Production
With the exception of Ruth, none of the film's characters are based on real people. However, there is a scene near the end where Ruth is at dinner, and talks to a man named Lou, probably a representation of Lou Gehrig.
The film takes a largely nostalgic tone in its presentation of 1930s American life, though the Great Depression is alluded to, as is the existence of separate Negro Leagues. (Marti's father is a member of the Cincinnati Tigers, though the team was actually founded two years later, in 1934.) The announced morals of the movie are to "keep swinging" (that is, never give up), and the importance of family.
The actual events of the 1932 series, though dramatic, were not followed in the film (perhaps because of rights issues over depictions of the game). For example, the Yankees swept the Cubs in the series, but in the film, they lost three games to set up the classic game 7 scenario.
In one point of the film, Screwie refers to Superman, which is anachronistic due to the fact that Superman did not appear until 1938, and the film is set in 1932, though the reference is clearly intended as a nod to late co-director Reeve, who played Superman in several films.
Read more about this topic: Everyone's Hero
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“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)
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)