball career, while his parents hope he will become an engineer. He attends Columbia University, where his athletic talent draws attention, and a sportswriter, Sam Blake, helps him secure a contract with the Yankees. Gehrig's rise to stardom, his marriage to Eleanor Twitchell, and the illness that cut his career short form the arc of the film.

Sam Wood directed, working from a screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Jo Swerling, with Samuel Goldwyn producing. It sits between Wood's Our Town and For Whom the Bell Tolls in the director's filmography, which also includes A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Gone with the Wind. Gary Cooper plays Gehrig, with Teresa Wright as Eleanor, Walter Brennan as Sam Blake and Dan Duryea as Hank Hanneman; Babe Ruth appears as himself.

Released in 1942, the film runs 128 minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.6/10 from roughly 13,000 votes, while on TMDB it rates 7.3/10 from a much smaller electorate. A critics' rating of 7.9/10 from 31 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores.