''Headin' Home'' is a 1920 American
silent biopic sports film directed by
Lawrence C. Windom. It attempts to create a
mythology
Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
surrounding the life of
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
player
Babe Ruth
George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional Baseball in the United States, baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nickna ...
.
The screenplay was written by
Arthur "Bugs" Baer from a story by Earle Browne. Besides Ruth, it stars Ruth Taylor,
William Sheer, and
Margaret Seddon
Margaret Seddon (November 18, 1872 – April 17, 1968) was an American stage and film actress.
Biography
She appeared in more than 100 films between 1915 and 1951. Her most memorable role was perhaps as one of The Pixilated Sisters, a come ...
.
It was filmed largely in
Haverstraw, New York
Plot summary
Ruth stars in the film, playing himself, but the details of his life are completely fictionalized. In the film, Ruth comes from a small country town and has a loving home life, but in real life, he grew up in
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...
, and spent most of his childhood in a
reformatory
A reformatory or reformatory school is a youth detention center or an adult correctional facility popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries. In the United Kingdom and United States, they came out of social concern ...
.
''Sacramento Bee''. In the film, shades of the 1984 baseball movie '' The Natural (film), The Natural'', Ruth cuts down a tree to make his own bat
Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...
.
Cast
*Babe Ruth
George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional Baseball in the United States, baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nickna ...
as Babe
* Ruth Taylor as Mildred Tobin
* William Sheer as Harry Knight
*Margaret Seddon
Margaret Seddon (November 18, 1872 – April 17, 1968) was an American stage and film actress.
Biography
She appeared in more than 100 films between 1915 and 1951. Her most memorable role was perhaps as one of The Pixilated Sisters, a come ...
as Babe's Mother
*Frances Victory as Pigtails
* James A. Marcus as Simon Tobin
*Ralf Harolde
Ralf Harolde (born Ralph Harold Wigger, May 17, 1899 – November 11, 1974) was an American character actor who often played gangsters. Between 1920 and 1963, he appeared in 99 films, including ''Smart Money (1931 film), Smart Money'' with ...
as John Tobin
*Charles Byer
Charles Byer (February 28, 1893 – November 28, 1953) was an American film actor of the silent era.Babington & Barr p. 133 He appeared in films for a variety of companies including Fox Film, Fox, Paramount Pictures, Paramount, Tiffany Pictures, T ...
as David Talmadge
*George Halpin as Doc Hedges / The Constable / Dog Catcher
* William J. Gross as Eliar Lott
*Walter Lawrence as Tony Marino
*Ann Brody
Ann Brody Goldstein (August 29, 1884 – July 16, 1944), known professionally as Ann Brody, was an American film actress of the silent era
A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogu ...
as Mrs. Tony Marino
*Ricca Allen
Ricca Allen (June 9, 1863 – September 13, 1949) was a Canadian-born stage and film actress. She appeared in more than 50 films between 1913 and 1941.
Allen was born in Victoria, Colony of Vancouver Island to John Allen of Oakland, Califo ...
as Almira Worters
*Sammy Blum
Sammy Blum (May 25, 1889 – June 1, 1945) was an American character actor whose career spanned both the silent and talking film eras. Born in New York City, over the almost 30 years he was in the film industry, he would appear in almost 50 film ...
as Jimbo Jones
*Ethel Kerwin as Kitty Wilson
*Tom Cameron as Deacon Flack
*Charles J. Hunt as Reverend David Talmadge
*William Shea
William Alfred Shea ( ; June 21, 1907 – October 2, 1991) was an American lawyer, philanthropist, civic leader and sports team owner. He co-founded the law firm of Shea & Gould in 1964 and established the Continental League with Branch Rick ...
*Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh (born Albert Edward Walsh; March 11, 1887December 31, 1980) was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and the brother of silent cinema actor George Walsh. He wa ...
as supervisor
See also
*''Babe Comes Home
''Babe Comes Home'' is a 1927 American silent sports comedy film produced and distributed through First National and directed by Ted Wilde. The film is a baseball-styled sports film centering on Babe Ruth and Anna Q. Nilsson and was based on t ...
'' (1927), also starring Babe Ruth
* List of baseball films
This is a list of films about baseball, featuring notable films where baseball plays a central role in the development of the plot.
See also
* List of sports films
* List of highest-grossing sports films
References
{{Baseball
Baseball fi ...
References
External links
*
1920 films
1920 comedy-drama films
1920s American films
1920s English-language films
1920s sports comedy-drama films
American baseball films
American black-and-white films
American silent feature films
American sports comedy-drama films
Articles containing video clips
Biographical films about sportspeople
Cultural depictions of Babe Ruth
English-language sports comedy-drama films
Films directed by Lawrence C. Windom
Silent American comedy-drama films
Surviving American silent films
{{silent-comedy-drama-film-stub