Inaccuracies/artistic License
As the film opens, Gehrig is depicted belting a home run through the window of his alma mater's athletics department. Actually, his farthest hits smashed not into the athletic department, which was located on the north end of campus, but through the windows of the nearby Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Gary Cooper, who was right-handed, could not master a convincing left-handed swing, and was filmed swinging from the right side. Editors then created the appearance of left-handed batting by reversing the film negative. During filming Cooper would run to third base instead of first to complete the illusion.
In one of the film's more memorable scenes, a physician matter-of-factly informs Gehrig of his tragic diagnosis, dismal prognosis, and brief life expectancy. In fact, the Mayo Clinic doctors painted an unrealistically optimistic picture of Gehrig's condition and prospects, reportedly at his wife's request. Among other things he was given "a 50–50 chance of keeping me as I am" for the foreseeable future, and was told that he "...may need a cane in 10 or 15 years." Deliberate concealment of bad news from patients, particularly when cancer or an incurable degenerative disease was involved, was a relatively common practice at the time.
Read more about this topic: The Pride Of The Yankees
Famous quotes containing the words artistic and/or license:
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well as art.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)