Pride of the Yankees – 1942
Ok, I’m going to be honest. I really can’t figure out why this movie was nominated for Best Special Effects. It had practically no special effects in it. It had a bit of rear-projection and a couple of matte paintings, but there was very little of even those illusions. The sound? It was nothing special. So why was it put on the list? What am I missing?
Well, I did my research. I searched the internet, read reviews, articles, and film award summaries. Nothing I found gave a good reason as to why the movie was even considered for this particular award. In all that I read, I can only find a few weak reasons why the film’s special effects were recognized, and I’m not even sure they were the real ones.
First there was the lighting effects that were used to de-age Gary Cooper for the earlier scenes in the movie. According to Wikipedia, Cinematographer, Rudolph Mate, “lighted Cooper from below during those early scenes to conceal lines and wrinkles, then gradually reduced and finally eliminated the lighting effect as the story progressed.” But would you really call this a special effect, or was it just clever cinematography?
Second, I learned that Gary Cooper was right handed, while Lou Gehrig was a famous lefty. For the scenes showing Cooper at bat, it wasn’t a problem. The actor learned to bat left-handed. But throwing the ball was a different matter. That is a much harder motion for a right handed person to pull off. There were two different methods they use to achieve the illusion. For some of the wide shots, they used another actor as a stand-in. In a few of the closer shots, they had Cooper wear an inverted jersey, then reversed the film direction, making it appear that he was throwing left-handed.
The only other special effect I can find in the movie was the final scene… I think. I can find no actual evidence on the internet for this one, and it is just a guess on my part. I’ll fully admit that I might be mistaken. During Gehrig’s “luckiest man” speech at the end of the film, I suspect that Cooper might have been inserted into actual newsreel footage from the event. It was clearly like a rear-projection shot. The actor’s image is really sharp, while the background image, which included Babe Ruth and a few other ball-players, was really out of focus, like dated newsreel footage. However, Babe Ruth was actually used as an actor in the film to play himself, so I could be mistaken. But even if I am right, it was just a simple rear-projection shot.
Either way, I just don’t get it. Maybe it was another example of the sound effects being part of the special effects category, thus earning the nomination, but I don’t think so. The sound effects were nothing special or out of the ordinary. Again, if someone has any better insight as to why this movie was nominated for Best Special Effects, please comment and let me know!
You missed the big special effect : they reversed the raw film, and had Cooper batting from the right side of the plate, because he was right handed, and had him run the bases in reverse order, 3rd base to 2nd etc. Numbers on uniform and lettering was reversed. upon playback, the film was flipped again, which created the illusion A batting from the left side of the plate and running to first. In your extensive research, how earth did you miss that one? That was the primary special effect that won the award,.
Regarding the aging, for the film, released at 1942, at 41 Cooper was actually two years older then the real Gehrig would have been at the speech.. Most movies would use a younger actor… And add layers of make up and lighting to age the actor. In this case, the actor was already aged, So the achievement was commendable… lighting a 41 year old actor to credibly appear 2 decades younger. Most of America didn’t care about that at the time, as both Cooper and Gehrig were incredibly popular at the time, with the film released less than two years after Gehrig’s passing. Special effects? Cooper didn’t even know how to play baseball and had never attended a game. 80 years later, viewers still believe Cooper is really running to first base ! That’s how good that special effect & editing is., cutting edge for its time. No graphics, no computer generated imagery no postproduction additions, Simple editing, flipping the film for the seamless desired effect. You may want to give it a second look.
Rob – Thank you so much for your excellent comment! Thanks for explaining it to me. I’ll definitely be watching this film again.