Semiquincentennial Movie Project #2: The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

 Week #2: Pennsylvania :

 

 

The state of Pennsylvania was the second of the original colonies to be established as a state in the United States. It became a state on December 12, 1787.

Details about Pennsylvania:

State bird: Ruffled grouse

State flower: Mountain laurel

State tree: Hemlock

 The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979):

 

 

It's fitting that the Pennsylvania entry in this project centers around basketball. The basketball movie and Pennsylvania almost go hand in hand. Just look at the list of basketball movies that centered in the state. Celtic Pride, That Championship Season, Full Court Miracle, The Mighty Macs. One of the films that sailed under the radar was a comedy about the fictional Pittsburgh Pythons, a team that apparently couldn't shoot it's way out of a match-up with a team of pre-schoolers.

Pittsburgh is a big sports town, of course. They are represented in the NFL by the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the MBA by the Pittsburgh Pirates and in the NHL by the Pittsburgh Penguins. It seems astounding, to me at any rate, that their is no professional NBA team in Pittsburgh. To be fair there have been a few attempts, but it seems that Pittsburgh is considered a small market city when it comes to basketball. Not to mention the huge competition with the perennial powerhouses in the NFL and the NHL. 

This movie features many basketball stars of the time (late '70's). In film roles playing members of the hapless Pythons were Julius "Dr. J." Erving, Meadowlark Lemon (of the Harlem Globetrotters fame) and Jerry Chambers, but also appearing as themselves on the various courts of the game were a plethora of basketball stars:  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (L.A. Lakers), Bob Lanier (Detroit Pistons), "Cornbread" Maxwell (Boston Celtics) and Kevin Porter (Detroit Pistons).

The Pittsburgh Pythons are the laughingstock of the NBA. Even the worst teams in the league at least garner some fans who brave the jeers of casual fans and band wagoners who only go to the games when the team is winning. The opening scene of the film shows a vast landscape of empty seats. Nobody, and I mean nobody seems to want to go to the games, and that includes a set of wheelchair bound geriatrics who seem to be serving some kind of punishment, because even they complain:  "I don't want to be here. I wanna go home!" 

 

The Pythons have a problem, not only with being able to perform well on the court, but also with being able to interact with each other off the court. One of them, Lucian Tucker (Jerry Chambers), even openly tries to express his disgust with the team on court, demanding that he be traded forthwith vocally, even while in the process avoiding performing his duties on court. And he doesn't get along with his teammates, especially Moses Guthrie (Julius "Dr. J." Erving), whom he basically calls out as a over paid hindrance.

 

The coach for the time, Jock Delaney (Flip Wilson) is more than a little miffed with his team. You get the idea that he would do anything, if he could just get these malcontents to pull together as a team, but he just doesn't have the General mentality to get things back on track.

The only one who seems to have any faith in the team is a young kid, the ball boy, Tyrone (James Bond III). He tries to give Guthrie some encouragement, saying that Guthrie is just in a slump and he knows that Guthrie can turn it around. Guthrie tells Tyrone that he is a Pisces and he just needs to check his horoscope, which starts the wheels turning in Tyrone's mind.

 

He thinks astrology is the key to turning the Pythons around. So he goes to a local astrologer, Mona Mondieu (Stockard Channing) to get her advice. He tries to convince her to be the team astrologer. In so doing, he tells that the team are ALL Pisces. Of course, they aren't really ALL Pisces... at least, not yet. But fate has thrown it's hand into the fire because most of the team just walks. This sets up a need to get a team together, but fast.

 

They hold open tryouts for any and all basketball star wannabes. Which gets, among others, a local D.J., Jackhammer Washington ( Jesse Lawrence Ferguson) and a local preacher, Reverend Grady Jackson (Meadowlark Lemon) to come to the open tryouts. But there is one stipulation... all of the potential players HAVE to be born under the zodiac sign of Pisces.

 

The owner of the Pythons is a scatterbrain rich guy, H. S. Tilson (Jonathan Winters) is all gung ho about the idea, but his older brother Harvey (also played by Winters) is convinced his little brother is a nitwit.

