User Reviews

This is what modern-day Hollywood does to most icons, to most of our "heroes." It, generally speaking, trashes them, emphasizing the bad in their lives over the good.

While the 1948 Babe Ruth Story way over-sugarcoated Ruth's story, this new version portrays this sports hero - perhaps the most famous sports personality in American history - to the other extreme, of course. Why can't Hollywood just be neutral on these biographies? Show the good and bad, but be fair about it.

If you read about Babe Ruth, it's astonishing to find out just how big a celebrity he was in his lifetime: literally bigger-than-life, and the fact so many people know his name and face over 90 years after he started playing Major League Baseball is a testimony to that. Much of what Ruth did was good stuff, especially with kids and charities, but he also had a crude, rough side to him and a life that had more than its share of sufferings. He was, indeed, and complex and fascinating human being. One thing that is outright lie: the plot line as written on the title page here saying ' {Babe) is unheroic to those who know him." No, all the old players said for years afterward how much they all liked Ruth, what a great guy he was and generous to a fault."

Ruth's bad points should be pointed out, but this movie dwells too much on the unpleasant scenes which is probably one good reason why it wasn't a hit movie. Hollywood just doesn't get it: people don't want mostly negative stuff, especially about their heroes.

Anyway, John Goodman did a fine job of playing Ruth. He didn't write the script, so I am not upset with him. Kelli McGillis is a pretty woman and also adds nicely to the film as Ruth's strong wife, "Clare."

Also, the movie is still interesting, especially if you're a baseball fan. But, as a big fan, I would like to have enjoyed this movie and bought the VHS (now DVD) and viewed it many times .....but it's not fun to watch.

Back in 1948 when Babe Ruth was dying of cancer a small independent film The Babe Ruth Story came out with William Bendix as the star. It was based on Babe's own G rated memoirs with the same title ghost written by Bob Considine and ghost ghost written by Fred Lieb. It was how I'm sure Ruth wanted to be remembered. But even people knew then the facts said otherwise.

John Goodman in the title role of The Babe is a lot closer to the swaggering hedonist who was just a kid at heart who never out grew his childhood. Abandoned and left to the care of the Christian brothers at St. Mary's Industrial School in Baltimore, the over-sized trouble-making youth was saved from probably a criminal existence by the way he could both hit and pitch a baseball. One of the many things forgotten was how good a pitcher he was and the crucial decision made by Ed Barrow his manager at the Red Sox to put Babe exclusively in the outfield to keep his bat in the lineup every day. When Ruth left for the Yankees, Barrow followed him and he's not even a character in this film.

So much in this television film is left out and just plain made up. Third baseman Joe Dugan was Ruth's teammate on the Yankees, never the Red Sox as in this film. Played by Bruce Boxleitner he was not especially close to Ruth, as close to him as any of his other teammates which was not. The Babe partied hearty with them, but was not a soulmate per se.

Trini Alvarado and Kelly McGillis play his first and second wives and their portrayals ring true. Wife number one Helen Wofford was just a nice kid from the country who liked country life and Ruth was a city boy all the way. Claire Hodgson Ruth was a showgirl and a very shrewd manager of the money the free spending Babe liked to shovel out as fast as he made it. She also managed the image we have of him for the rest of her life.

Colonel Jacob Ruppert is done a terrible disservice in this film. To me Colonel Ruppert was the ideal owner of a sports team, in fact baseball and sports in general would be better with more Rupperts running things than Steinbrenners. Ruth got it in his head he wanted to manage, I think because contemporary stars like Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Rogers Hornsby all got to manage. Ruppert was quite right and we saw a whole film showing how much Ruth couldn't manage himself. It never happened that Claire Ruth slapped Ruppert, NOBODY did that to him. But she knew better than anyone how much the Babe couldn't manage himself and she was not going in the dugout with him.

Some good acting featured in The Babe. But it contains way too many inaccuracies for a higher rating.

