Rawhide

Lou Gehrig, playing Lou Gehrig, retires from the Yankees to his sister's ranch, finds a protection racket squeezing the ranchers, throws billiard balls at the heavies, and takes a fastball in the barn. Smith Ballew, the singing cowboy, is the lawyer fighting the racket. Shot in January 1938, a year and a half before his farewell at the Stadium, when he was still the Iron Horse and the studio thought a first baseman could sell a Western. He is stiff and pleasant and plainly enjoying himself, and that is the film's value. Ray Taylor for Principal Productions, fifty-eight minutes.