Ha ha, everybody, play Burl! I mean, play
ball! I’m Burl! And I’m here to review a baseball picture, one of the best of
them for my money! No, it’s not Fear
Strikes Out! Or The Natural! In
fact it’s The Bad News Bears!
Now, this isn’t the remake I’m jabbering on
about! Ha ha, I’ve never even seen that! This is the original with the
foul-mouthed kids; the picture that promised, as its posters said, to show Kids
As They Really Are! Does it? Well, I saw this movie at the age of five or six,
and I remember thinking they were really sophisticated and funny kids! Ha ha,
and they fell down a lot, crashing into each other chasing a pop fly, and the
ball dropping in the midst of their feet as they lie splayed out and prone! And
it all took place to the strains of classical music for some reason! Anyway,
those were the memories of the picture I carried for years, full stop!
When I started to appreciate Michael
Ritchie for his talents beyond Fletch and The Island, I began to see the picture in a different light! This, I realized, was one of a
series of Ritchie films criticizing specifically American culture and
competition, circling around Little League baseball the way Smile revolves around beauty pageants! Hal Ashby was sort of doing the same thing around this time, and
so I’ve always grouped the two directors together in my mind!
Walter Matthau, well known from Bigger Than Life and the Grumpy Old Men pictures, is Buttermaker, the coach of the Bears, a pool cleaner and ex-ballplayer, and a dipsomaniac of the highest order! Perhaps only Albert Finney in Under the Volcano outpaces him drink for drink, ha ha! The kids in his charge, played by the likes of Alfred Lutter (from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) and Gary Lee Cavagnaro (from Drive-In), and eventually Tatum O’Neal from Little Darlings and Jackie Earle Haley from Damnation Alley, seem to have no illusions about Buttermaker, but we are confident that he will finally rise to the occasion! And he does, by not rising but more sort of just slumping down! And he doesn’t give any big speech about it either!
Walter Matthau, well known from Bigger Than Life and the Grumpy Old Men pictures, is Buttermaker, the coach of the Bears, a pool cleaner and ex-ballplayer, and a dipsomaniac of the highest order! Perhaps only Albert Finney in Under the Volcano outpaces him drink for drink, ha ha! The kids in his charge, played by the likes of Alfred Lutter (from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) and Gary Lee Cavagnaro (from Drive-In), and eventually Tatum O’Neal from Little Darlings and Jackie Earle Haley from Damnation Alley, seem to have no illusions about Buttermaker, but we are confident that he will finally rise to the occasion! And he does, by not rising but more sort of just slumping down! And he doesn’t give any big speech about it either!
That’s what I liked most about the script
by Bill Lancaster (Burt’s son, who also wrote The Thing): the speeches are infrequent and all in the right
places, not necessarily the expected places! Things are kept simple, too - no
conspiracies or double-dealings at city hall, and a bad guy who’s one of the
most realistic, and therefore both simple and complicated, in popular film!
Vic Morrow from Curse of the Black Widow, playing the hard-case father who wallops
his own son in front of a crowd, is as good as I’ve ever seen him! Ben Piazza
from Nightwing is the city councilor
who presses Buttermaker into service and pays him on the sly, and Joyce Van
Patten simply plays Cleveland! Matthau too gives an excellent performance, and
none of the kids let the side down either!
The movie is funny and charming and all of
that, and shambling and a bit repetitive too, but the nice Hollywood-natural
atmosphere, the simplicity and specificity of the script (the movie rarely
strays far from the diamond) and the convincing baseball scenes all add up to
goodness! I give The Bad News Bears
three and a half chocolate-covered balls!
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