Despite critical reviews, this is really an interesting movie. A different look at legendary home run slugger Babe Ruth. Very low budget and historically incorrect. A major league turn around from the William Bendix BABE RUTH STORY(1948). Rowdy and ribald and one of baseball's original heroes is shown drinking, cavorting, skirt chasing and deep in gluttony. The real "Bambino"? Not candy coated, but not honestly factual either. John Goodman is outstanding as the slugger of mammoth and mythical home runs. Kelly McGillis plays Clare Ruth. Also in the cast are Bruce Boxleitner, Joe Ragno and Peter Donat. Take it all in stride. It is only a movie and not engraved in granite.

While I enjoyed the movie and John Goodman's performance, The Babe's weight was never near that of John and made him look like a lumbering athlete, which in fact he was not. While the Babe was not a role model, he was truly a hero ............. then and now.

He did not make the comments about Lou Gehrig shown in the movie. His problem with Lou Gehrig had to do with a party his wife went to ahead of the when Lou got to the party and Gehrig was upset his wife might have been intimate with The Babe, which is doubtful. Ruth and Gehrig had been close friends until Lou got jealous.

The Babe was not a bumbler on the ball field, only in life, due to his lack of class, which was caused by the lack of a loving family. He did have a great care for children, due his lack of having that during his upbringing. It was a good movie in terms of many things, but left those who have read the read biographies of The Babe, disappointed with how the so called facts were presented. The Babe will live on long after this movie, which I avoided for many years, due to figuring it was tainted ............. and it was, very tainted. I do have to say I still enjoyed most of the movie. Like many biographies to much poetic license was taken.

John Goodman steamrolls his way through this film, with just about everyone else pushed into the background.

Purists no doubt will cane this film for historical inaccuracies. Heck, I'm from another country and know jack about baseball, but 15 minutes on the Internet was enough to show me that the film took serious short-cuts with Babe's life and career, not to mention a number of errors and distortions of fact.

Does this matter? Well, yes, probably. But you have to feel for the filmmakers. How do you condense a 20-year sporting career, not to mention a study of a complex and flawed individual, into a couple of hours of cinema? It's not easy, and the film suffers from events that are merely touched on Example 1: Ruth is introduced to mobsters in a speakeasy, but this seems to lead nowhere. The obvious question is: what happened next?. Example 2: The conflict between Ruth and Lou Gehrig is not portrayed accurately, and its resolution is not shown at all.

An excess of sentiment also hurts the film. There are moments that look like cliched scenes from countless other sporting movies - especially the sick kiddie in hospital extracting a promise of 2 home runs from Ruth, who dutifully delivers, and the same kiddie, now fully recovered and grown up, showing up at Ruth's swansong. It's emotionally manipulative film-making and I regret to say it works, but it also pulls this film back from greatness.

All up, just above average, unlike its subject matter.

There are really only two ways John Goodman could ever fit into a sports movie: a) he's not the lead or b) it's about fishing. I'm nowhere near an authority on the real Babe Ruth, but I reckon a baseball legend could probably run five yards without being completely out of breath. Don't get me wrong, Goodman is excellent in the non-baseball scenes, but whenever he gets on that plate it's really embarrassing and highly unconvincing. Was this movie made on a dare? Did the studio just think John Goodman needed some exercise? It's pretty painful to watch all in all, but you can't look away. And yet...in a way it's also indescribably entertaining, even though that's probably just my dark side enjoying the "run fatty run"-aspect of this film. It also helps a lot that, as I already implied, the parts about Ruth's personal life are well-acted and in fact much more interesting than the repetitive homerun-homerun-homerun-homerun-homerun-homerun-homerun scenes. "The Babe" is a decent biopic, but you never really believe you're watching Babe Ruth. Oh well, at least it's easy to sit through.

The 2 biggest complaints I had were the sequence of events in the movie and the character that Mr. Goodman portrayed.

It seemed that the movie attempted to show all events which dealt with Babe Ruth's life. Most actually seemed accurate, but the positioning of each event was off. For example, if Babe was so much against divorcing his first wife, why did he go ahead and marry Claire while still being married? The fact is, that he did not marry Claire until his first wife tragically died. This is not portrayed this way in the movie. Also, the movie suggested that Babe met claire as a rookie in Boston. He met Claire in New York in 1923. Does anyone actually think that Babe Ruth would have continued playing for the Yankees if he dangled his manager (his boss) off a moving train???

