Lou Gehrig played 2,130 consecutive games for the New York Yankees, becoming one of baseball's immortals. Not bad for a tenement kid who only began playing professionally because his mother needed an operation. There's not a lot of sporting action in Sam Wood's movingly inspirational biopic, as the tale concentrates on the romance between Gary Cooper and Teresa Wright, but there's drama aplenty as “Iron Horse” battles the neurological condition (amytropic lateral sclerosis) that has since become known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The Coop mannerisms aren't really suited to Gehrig, but he gives a typically sympathetic performance alongside Wright and real-life stars such as Babe Ruth.

Halliwell's Film Guide

Standard sporting biopic ending on Gehrig's famous speech to the crowd; emotion covers the film's other deficiencies.