Headin' Home (Silent)

Baseball legend Babe Ruth stars as himself in this unique early attempt at a motion picture biopic. We see Babe's beginnings as a simple small town boy whose only goal in life is to join the local baseball team. Blocked from joining by the owner, he instead signs on with a rival team. It isn't long before Babe is ostracized by his friends and family for causing the home team to lose by hitting a homer in the ninth inning. Leaving home, he goes to New York where he signs with the Yankees and becomes famous as "The Great Bambino." Despite his newfound fame, Babe is still haunted by being an outcast in his hometown. He redeems himself when he goes back home and stops a greedy man from embezzling funds from a local banker and subsequently wins the heart of the banker's pretty daughter, Mildred.

Already world-famous for playing with the Yankees, it was seen as a no-brainer for Babe Ruth to star as himself in his own motion picture... despite his obvious lack of acting ability. Though ostensibly meant to be the story of Ruth's life, screenwriter Arthur "Bugs" Baer had no interest in following details to the letter. While Headin' Home shows the Great Bambino as having a bucolic small-town America upbringing, devoted to his mother and sister, in reality six of Babe's seven siblings died in infancy, and he spent most of his youth in a reformatory because of his delinquent ways, rarely seeing his family. A relatively cheap production with no other major stars financed by gambler Abe Attell (whose fixing of the 1919 World Series had ironically almost sunk baseball as the national pastime), most of Headin' Home's budget went to Ruth's then-whopping $50,000 salary, paid half in cash and half by check. Since the movie did poorly, by the time Babe went to cash the check it bounced. Amused, Babe laughed it off and kept the bounced check as a memento. He wouldn't try acting again for another seven years, when he made Babe Comes Home (1927) with Anna Q. Nilsson and Louise Fazenda for First National Pictures. Unfortunately, this film is considered lost, leaving historians to wonder if the Sultan of Swat's acting skills improved any in the intervening years.