As for the acting. Babe Ruth NEVER approached the weight displayed by Mr. Goodman. Babe hovered around 200-210 for the most part of his career although his weight did fluctuate. It was a truly sick thing trying to watch Mr. Goodman swing or run around the bases. The guy could barely fit into a uniform. I did think that Mr. Goodman really did well in his facial expressions, speech and overall demeanor of the Babe. It was the physical acting that was left to be desired.

I would have liked the movie to concentrate more on Babe's lifestyle off the field. His womanizing (not enough in this movie), his appetite (not enough in this movie), and the fact he just was a social boob (i.e. couldn't remember names, had no manners). His on the field statistics speak for themselves.

1st watched 5/15/2007 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Arthur Hiller): Well done depiction of baseball hero Babe Ruth with perfectly cast John Goodman in the title role who plays him with just the right amount of jollyness with the unexpected shows of vulnerability that seems to make sense for a man who lived like he did. He was abandoned as a young child by his parents supposedly because he was "bad" and grew up in a Catholic boys school with no real mother or father. He gained a skill while in the school and became an excellent baseball player. So much so, that a major league baseball team adopted him when he became a young adult. He was then traded promptly to the Boston Red Sox and his excellent baseball history began and then continued with the New York Yankees, where he was nicknamed the Bronx bomber or the Bambino and the stadium was then called "The House that Ruth Built." Between all of this, he married, divorced, re-married, caroused the bars, treated the kids who came to the games with love and did everything BIG. Kelly McGillis is excellent as the Babe's 2nd love interest and the one who really accepted him for who he was(as bizarre as some of his antics were). His famed visit to the children's hospital promising the sick child two home runs and coming thru with it and his heralded calling out of the home run to center field in the World Series is also depicted as expected. The movie also included little things like him not getting any money from the Baby Ruth candy bar company when they obviously named it after him. All of these things combine into a very entertaining and well put together movie by director Arthur Hiller. Sure, it's not as hard-nosed as it could have been but I think this was the kind of movie that should have been made about this larger-than-life baseball legend, especially with the lighter John Goodman in the lead role.

The best part of "The Babe" with John Goodman is his excellent imitation of Babe Ruth's mannerisms and speaking. Goodman particularly handled Ruth's verbal style. This film suffered quite a bit from its emphasis and interpretation of Babe Ruth's character and life. I know people that knew Babe Ruth, and while they said he went out and drank regularly, they said he was rarely out of control they way he was depicted by Goodman in the film. Nor was he sloppy and horribly overweight like John Goodman was in the film. The Babe didn't get particularly heavy till his last 2-3 years in the major leagues, and even after retiring continued to play in exhibitions around North America. Some others asked if he really hit 3 homeruns in his last game with the Boston Braves. That is also not correct and was incorrectly depicted in the film (Ruth dropping his hat in front of the Braves owner). He did hit three homeruns in one game in his final season in old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, but it was not his final game. This film focused almost solely on Ruth's lack of personal discipline and immaturity, which was not a problem for him after 1925 when he was fined and admonished by his Manager Miller Huggins. From 1926 to 1932, Ruth had perhaps the finest run of offensive seasons of any Major League hitter - this was not even mentioned in the film, and his banner years of 1923 (when he hit .393) and 1927 (60 homeruns) were barely mentioned; I think the film spent less than one minute on his 60 homerun year. All in all, this film was very disappointing, particularly to Yankee fans and to those who were acquainted with Babe Ruth. The TV movie about Babe Ruth (which included Pete Rose as Ty Cobb) was a much better film.

I'm a sucker for corny old movies, especially when they involve baseball. My only problem here, was that Babe Ruth was not obese when he began his career with the Red Sox. He was barrel chested and strong as an ox and didn't gain all that weight until the end of the '20's, beginning of the '30's! They make him look like a hot dog eating pig as a young man. Remember, this young man hit more home runs in 1920, than any other TEAM in the American League!

Possibly the worst baseball bio-pic ever made. No relation to Ruth's actual career, you'd never guess he started out as a pitching star before graduating to the Sultan of Swat. Every home run Goodman hits goes out of the stadium. Not into the stands, but out of the stadium. When he's not hitting gigantic home runs, he flails around at the plate like a drunken klutz. It's complete nonsense. Ruth was a terrific athlete most of his career with a lifetime .342 batting average, only growing overweight toward the end. Goodman flaunts his bulk with no hint of athleticism and doesn't seem to play any actual baseball, he only shows up to hit the homers. He must be really good, too, because he barely has any teammates worth mentioning. Ruth dominated the Roaring 20s as a larger than life figure. Goodman's Ruth is merely large. If you wish to see Babe Ruth portrayed as a gross clownish moron, this is your chance.

I may have liked this movie better than many reviewers because I DON'T know a whole lot of details about Babe Ruth's real life. Other than the famous 'called shot' and his home run race with Gehrig, I'd only heard that he was larger-than-life, a real undisciplined manchild.

To that end, I thought John Goodman turned in a pretty good performance as the Bambino, bringing his usual genius to his work. His range of emotion was excellent, and did much to complement the whirlwind pace of Ruth's salad days. The most powerful scene was definitely Ruth attacking the booing hometown fans during his slump; Goodman gave a frighteningly convincing impression of a man quickly devolving into an apoplectic state. Whether the incident took place in real life, I don't know, but being as I haven't seen a reviewer on imdb castigate it as fiction, I'll assume that it was.

The soundtrack in the movie was perfect, as well. A great combination of uplifting sports-movie heroic music and hopping, gin-joint jazz; it hid from the spotlight and supported the whole film, like a good score should.

The only major problem I found with the film was, ironically, John Goodman himself. He clearly tries very hard to look, move, and talk like The Babe, but he's so recognizable on his own that I didn't see the Sultan of Swat in living color - I saw John Goodman playing baseball. Unfortunately, the remainder of the cast gave mostly-forgettable performances, but I supposed that's something you assume when their whole point of being included in the movie was to show their relationship to the central character.

In conclusion: maybe not good for sports historians, but a pretty watchable film, on its own.

Ever seen a movie and just wanted to punch the screen?

The Babe, starring John Goodman, is a horrendously bad film. It's almost a total fabrication of the man's life. There's so much wrong, I don't know where to begin.

Perhaps we should look at the fact that John Goodman was way too heavy to play him. Babe Ruth was never 350 pounds. He was actually a good athlete in his prime. He started as a pitcher, yet they skipped over that despite his being one of the better pitchers in the American League for several years before moving fulltime to the outfield.

He wasn't mentally impaired, either, yet they make it seem like he had the know how of a 2 year old. They had him marrying his second wife before his first wife died, something that he wouldn't due to religious reasons. All they had him do was harp about managing, wanting to manage in the majors. He did want to, it's well documented, but it wasn't the only thing he thought of. And he didn't call Lou Gehrig Iron Man when he was 3 years into the league, heck, no one did!! you get that kind of nickname you play several years without missing games. Gehrig's character was also a complete waste. I'm surprised they didn't just cut him out of the movie like he didn't exist, they cut out so much that did anyway.

This movie has the feel of a bad made for TV film. The acting stinks, the shots stink, the crowd/atmosphere stinks, everything is very contrived, and they completely forgot it was a historical setting. It feels like the screen writer just decided to write up a completely different story and then added Babe Ruth to it.

Watch it if you want, but if you know anything about baseball history, you'll wish you hadn't. -100 on a 1-10 scale.

As someone familiar with the historic record of Babe Ruth's life, the many "playings around" with the facts were noticeable. In some of the cases, presenting the story accurately wouldn't have changed the filmmakers' intent at all. Example: In the movie, Babe already is married to Clare when Dorothy dies in the fire. Dorothy died a couple of years before Babe got married. He was a Catholic, remember; they weren't living together.