 

But H. S. intends to follow through with this decidedly off kilter idea. Including the aforementioned Jackhammer and the Reverend, several other players are destined to try to make this idea work, including Setshot Bufford (Jack Kehoe), Driftwood Haney (Peter Isacksen), and Bullet Haines (Malek Abdul Mansour). Most of these guys wouldn't even get a second look by the scouts, but they have one advantage... they are all Pisces.

 

This astrological mumbo-jumbo must have something on the ball, because this group of malcontents go on a tear, moving from last place lunkheads to contenders.  They take on some power houses in the league and mop the floor with them. Of course, this being about a fictional team from Pittsburgh, the rest of the teams are only known by their cities: Boston, Detroit, New York, and of course Los Angeles. But if you are quick eyed (and are familiar with the players of the late 70's) you can't help not missing some big names.

The highlight of the movie has to be the end. The Pisces are playing a game 7 in the NBA finals against Los Angeles, whose team includes the big guy himself, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But a monkey wrench has been thrown into the mix as Harvey, owner H.S.'s unscrupulous brother, kidnaps Mona. In the end the Pisces end up having to rely on themselves, rather than their astrological mentor.  

 

With a budget of $4 million, the movie made a pretty decent profit, pulling in $8.3 million in ticket sales. It didn't get much fanfare from the critics. (It doesn't even have enough reviews to get a rating on the vaunted Tomato meter, although IMDb user ratings put it at just shy of 5 stars). Is this a great movie? My opinion is it's not entirely bad, although it seems quite predictable. Often during the film certain situations are telegraphed long in advance. For instance, you just had to KNOW that the combative Lucien Tucker, the one who kept demanding to be traded at the beginning of the film, would end up being on the team that the Pisces faced in the finals. Sure, that's a standard trope in sports movies, so it's not like you wouldn't have expected it in the first place.   

In the end, I really can't tell whether this movie is disparaging the idea of belief in astrology or if it is trying to advocate it's power. Just so you know, I don't really believe in all that mumbo-jumbo of the stars having some kind of pseudo magical influence on my life, But then again, I told a woman who did believe in all that hocus pocus stuff and, without having told her beforehand my birth date, she said "You must be a Sagittarius." I was born in early December, and that falls under the Sagittarius zodiac sign, so maybe there is something to this stuff after all...  (Naaaah!)  

That's it for this week.

Quiggy 

Small Towns, Big Dreams

This is my second entry in the Inspirational Heroes Blogathon hosted by Hamlette's Soliloquy and The Midnite Drive-In (yours truly)

Spoiler Alert!  If you have any intention of watching this movie without knowing how it ends beforehand, be forewarned.  There is absolutely no way to discuss it and it's inspirational impact without revealing the ending, since it is based on a true story.  Go watch the movie, then come back and read this review.


Before the actual review, a personal reminiscence:  I grew up in a small town in north Texas, probably roughly the same size as this fictional town presented in the movie.  One of the scenes that stands out for me is the caravan of people from the town heading out to an away game for the Hickory Huskers.  This is (or was) pretty true to life in my hometown.  Often the whole town would roll up the sidewalks and head out to follow the team, especially if we were in the playoffs.  And my high school basketball team won state in 1972 (they were 1-A back then, but now are big enough to be 3-A).  As I will clarify later, most states have rankings that delineate according to enrollment.  In 1972 the population of my hometown was only a little of 700, and the whole school from 1st grade to 12th grade probably had less than 250 kids. 







There is something about the little guy taking down a big guy that leads to real inspiration.  Think of the classic Biblical story of David taking down the giant Goliath. Whenever an undersized and weaker opponent takes on a behemoth, you can't help but stand up and cheer.

Hoosiers is a film based on a true story of just about those same ideas.  Up until 1997, Indiana had a one state wide school championship for athletics.  (By contrast, in Texas there are currently 10 separate divisions, delineated by the enrollment size of each school.)  But in Indiana, for years, it was just one winner-take-all title.  This meant that many teams could advance in the tournament, but usually fell to larger schools later in the rounds.

