DVD : The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
Price: $87.73 Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0024543025788
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: October 16, 2001
Running Time: 95 minutes
Sales Rank: 26897
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Description:
As baseball's first Jewish star, Hammerin' Hank Greenberg's career contains all the makings of a true American sucess story. An extraordinary ball player notorious for his hours of daily practice, Greenberg's career was an inspiration to all and captured the headlines and the admiration of sportswriters and fans alike. This is the story of how he became an American hero.
Amazon.com:
Aviva Kempner's Peabody Award-winning documentary is about baseball like Field of Dreams is about cornfields. Kempner efficiently covers all the bases of Detroit Tigers Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg's magnificent career with archival footage and talking heads, including family members, former teammates and baseball legends, broadcasters and sportswriters, and such unabashed fans as Alan Dershowitz and Walter Matthau. If this biography's style is not remarkable, its subject certainly was. Greenberg, the son of immigrant parents, was a beacon of hope to Jews. As one observer notes, baseball was a way of "showing we were as American as everybody else." To see one of their own succeed in the national pastime at a time of virulent anti-Semitism was a source of pride and inspiration. One lifelong fan, a rabbi, states, "He was the baseball Moses." Winner of several critics association awards for Best Documentary, this is a stirring film for all seasons. --Donald Liebenson
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I've seen this promoted many times as a movie for Jewish people because it is about their first big baseball idol, Hank Greenberg. A lot of the material here deals with how big an idol Hank was to all the Jews in Amercia back then. I found that interesting, but I watched it simply because I love baseball, especially the "old days" and am thrilled to see footage of any Major League baseball games and stars from the first half of the 20th century. If there is a human-interest behind the diamond heroics, all the better!
Greenberg was a likable guy and I enjoyed seeing him talk here and there from an interview he did in the early '80s, talking about his career. He isn't a braggart, but he's not that modest, either. He knew he was very good.
He didn't make excuses either when he didn't accomplish he wanted, like hitting 60 homers one season. Sadly, some of the commentators on this DVD like attorney Alan Dershowitz are not so unbiased.
I enjoyed not only seeing Greenberg smash the ball but witnessing some of his famous and not-so-famous teammates in footage, too, and also interviewed in their older age - guys like Charlie Gehringer, a great second baseman on Hank's winning teams in Detroit.
I especially liked what Greenberg said near the end of this long documentary, something I wish more athletes of today would say (and believe): "I"ve tried to pattern my life on the fact that I'm out there in the limelight, so to speak, and that ... Read More
Rating: -
I grew up as a Yankee Fan and still am a die heart Yankee fan now and all my life. Being Italian the great Joe D was my hero. And the more I read about Hank Greenberg, and after watching this movie, I have to say, that Hank Greenberg belongs right up there with the Joe D, Babe Ruth, and the Iron Man #4.
I could watch this movie over and over. Thank You Hank.
Rating: -
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg may be the best baseball documentary ever. Not as thorough, long or epic as ken Burns' Baseball from 1994, L&T of H.G. is a wonderful vision of a player who's legacy is fast fading from the era still associated with DiMaggio, Gehrig and Ruth. His ascension to baseball immortality is partly due to his being the first great Jewish ball player. Besides Sandy Koufax, Greenberg can easily be considered the greatest Jewish player ever. He was the winner of two MVP's and two Championships with the Tigers in 1935 and 1945. Greenberg lead the Tigers to their first series appearance in 25 years in 1934, which they lost to St. Louis. He also lead them to a series in 1940, losing to Cincinnati. He served in WWII for three years and returned in 1945 to hit a home run in his first game, and lead the Tigers to a World Series victory. As it goes, his Tigers beat the Cubs in both of his Worls Series victories.
According to the doc, Greenberg was one of the first ballplayers to enlist and consequently return from the war.
What works about the film is the relaxed nature of Greenberg, seen in archived interviews (he died in 1986 at 75) and the interviews with fellow players and people who grew up idolizing him. Greenberg seems to have taken his success in amazing stride, assuming a responsibility he may or may not have wanted for Jewish Americans. No doubt his success as a player, like Jackie Robinson, who came into the league during Greenberg's ... Read More
Rating: -
This film doesn't back even a quarter inch from being a documentary of a great Jewish ballplayer. The opening theme song is "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in Yiddish. It sets the tone for the whole film in perfect fashion.
One of my professors in grad school explained to me how he changed his name as a grad student in the 1930s in order to "pass" as what we would now call WASP in order to escape the "Jew quotas" placed against the hiring of too many Jewish professors. Today we forget just how anti-Semitic much of the United States was before World War II and beyond. As this documentary points out, this was especially true in Detroit, where America's premiere industrial anti-Semite, Henry Ford, held sway. The film mentions but does not expand upon Ford's anti-Semitic activity, which included paying for the printing and distribution of the wretched forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," one of the most racist rags ever penned. This provides the social and historical background for this marvelous documentary history of the great Hank Greenberg, the first professional baseball star to openly embrace his ethnic background. He thus served as the Jackie Robinson of the Jews in the thirties. But there was a slight difference. Though African-Americans were discriminated against and subjugated to terrible racial injustice, there was a sense in which they were undeniably American. Jews, however, at the time enjoyed an almost outsider status, not really Americans, ... Read More
Rating: -
I think this is a truly exceptional documentary on many different levels. First, it tells the story of one of the best baseball players in history, who often goes unrecognized for his skills. I consider myself a big baseball fan, especially in the history of baseball and stars of the past. Yet before this movie, I knew very little about Hank Greenberg. Despite being one of the best hitters at that time, Greenberg isn't talked about very often. This DVD gets his story out, and shows how dominant of a ball player he was.
A major reason that Greenberg is often overlooked when people talk about great ball players is that he spent many of his prime years serving the war effort and was away from baseball. This has kept his lifetime stats and therefore his notoriety down.
Another major reason this movie was so good was how it showed Greenberg's career in baseball as a Jewish baseball player. Although his abuse was less than what Jackie Robinson would later recieve, he still did suffer abuse. Also, he was watched and revered by the Jewish community. He was respected and admired as a Jewish man who was just as good as other American ball players, giving Jews a sense of pride. One of the best parts of the film is when the viewer learns that Greenberg talked to Jackie Robinson about playing in baseball as a minority, and gave him support.
Whether he was helping Detroit win the World Series, serving his country in the war, being a symbol of pride ... Read More
Browse for similar items by category:
|
|
|
|
|
starring: Rabbi Reeve Brenner, Hank Greenberg, Walter Matthau, Alan M. Dershowitz, Carl Levin
directed by: Aviva Kempner
Related Items:
     see more
Related Items:
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0024543025788
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: October 16, 2001
Running Time: 95 minutes
Sales Rank: 26897
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
|
|
|
Browse:
Books |
Classical Music |
DVD
| VHS |
Electronics |
Magazines
| Movies |
Music |
Software
|
|
Today's HotLink:
Sociocracy
See Also: Divination Drawing Lots Markers At Random
|
Recommended Movie:
Last of the Pagans
Today's Movie Director: Rob Reiner
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
