Product Details

• Actors: William Bendix, Claire Trevor, Charles Bickford, Sam Levene, William Frawley
• Directors: Roy Del Ruth
• Writers: Babe Ruth, Bob Considine, George Callahan
• Producers: Roy Del Ruth, Joe Kaufmann
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Fox Home Entertainment
• VHS Release Date: March 1, 1990
• Run Time: 106 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301599446
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,694 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #2 in

  Video > Sports > Baseball > Babe Ruth

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must see for baseball fans, February 10, 2002

By	"helennancy" (New Castle, PA USA) - See all my reviews

A wonderful dedication to such a fantastic baseball player. Babe Ruth's life shows what a sentive side he had along with his fortitude as the greatest baseball player. The end makes you feel like you lost a personal friend. Everyone has heard of Babe,he'll always be remembered and loved. This movie gives you a sence of knowing him and loving his life.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Worst Great Sports Movie Ever, November 17, 2009

By	Josh Peckler - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is my wife's favorite sports movie. What you need to know is that she hates sports. But this movie is so absurd, it is hilarious, in a Plan 9 From Outer Space kind of way.

Scene after scene is pure fiction, but you can't help but laugh and enjoy it. It climaxes with the Babe in the hospital, dying of throat cancer (which they don't identify). Outside his room window are hundreds of people (that part is true, according to Red Barber in Ken Burns' Baseball - he was sick and in the same hospital). However, it probably is NOT true that the people sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame in rich harmony, slowly, like a dirge. (This was my wife's favorite moment).

And lest we forget, he agrees to allow experimental surgery on his body, to help humanity, because that's just the kind of guy he was, and because the surgeon (who had treated a dog the Babe had hit with a foul ball and brought to the hospital, leaving the game in progress) was "good people." Sorry for that run on sentence, but the writing in so many scenes is just so bizarely and idiotically wonderful, I just get pumped up thinking about it.

The scene, by the way, where the Babe called his shot, as William Bendix hams it up and emphatically points his bat at the centerfield wall, is given a lot of credit for the controversy of whether that actually ever happened. Bendix is so over the top, you want it to be true.

It's a ridiculous, wonderful piece of entertainment. A real homer.

3.0 out of 5 stars Better Too Swet Than Too Sour, May 8, 2009

By	Craig Connell (Lockport, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is often pointed to cynically by sportswriters and fans as the ultimate ridiculously sugarcoated sports-hero film of all time. Who's to argue? If you know Babe Ruth and what he was like, you almost have to laugh at some of the stuff in here. Yet, this film is old-fashioned charm, and despite the negatives to it, I enjoy watching it. It's so corny, it's good.

That's not to say Ruth was a bad man, because he wasn't. He was extremely likable guy whom his teammates all loved, he was fantastic with kids and very, very generous man. But he also had a ton of faults, too, some of which got him in big trouble with his managers and league officials. His health was a problem at times, thanks, in part to his opulent lifestyle. He was a glutton and an adulterer and life wasn't fun for him as he got unfairly passed over to be a manager, something he desperately sought.His was very crude and profane.

Very few if any of these negative qualities are the in the film - just the good 'ole boy - the kind William Bendix played on his TV show, "The Life Of Riley."

Also unrealistic - and typical of sports movies in the "classic era" - is Bendix trying to throw and hit a baseball. Thank goodness modern-day movies don't have actors like this who are clueless on how to play the actual sport they are portraying.

Yet, as sweet and unrealistic as this film can be, it's a lot better than doing the reverse, which is what Hollywood did to the Babe in 1992 in the John Goodman movie. They portray the Babe in mostly negative terms.

Too bad you usually get two extremes when it comes biographies made in Hollywood. In the "classic era" films, our heroes could do no wrong. Since the '60s, our heroes are shown to be blemished more than anything else. Where is the middle ground?