I'm still pretty sure the Baby Ruth candy bar was named for Grover Cleveland's daughter, not the Babe. I am old enough to have attended many ballgames in Forbes Field, and they didn't even try to make the park in the movie look the same. Where was the ivy?!

In real life, Clare wanted Babe to retire after the 3 homers in Pittsburgh, but Babe had promised people he would appear in several more games. Nothing happened in those games, and, dramatically, having him quit after Pittsburgh made good sense for the movie.

I'm also glad the picture ended when it did, not showing Babe in his last frustrating years waiting vainly for the Yankees to call him. We didn't need to see his - and Clare's - decline.

I take serious issue with the critic here who apparently likes the William Bendix movie better. Keep in mind that was made while Babe was still alive. The Babe they presented there was so perfumed and sugar-coated as to be completely unrecognizable.

The movie is especially enjoyable due to the presence of the 1988 Men's Barbershop champion - "The Chiefs of Staff" -- from the Illinois district of the Barberhsop Harmony Society. Tom Kentish, BHS singer from Chicago. It is recommended for anyone wanting a good depiction of the life of Babe Ruth and who enjoys an authentic barbershop quartet. The Chiefs of staff sing "Here Come The Bostons" -- apparently a song that was written for the Boston Red Sox while the Babe was playing for them.

Highly enjoyable movie, and be sure to rewind on the quartet when you hear it.

Tom Kentish, BHS singer from Chicago.

This may very well be the worst baseball movie ever made.

The "location" shots are often laughable -- the real world Chicago is palmed off as such wildly dissimilar places as Boston, New York and New Orleans, and the old ballpark mock-ups are comically unconvincing. John Goodman resembles Ruth only in bulk -- John Candy would have played this role with far greater joy and credibility.

Babe Ruth was not only the greatest ballplayer who ever lived, but his life story was richer and more interesting that the cliche-riddled and often inaccurate script suggests. This cheap, cheesy, and unimaginative piece of hack work is one big strikeout.

Some have said this film ruins Ruth, yet I strongly disagree. The storyline never gets specific enough to detail his multiple infractions. Instead, it is like the candy-version done in the 50s with far better script, sets, and actors. It's a great period piece with Goodman in charge, at the helm.

Goodman nailed it, and the script fully benefited Ruth's legacy. For anybody to claim this script belittled Ruth never read a decent book on same.

In comparison, the full truth could only harm a great man like Ruth.

Ruth was a complicated bastard of a man. Hollywood cannot portray him honestly, nor anybody else.

Why complain about Hollywood when you all seem inextricably intertwined with the pile of x it is?

I found this movie to be appallingly bad. The actually story of Babe Ruth is fascinating, but the movie treats him as the same caricature that popular memory has created. Goodman's portrayal is shallow and treads on parody. He does manage to copy the voice of the Babe fairly well, but that only picks up about an hour into the film. Facts are disregarded throughout the story and confusing leaps through time distort his career.

Not for baseball fans, not for history fans, not for movie fans. The only people who might enjoy this are Red Sox fans, as the whole two hours does a great injustice to the most famous Yankee of them all.

I liked the movie "The Babe". Perhaps it has a lot to do with my enjoyment of sports. I didn't see this movie until '98, and the first time I was like in awe of the "Babes" greatness. I was moved by the last game he was in, where he hit 3, count them, 3 home runs in the game. A stadium where the people booed him to the point where they couldn't help but cheer him, was moving for me. I totally agree with the man in the tunnel when he said "Your the best. Your the best there's ever been." Amen. It was a sad fact the life he lived (in my opinion). But without a doubt he was GREAT!

Could Babe Ruth have possibly been the undisciplined gutter swine he is portrayed as in this movie? The usually likable John Goodman is effective at losing audience compassion early, and then exposing an American icon as a moronic heel driven purely by his uncontrolled hedonism. You leave this movie feeling the ironic unfairness that such great athletic gifts were wasted on this despicable man.

I honestly think this was a GREAT portrayal movie of Babe Ruth!! Must see movie.