Follow the Sun

Many sports movies get sports so wrong that they are not enjoyable for people who actually consider themselves fans. In this movie it did not happen.

The positives to this movie are the actors, Ford and Banecroft, are great. It has a quick paced story.

The down side is at times it was a little corny and the relationships too simplistic, but that is a true of alot of the docu dramas of this era.

It is certainly a good watch and would recommend it not only to golf fans, who would really enjoy it, but to classic movie fans.

Director Lanfield handles this biopic well. He treats with due respect the figure of Ben Hogan as he comes up through the ranks, from amateur to pro. He is capably assisted by high quality B&W photography and superb performances by Ford and, especially, Baxter - the very epitome of a pro's wife, supporting her man while never relinquishing her female rights and wants.

Sadly, Dennis O'Keefe plays the part of many times champion Chuck Williams, but he comes across as a larger than life drunkard who recklessly marries Havoc, who is in her third marriage and reportedly only wants champions for husbands. Both roles strike me as thankless, but not as much as Keating, as the journalist who does not believe Hogan has what it takes to be a pro, keeps mispronouncing Hogan as Hagan, and targeting Hogan for unfair criticism.

Keating becomes even more unlikable when he fails to appear in the film after Hogan's accident. Was the journalist really that heartless? Why such heartlessness? Why does the film announce it so vehemently to the world? Why does it come so close to smearing the name of the journalist? I got the feeling that that part of the flick left something out, as the journalist did not appear to dislike other pros as much as he did Hogan.

Ford plays a convincing and self-effacing Ben Hogan, determined to overcome his handicap at the risk of losing a leg through amputation.

Well worth watching if you like golf. If you don't, like me, the quality of Baxter's and Ford's acting warrants watching.

Rather odd Ben Hogan biopic is a curiously contracted affair. Episodic in the extreme and boasting repressed thespian renderings from Glenn Ford (Hogan), Ann Baxter (Valerie Ford) and Dennis O'Keefe (Chuck Williams), it resembles a feature length episode of "Leave It To Beaver" and is deathly afraid of tarnishing (or humanizing)the Hogan legend. As a result, it is very bland. Director Sidney Lanfield and writer Frederick Hazlitt Brennan are incapable of injecting any edge into Hogan's struggle to be a professional golfer and focus instead on the golfer's tense relationship with a sports journalist (Larry Keating) and his lack of ease with the "gallery" that follows the golfing tour.

To the film's credit, there is some good golf played. Several tee shots, fairway chips to the green, and putts to the hole were obviously filmed for real, adding some much-needed authenticity to the barely human story. Location filming at Pebble Beach, California, is welcome, too.

I didn't dislike this odd little biopic. The sequence leading up to Hogan's accident is quite suspenseful, and Ford's performance, despite its mechanical nature, is interesting to watch for its freak value. But the treatment of Hogan, a respected golfing legend, is too careful, too reverential.

When the film began, I noticed that although it was supposed to be in the late 1920s, hairstyles were right from 1951. This isn't uncommon...and it's a minor complaint about an otherwise very good biopic. I say very good because although it took some liberties with the truth (such as creating the Chuck Williams character who did NOT exist), it stuck closer to his life story than most biopics seem to do!

The film follows Ben Hogan's life from his teens through his recovery from a near death auto accident. It's all very nice and inspiring and although the film never excited me, it did keep my interest. Worth seeing...especially if you love golf.

Although Ford couldn't play golf worth a lick, Hogan himself supervised the golf scenes (and much else). He slyly inserted rare golf lessons into the film, but as with anything Hogan you've got to look very carefully. Also, there is rare footage of Hogan colleagues Demaret, Snead, and Middlecoff. Forget the fact that the film is Hollywood treacle. This is a treasure for modern-day golfers attempting to understand Hogan's mastery of the golf swing.

The film still hasn't been released on DVD or Blu-Ray, and is rarely if ever seen on cable. The greatest golf film ever made gathers dust as Hogan's legions desperately search for more information about the man who understood more about golf than anyone has ever known about any sport (except, perhaps, for Ted Williams).