I don't think anyone could claim this is a great movie. But it gets more criticism than it deserves, in my opinion.
Facts are Ruth was idolized by kids, partly because he loved to spend hours signing autographs for them, and spent hundreds of hours trying to cheer them up in hospitals and elsewhere. He was known for giving outrageously big tips to waiters, etc. He did violate lots of club rules before the Yankees suspended him. And as a youth, he did go into and out of St. Mary's, because his father didn't really know how to handle him. Babe and his wife Claire were truly in love.
In other words, much of his life and personality are portrayed correctly by this movie. They got some of the basic facts of his playing career correct, including the three home runs in Pittsburgh right before he quit as a player.
But there are lots of problems with other elements of this picture that do not make it better. First of all, like all the baseball movies of the era, they gloss over most of the facts about the player's career. They blend so many things together that you get a distorted view of when things happen. And they certainly try to make the star appear to be a better person than he was, omitting most of his flaws.
Another problem is they need more than about 90 minutes to give a good story of someone's life, but didn't get enough time. They wanted to appeal to non-baseball fans by focusing largely on each of the players' love lives and only marginally show details of him as a ballplayer.
So if you watch this film, you can take away some basic knowledge about what sort of person Ruth was and his personality. Where the film falls apart is the distorted image of Ruth, almost totally ignoring his faults, totally ignoring his first wife, and misleading you on the timing of some of the events in his life.
I much prefer this film to that awful TV movie or the Goodman film that came out about 20 years ago. They presented a man who seemed to have no likable characteristics at all. As I recall, there were almost no scenes of Ruth interacting with children--something he did often. He came across as a total jerk who would not have been liked by anyone--which is far from the truth.
If you want to really learn about Ruth, read Robert Creamer's book on his life. None of the movies do him justice except in small ways.
Facts are Ruth was idolized by kids, partly because he loved to spend hours signing autographs for them, and spent hundreds of hours trying to cheer them up in hospitals and elsewhere. He was known for giving outrageously big tips to waiters, etc. He did violate lots of club rules before the Yankees suspended him. And as a youth, he did go into and out of St. Mary's, because his father didn't really know how to handle him. Babe and his wife Claire were truly in love.
In other words, much of his life and personality are portrayed correctly by this movie. They got some of the basic facts of his playing career correct, including the three home runs in Pittsburgh right before he quit as a player.
But there are lots of problems with other elements of this picture that do not make it better. First of all, like all the baseball movies of the era, they gloss over most of the facts about the player's career. They blend so many things together that you get a distorted view of when things happen. And they certainly try to make the star appear to be a better person than he was, omitting most of his flaws.
Another problem is they need more than about 90 minutes to give a good story of someone's life, but didn't get enough time. They wanted to appeal to non-baseball fans by focusing largely on each of the players' love lives and only marginally show details of him as a ballplayer.
So if you watch this film, you can take away some basic knowledge about what sort of person Ruth was and his personality. Where the film falls apart is the distorted image of Ruth, almost totally ignoring his faults, totally ignoring his first wife, and misleading you on the timing of some of the events in his life.
I much prefer this film to that awful TV movie or the Goodman film that came out about 20 years ago. They presented a man who seemed to have no likable characteristics at all. As I recall, there were almost no scenes of Ruth interacting with children--something he did often. He came across as a total jerk who would not have been liked by anyone--which is far from the truth.
If you want to really learn about Ruth, read Robert Creamer's book on his life. None of the movies do him justice except in small ways.