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The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg is a documentary by Aviva Kempner about baseball great Hank Greenberg. Hank was the first star Jewish athlete. He played most of his career on the Detroit Tigers and with the influence Henry Ford had on that town and Ford being anti Semitic obviously Greenberg had a tough time. Opponent players and fans in the stands would heckle him but he used this to drive him to become a better player. He wasn’t graceful or fast but through hard work he made himself into one of the greats. While he had to put up with more then any player at the time he was also a hero to the Jewish community. Hank wasn’t very religious but he had pride in who he was and where he came from. When he did things refusing to play baseball during the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur he became even more of a symbol for the Jewish people. Hank also delivered on the field winning two MVPs and helped the Tigers win the World Series twice as well. He was able to put up impressive numbers and eventually elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame although his career was cut short due to serving in the war and baseball politics which the film goes into.

The film just covers mainly his playing career by interviewing his teammates, relatives and fans mixed with a lot of footage from Hank’s era. It does a good job on showing how big of a hero he was to the Jewish community, how talented he was as a baseball player and how classy of a person he was. If the idea of watching a documentary about a Jewish baseball great appeals to you you will like this movie. It seems to be out of print on Amazon but you can watch it for free at Snagfilms or if you have Netflix streaming it is currently up there as well.


Links
Hankgreenbergfilm.org

Hell on Wheels (original German title is Höllentour which means Hell Tour) is a documentary where director Pepe Danquart covers the 2003 Tour de France following the Germany’s Team Telekom. Most of the dialog is in German but its not super dialog heavy. There is a lot of shots of the action but between legs of the race the riders are interviewed or just observed. Its amazing what they go through and put up with. A lot of people want to win but just finishing is a pretty big achievement. Lance Armstrong doesn’t get much coverage in the film since the its from the perspective from this German team.




The film does a good job showing how big the tour is in Europe. The commercialism of it and the amount of fans that follow it from the young kids to the old dudes at the bar watching it on TV. In the US it’s harder to get a sense of how important the race is. The film does a good job of getting some nice shots of the race and racers. You really feel apart of it and get an idea how punishing it is for the racers. It also shows how the leaders of the team get the extra care over the normal racers. Like one will pull up beside his teams car and get 6 or more water bottles stuff them in the back of his racing suit where the guy behind by the time he gets there they might be gone. Or the guy in the car communicating with the racers via a thing in the racers ear. The guy in the car will be saying telling him what’s coming up in the race like ok you will have a left turn following by a right and a sharp left. I didn’t realize it was on that level before I saw the film. Also in the film they reference old black & white footage from the past and show some of those things today like players holding onto their team car and biking as they get their injuries treated.

Hell on Wheels gives you some history on the race, some insight from the racers them self and some nice shots of the race. If you are a fan of sports or cycling you will enjoy the film but it doesn’t have a lot of crossover appeal.

Currently you can watch it via Netflix streaming or if you want the DVD you can buy it from Amazon