Babe Ruth stars in Headin’ Home
One hundred years ago today … Headin’ Home, a feature film that was not much more than a publicity vehicle and cash grab for its star, Babe Ruth, began an eight-night run at Madison Square Garden, then in its second incarnation at 25/26th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenue.
Movies in those days opened on Sundays.
New York Times, 19 September 1920, p. 94. Chronicling America.
(Note: We previously featured Ruth when we posted about the January 5, 1920 trade that brought him to the New York Yankees. Also see Jonathan Goldman’s Public Books article about the impact of Ruth’s celebrity in 1920.)
The News review two days later credits “R.A. Walsh” as the film’s director. This was Raoul Walsh, who would go on to a legendary Hollywood career. Only problem: Walsh did not direct the movie, Lawrence Windom, not as luminous a name, did, from a screenplay by one of NYC’s most popular sportswriters, Bugs Baer.
The News’ reviewer “Boyle” found the film appealing enough, and even praised Ruth as “perfectly at home in his role.”
Daily News, 21 September 1920, p. 32. Chronicling America.
Thanks to YouTube, we can make up our own minds:
The film had been shot throughout the month of August, much of it in Haverstraw, New Jersey, but often using the Polo Grounds as the set (Stout, 244-5).
The Tribune was reporting that Tex Rickard, owner of the Garden, had installed a new screen installed for the occasion, the largest ever used for a film at 27 feet high, 36 feet across.
New York Tribune, 19 September 1920, p. 36. Chronicling America.
As Glenn Stout writes, the Garden was never “meant to be a movie theater, but Rickard figured Ruth was worth it. . . . (Rickard) thought he would print money” (247).
A testament to Ruth’s fame and impact is the sheer variety of ways he appeared in the news around the time of the movie’s release. Ruth had recently lost a lawsuit to prevent the release of an entirely different movie, Babe Ruth, How He Makes His Home Runs, made by the Educational Films Exchange. An editorial in the Tribune agreed with the decision, stating that “publicity” is “the price one must pay for fame.” “Become famous,” it argued, and you become “public property,” thus losing ownership over your own name and persona.
New York Tribune, 20 September 1920, p. 10. Chronicling America.
The same day, the same paper included what we would might these days call a human interest piece, “Babe Ruth the Man.”
New York Tribune, 20 September 1920, p. 13. Chronicling America.
Throughout the month of August, The Evening World had featured weekly pieces by Ruth “in his own words," no doubt ghost-written, on various baseball topics.
As far as baseball was concerned, Ruth was having an astonishing season. At the moment he had 49 home runs, surpassing his own record of the previous year by twenty, with several weeks left in the season. (He would end with 54.)
Oh, and one hundred years ago today … The Yankees lost to the Saint Louis Browns, 6-2. Ruth walked once and was thrown out trying to steal.
Sources/Further reading
Stout, Glenn. The Selling of the Babe. New York: St.Martin’s Press, 2016.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, SEPTEMBER 19, 2020.
TAGS: celebrity, fame, sport, baseball, movies, film, cinema, newspapers, media, theater, copyright