Have you seen…The Babe Ruth Story (1948)

BY JOHN BILLINGER

It can’t be easy making a biopic. Not only is it a struggle just making the film itself, but you also have to deal with the publicity and criticism of not playing entirely true to the original events. No matter how accurately you try to make a film (or not), there’s always at least one guy who says, “Hmph, that’s not what happened!” And that was certainly the case in 1948 with a film titled “The Babe Ruth Story,” a film considered to be one of the worst biopics ever made. Before we talk about the contents of the film itself, let’s talk about the man himself, and the production of the film.

For those who don’t know, George Herman “Babe” Ruth (born 1895) was an American baseball player, who played 22 seasons from 1914-1935 (most famously for the New York Yankees), and for a period of 34 years, held the record for the most home runs in Major League Baseball (714 in total). Highly respected during his time, he is still widely considered to be one of the greatest baseball players of all time. With that said, Ruth was not without controversy. His personal life was quite eventful, being a frequent drinker and womanizer, neither of which I or anyone will defend.

In the year 1946, Babe Ruth was diagnosed with cancer, which received significant press attention, and some Hollywood producers decided that they needed to cash in on the publicity that Ruth received, quickly seizing the rights to a biopic, and rushing it out to cinemas as soon as possible while Babe was still alive. Loosely based on Ruth’s autobiography of the same name, he was hired to serve as technical advisor on the film, which is movie code for: he’s just there for the publicity department. 

His biggest role in the production was spending half a day posing for photoshoots with actor William Bendix (the actor cast to play him), and spending the other half watching the production of a Betty Grable movie. On July 26th, 1948, the film premiered, and in attendance was Ruth himself. Supposedly, Babe left the theater halfway through the film. Officially, it was for medical reasons, but one does wonder if that was just an excuse. Three weeks later on the 16th of August, Babe Ruth died. 

Now, on to the film itself.

The plot is as follows:

Set at various points between the years 1906-1948, the film chronicles the eventful life of Babe Ruth. From his upbringing at a Catholic boarding school to his initial seasons as a baseball player, meeting the love of his life, being good to pretty much everybody, hitting the big time with the Yankees, his various ups and downs, performing various miracles, and finally facing an uncertain future towards the end of his life. This film has it all.

The first thing of interest to be discussed is the film’s tone. It has a really squeaky clean cut of the story. It’s hard to explain in words, but the whole thing has such a happy-go-lucky, optimistic, and simple feel to it that it’s almost impossible to take it seriously as a story. Take the main character, for instance. The filmmakers decided to leave out all the drinking, partying, and womanizing that the real Ruth did, and gave him a personality that screams, “Gee whiz, now that’s swell!” 

There’s some attempt here and there to showcase his drinking, but it’s mostly just in and out. As for Ruth’s married life, in real life, he was married to Helen Woodford (from 1914-1924) and Claire Hodgson (from 1929 until the day he died in 1948). His marriage to Helen ended after numerous affairs, so naturally, portraying the main character doing something like that would be out of place in a film like this. All in all, the film portrays Ruth as a two-dimensional happy-go-lucky kind of guy with few flaws whatsoever.

This gives us the chance to talk about one of the most glaring issues about the movie, the actor who plays the main character, William Bendix. Bendix was a popular character actor from the time, and during the production of this film, he was 42 years old. Yet, he still played the character in the majority of the film, with the obvious exception being the scene featuring Ruth as a kid. While Bendix does attempt to act younger, it still doesn’t hide the fact he’s a 42-year-old man, playing a character starting from age 18 to the rest of the film. It’s yet another part of this film that makes it hard to take seriously. It’s basically the 1940s equivalent of Martin Scorsese’s 2019 film “The Irishman,” except at least in “The Irishman” they made an attempt to de-age the cast so that Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci could look 40 years younger. Here, it doesn’t even appear that they tried to do any make-up effects, which wouldn’t have been out of place for the time that they made this film. Orson Welles’ used extensive make-up for various characters in “Citizen Kane,” produced seven years earlier, and it still looks good 80 years later.

But probably the most infamous aspect portrayed in the film is the feats that Ruth portrays. I’m not talking about his baseball career (mostly shown in newspaper montages); I’m talking about the things he does that fall into absurdity. I will leave an example below.

I’m sure that just from that clip, you can tell whether or not that aspect of the story ever happened or not. In short, the film’s version of Babe Ruth performs miracles comparable to Jesus Christ. There are two other instances in the film showing Ruth either going above and beyond what he’s supposed to do or performing a miracle. These are: 

• (1) A scene where he accidentally hits a child’s dog with a baseball during the beginning of a game. He and the child leave the stadium, take the dog to a hospital instead of a Vet’s office, and demand that the doctor perform surgery on the dog, because, “What’s more human than this little pooch?”

• (2) Before playing in game three of the 1932 World Series, Ruth visits a child dying of a serious illness and makes him a promise that he will hit him a home run. Incidentally, this is the same home run that will eventually go down in history as “Babe Ruth’s Called Shot.” As a result of the home run victory for the Yankees, the child is cured of his disease.

When it comes to discussing the film, this is most likely to be brought up at some point, and rightly so. There’s no way to defend the silliness of having this man doing any of this. The film deserves all the criticism and jokes it receives. I can imagine that most people can forgive a biopic for leaving out certain details, as most biopics do ignore certain details of the real story. I can also imagine that most people can overlook an actor that does not resemble the real-life person that they are portraying, as most biopics don’t really cast someone who looks like the real guy. I can’t, however, imagine anyone watching the “Babe Ruth Makes A Kid Walk Again” scene without snickering. 

With all this said, if you ignore the film rewriting the story, casting someone way too old to do the part, and the main character giving off messiah vibes at times, it actually isn’t a terrible movie. Not even close to one, in my opinion. It was directed by Roy Del Ruth, who from 1932 to 1941 was the second highest-paid director in Hollywood, and the film shows that he was a skilled one at that. It’s well-shot, well-paced, and mostly well-acted (except for the child actors, they’re sub-par). As for Bendix, despite the fact the script doesn’t give him much complexity to work with, he still does a commendable job. Anyone else would’ve given up and demanded a rewrite.

I also had a genuinely fun time watching it. I expected to watch something incredibly corny and far-fetched, but I eventually accepted it under most of its own terms, and of course, laughed and joked at the more ridiculous moments of it. Let’s put it this way, there are far worse and insulting biopics out there. Take, for example, the 1989 John Belushi biopic “Wired,” a mean-spirited and disgusting film that almost solely focuses on Belushi’s life just when he’s doing drugs, and that’s pretty much most of it. Compare that to “The Babe Ruth Story,” which takes almost the exact opposite approach. It’s like comparing night and day, or in this case, literally comparing a black-and-white movie to a color movie.

Sure, I would prefer a more serious take on Ruth’s story. I can see almost a “Raging Bull”-level movie being told here, but that’s not what we get. As of the time of writing this, the only other major film about him is 1992’s “The Babe,” which was not a major success. Perhaps one day, someone will go up to bat and make a proper story about him. In any case, overall, I’d say that the 1948 version offers a simple and absurd but fun take on Ruth. I certainly don’t think it deserves a spot on the Wikipedia page for “List of films considered the worst.” If you’re looking for a well-made and well-acted picture that you can occasionally make jokes at, then this is for you.