Babe Ruth Story, The (1948)
1/2 (out of 4)
Wow. It's funny but you can read all about how awful a movie is but until you actually see it you have no idea how awful it's actually going to be. I had heard that this here was one of the worst sports movies in history and that's certainly true. The film tries to tell the story of Babe Ruth (William Bendix) from his early, abused childhood up through his star years and eventual "death." It's worth noting that Ruth lived to see the premiere of this film but ended up passing away three weeks before it's official theatrical release. It's strange but you can't help that this film probably took away some time from his life. I don't mind a bio pic from containing lies because they all do. You have to change and alter some things in order to build dramatic moments or at least tell a straight story but this film is so full of itself that you can't help but roll your eyes. There are at least seven scenes in this movie that made me say "oh my God" because I couldn't believe how awful they were. One moment is when Babe hits a foul ball that strikes a dog so he rushes it to a hospital. Another sequence is when the Babe goes into his managers hospital room talking his head off but not knowing the man is actually dead. One of the most insulting things is that the Babe is shown as a complete idiot here. I'm guessing they wanted him to have a child-like quality but he comes off looking incredibly stupid. It doesn't help that Bendix is miscast in the role as you really have to feel bad for it. The actor could certainly deliver the goods in the right roles but he's really, really bad here. You can't blame him too much as it's nearly impossible to play a character as legendary as Ruth but the actor simply doesn't do a very good job at imitating him. Bendix is all over the place in terms of tone and he just doesn't feel or look like a baseball player. Claire Trevor plays his wife and isn't impressive either. Charles Bickford, Sam Levene, Stanley Clements and Frank Ferguson have supporting roles. Ziggy Sears, Bucky Harris, Harry Wismer, Mel Allen and H.V. Kaltenborn all play themselves. As many bad thing as I've mentioned there are still plenty of others including the fact that the majority of the story is told with newspaper headlines, which is never a good thing. THE BABE RUTH STORY is a horrid film in just about every way and the only real entertainment comes from you having to keep watching just to see how much worse it's going to get. I couldn't help but wonder what the real Babe Ruth thought while he was watching this thing but he certainly deserved much better.
