Gary Cooper, The Pride of the Yankees

as LOU GEHRIG

In 1942, Gary Cooper solidified his place as the poster child for Americana by following up his Oscar-winning performance in the awfully corny, trite, Pro-Murica biopic of a lovable WWI war hero with an even cornier, triter, Pro-Murica biopic of a lovable baseball icon. As much as I inherently dislike Cooper's pandering to American heartstrings, in a manner so blatant that it's practically insulting (what could possibly be more American than the one-two punch of guns, God, and Baseball?), I surprisingly didn't hate him in this film as much as I hate the actual film as a whole. This is my second time watching The Pride of the Yankees, which is two times too many, and if I'm lucky I'll never have to watch it ever again. But at least this time around Cooper is able to demonstrate some acting chops that weren't really required in Sergeant York.

By now, Cooper has perfected the art of portraying the fetching, soft-spoken lad whom everyone can't help but be fond of. As with other major Hollywood stars of the time (I'm looking at you, Bette Davis) what was once kind of interesting in his first Oscar-nominated turn has now become exhausted as he's done essentially the same thing across multiple nominations. Take his Longfellow Deeds, Alvin York, and Lou Gehrig, mash them together, and they're pretty much the same person with the same exact reactions, manners, and behavior. So I'll spare you the bitching on how pedestrian I thought most of his performance was. Because it is pedestrian, hardly worthy of any attention whatsoever if it weren't for the abrupt ALS diagnosis in the last 20 minutes or so. The disease is handled in such an arbitrary manner (they don't even mention the name...we're basically told he's got something seriously wrong with him and that's that) it feels as though the makers of the film included it not out of necessity to tell Gehrig's story but for a last-ditch effort to ensure the stupidest, cheesiest, tear-jerking-est film of the year. But for the most part, Cooper is surprisingly effective in the scenes where he starts to realize something is wrong with him. In fact, he handles the whole last act with a rather touching sense of self, probably because for the first time (so far that I've seen), his nice-guy schtick doesn't ensure him a happy ending. It's all alright, but what little he does to impress is far from enough to salvage the dull, by-the-books fluff that makes up two-thirds of his total performance. In the opening credits of the film Gehrig is overdramatically (as per usual with all these damn films) described as "a lesson in simplicity and modesty to the youth of America...He left behind him a memory of courage and devotion that will ever be an inspiration to all men." Cooper for sure does not personify that entire phrase with this performance, most especially the bit where he's allegedly an inspiration to all men (myself included)...but simple? Sure!