Follow the Sun

Ben Hogan taught literally thousand of golfers to golf better with his classic book and this biopic is a typical sports biopic - we see the beginning, the winning, the terrible car accident, and the inspiring ending and I for one still enjoy this as one good sports movie.

Yes it is cheesy in places and no the acting isn't brilliant - but it does capture something of that essence of what it takes to be a champion and on that basis alone it's worth catching when it's on.

All in all, it's nowhere as slick as The Greatest Game, but it has heart, plenty of golf, some nice cameos from the real players of the time, and as I say, it's simply a good enjoyable sport biopic.

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.

I gave this movie a 10 rating, not because it was that good of a film (it wasn't), but because to me it brings back memories of my teenage years. I saw this movie when it was released in 1951. I was 15 at the time and interested in nothing but golf. I watched the movie three times. I would have watched it over and over had it not been removed from the local theater. Even at that young age, I was a student of the game. I was intimately familiar with Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, and all the other great names in golf at that time. I had even seen most of them play in person in tournaments. I even fantasized about becoming a golf pro. I played golf whenever I could. Unfortunately, in the 40's and 50's, money was tight. And parents didn't pay a lot of attention to their children's career goals, especially if they involved becoming a sport's figure. My dreams were dashed early. Thank goodness, I can still watch FOLLOW THE SUN and relive my teenage fantasies.

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.