Pride Of The West

RAWHIDE-1938-New York Yankees baseball legend Lou Gehrig crosses over into acting in this low budget modern day western. 


Gehrig (playing himself) decides to quit baseball to go and live a quiet life on his sister Peggy's (Evalyn Knapp) ranch in Montana! He runs afoul (no pun intended) of Mr. Saunders (Arthur Loft) and his crooked bandits. His gang strong arms local ranchers to join his "association"

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The real star though is singing cowboy Smith Ballew who plays Larry Kimball, a lawyer and love interest for Peggy. He and Lou have a great fight in a saloon where Gehrig uses some billiard  balls to take out the bad guys. The Iron Horse isn't too bad (he even sings briefly!) and says things like "What kind of country is this anyway?" and "This will be more fun than  the World Series". 

Ballew does two cool songs and after the very happy ending Lou finds out The Yankees have met his
contract demands and goes back to New York!

RAWHIDE (a 20th Century production)  is an amazing time capsule capturing for posterity a sports legend who a mere 3 years later would be dead....
   

Director Ray Taylor made over a 150 films from 1926 to 1949 including FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE and THE GREEN HORNET.  The Gehrig biography THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES would be made in 1942 with Gary Cooper in the lead role. RAWHIDE  is available on DVD. 

Thanks again to Ton for digging up this one!

And thanks to anyone who reads this!