New York Yankee great Babe Ruth had the starring role in First National Pictures' 1927 baseball movie classic, Babe Comes Home. Swedish legend Anna Q. Nilsson co-stars.

Baseball Hall of Famer George Herman "Babe" Ruth appeared in ten feature movies and short films from 1920 to 1942. One of his best was director Ted Wilde's 1927 lost silent film classic, Babe Comes Home, with Anna Q. Nilsson, Ethel Shannon, Louise Fazenda and Lou Archer.

Based on Gerald Beaumont Story

Babe Comes Home was based on the short story "Said with Soap" by Gerald Beaumont. It first appeared in the April 1925 edition of Red Book.

Producer, Screenplay, Director

Babe Comes Home was produced for First National Pictures by Wid Gunning. Louis Stevens wrote the screenplay with Ted Wilde directing. The movie was produced on Vocafilm, a short-lived process used in the late 1920s.

Babe Comes Home Cast

Heading the cast were Babe Ruth (1895-1948) as Babe Dugan and Anna Q. Nilsson (1888-1974) as Vernie. Other featured players included Louise Fazenda (Laundry Girl), Ethel Shannon (Georgia), Arthur Stone (Laundry Driver), Lou Archer (Peewee), Tom McGuire (Angel Team Manager), Mickey Bennett (Mascot), James Bradbury Sr. (Baseball Player), Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (Big Boy Williams) and James Gordon (Baseball Player).

Babe Comes Home marked one of Anna Q. Nilsson's comback films of 1927. In 1925, the Swedish actress had been thrown by a horse and temporarily paralyzed. An invalid for a year, Nilsson worked with medical specialists in Sweden and Vienna until she was able to walk again.

Filmed at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles

The baseball scenes in Babe Comes Home were filmed at Wrigley Field in south-central Los Angeles. Named in honor of William K. Wrigley, the chewing-gum tycoon, L.A.'s Wrigley Field was the home of the Pacific Coast League Los Angeles Angels from 1925 to 1957.

Babe Comes Home: A Romantic Comedy

Billed as a romantic comedy, Babe Comes Home featured the Sultan of Swat as Babe Dugan, a ballplayer for the Los Angeles Angels. The Babe has a bad habit: he chews tobacco when playing. This makes him extremely unpopular with the Snow White Laundry, whose girls have the task of cleaning the Babe's dirty, juice-stained uniforms.

One laundress named Vernie decides to check out the Babe in action. For her trouble, she is hit in the eye by one of Babe's errant fly balls. The Babe apologizes profusely, with the two hitting it off and going on a date to an amusement park.

Babe and Vernie later become engaged, but trouble ensues when her future husband receives some pre-wedding gifts in the form of tobacco cubes and spittoons. Not wanting to lose Vernie, the Babe swears off tobacco, but soon goes into a batting slump.

With Vernie in attendance, the Babe later overcomes his slump in Ruthian fashion, delivering a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning. Babe then realizes that it was Vernie's love that had helped him to break his slump, and not a plug of chew resting in his mouth.

Release, Box Office Success

Babe Comes Home, a 60-minute, six-reel silent movie, was released to theaters on May 22, 1927.

A box office success, Babe Comes Home reportedly earned its star, Babe Ruth, more money than his entire yearly baseball salary at the time. That was indeed a lot of wampum back then, as the New York Yankees were paying Ruth $70,000 a year in 1927. Babe Ruth himself loved Babe Comes Home, and admitted watching the film at least ten times.

Babe Comes Home Lost Forever

Babe Comes Home is lost forever, with no copies known to exist. Unfortunately, Babe Comes Home shares the same fate as a number of other silent films, many of which were lost to the ages due to neglect, carelessness, intentional destruction (to save on storage/archival costs!) and the very nature of the film itself, an unstable, highly flammable compound called cellulose nitrate.

Babe Comes Home Movie Poster

Although the actual movie is gone forever, Babe Ruth film fans should note that two extremely rare original one sheet movie posters from Babe Comes Home have surfaced to date. One example, preserved on linen for restoration purposes, brought $77,675 in a March 10, 2008, offering at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas.