It's baseball season again and as usual it takes me a couple of weeks to remember how to fit the fulltime business of following my favorite pastime into the rest of my life. I'll be back to blogging this afternoon for sure, serving up my essay on the best picture of 1931-32.In the meantime, enjoy this vintage short, Home Run On The Keys, as Babe Ruth reminisces about his famous "called shot" from the 1932 World Series.
Wonderful! The Sultan of Swat! The King of Swing! The Bambino! "On-ya! On-ya!" Mr. Monkey, this short film will live as long as baseball! And movies! And movies about baseball! In fact, the sequence in which the Babe describes his called homer was on display at Cooperstown when I last visited!
ReplyDeleteThe summer game in springtime! What could be better?
On-ya! On-ya!
you know the Babe isn't too shabby with his acting - much better than most athletes making cameos, etc -
ReplyDeleteGreat!
ReplyDeleteAnd what Uncle Tom said -- i thought Babe actually sounded more natural than his buddies at the hunting lodge!
Uh-oh: We interrupt this program for a late entry for the Best Actor in a Train Movie for 1930! Think Danger Lights! Starring Louis Wolheim as ... Dan Thorn! You can't run a best movie contest without Dan Thorn! Wait till Dan Thorn hears about this!
ReplyDeleteFlorida On The Keys -- my favourite Babe Ruth movie!!!!
ReplyDeleteThey was on ya -- on ya!
Think Danger Lights! Starring Louis Wolheim as ... Dan Thorn!
ReplyDeleteLouis Wolheim, who also played the gruff sergeant in All Quiet On The Western Front and was the star of the only movie to win an Oscar for best comedy direction, Two Arabian Knights. One of the early greats. Died not too long afterwards.
As for the Babe, I think in the modern era, he would have gone west and made movies -- more than the handful of sports-related shorts he did make. He probably would have paired off with Jackie Chan or Bruce Willis or somebody and made a lot of cop-buddy movies, or joined the cast of Law and Order: SVU. He would have been perfect for Sharkey's Machine with Burt Reynolds and Bernie Casey (and if that doesn't date me, I don't know what will) (say, why isn't that on the Criterion Collection?)
And High Road To China -- another classic. If they can put Robinson Crusoe On Mars on Criterion Collection, why not High Road To China and Sharkey's Machine?
ReplyDeleteMmm, Robinson Crusoe on Mars -- now I'm in the mood for those Martian sausages, and you can only get them in a cave in the Valles Marineris, which is 36 million miles away, or possibly Dean & Deluca, but then I'd have to drive into Georgetown ...