The story of the rise of the Milan Indians is encapsulated in the movie.  The Milan Indians of 1953/54, a small school, went on to win the state championship in high school basketball that year, although, to be fair, the movie takes a lot of liberties with the true story in the interest of capturing the audience's fascination.  For instance, while the movie captures some of the essence of the newly hired head coach (played by Gene Hackman), the actual coach of the Milan team had been on hand for two seasons prior to the championship season.  And, although the Hickory Huskers succeed in their efforts with a bare minimum of players, the Milan team actually had 12 players on the team.  Still, the essence is there, and you may or may not be disappointed with it's lapses in being true to the facts, but you won't be able to argue that it's not an inspiring movie.

A few interesting tidbits;  One:  you may or may not recognize any of the players who star as the high school team players.  Nearly every one of them were locals in Indiana, due to budget constraints for the picture, and who were hired strictly because they could play basketball.  Not that you would be distracted by their inability to act, because each one did pull of the role fairly well.  (I think one of them actually went on to become a motivational speaker, but I don't think any of them garnered more than a handful of roles in film after this.)

Two:  Gene Hackman confided with Dennis Hopper that he thought this movie would ruin their respective careers.  He couldn't be more wrong.  Hopper was nominated for an Oscar and Hackman became a bigger name himself in Hollywood directly as a result of this movie.

The actor who played star player Jimmy Chitwood (Maris Valainis) was actually cut by his high school team several times, yet in the movie, the scenes where he is shown shooting and making shots were nearly all done in one take.  In other words, the actor was a pretty damn good shooter, despite his travails at being on the team.

Hoosiers (1986):

On a clear morning in the country, Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) makes his way to his new job.  He has been hired to coach basketball for the Hickory Huskers in the small Podunk town of Hickory in Indiana.  Early on we learn that Dale was hired by an old chum, the principal of Hickory, Cletus Summers (Sheb Wooley), who is giving Dale a second chance.  See, the old coach had died unexpectedly over the previous summer, and Hickory was in desperate need of a new coach. Dale had spent the last few years in the Navy and was just returning to coaching after a departure.  (We later learn in the movie that he was banned from coaching in another state years ago for hitting one of his players.)

Dale meets up with Myra Fleener (Barbara Hershey) who expresses disappointment in finding that the new coach is so old.  She tells Dale that she wants him to stay away from Jimmy Chitwood (Maris Valainis), the town's superstar b-baller.  She has great plans for Jimmy to advance to college on an academic  scholarship, one that doesn't hinge on his athletic abilities.  She expresses disdain for athletics, claiming she has seen too many men and boys spend their whole lives in dead-end jobs in dead-end towns, reliving the glories of their athletic days with nothing to show for it.  (Obviously Norman and Myra's relationship as co-workers is off to a rocky start...)  Chitwood for his part had gone into a serious depression and had quit basketball after the death of his coach (and probably father figure, since it is indicated that his parents are dead, too.)

Dale gets off to another rocky start at his first practice.  He reprimands one player for not paying attention, which causes the player to leave the practice in disgust, taking his best friend with him, and leaving Dale with the bare minimum of a squad.

He also manages to alienate many of the town's menfolk who are used to being able to watch the team practice, and especially George (Chelcie Ross) who had been coaching the team after the death of the old coach.  Rollin (Robert Swan) approaches the coach with his recalcitrant son in tow to have Dale reinstate the son on the team, and in the process makes all he menfolk leave dale alone to his coaching duties.

Early on, Dale's coaching scheme is somewhat confusing and seemingly outre to the townsfolk, coupled with the fact that the team loses the first few games in the season.  The town is almost apoplectic, since basketball is almost like a second religion in the state.  (Much like football is here in Texas...)  In the meantime, Myra has discovered Dale's true past (referenced above).  When the town decides to call a referendum to vote on Dale's future as a head coach in the school, she tells Dale of her intent to reveal what she has learned at the meeting.

That night at the meeting however, she declines to be forthright in her intention and instead urges those present to give Dale a chance.  Jimmy Chitwood, who has been observing the coach, comes forward just after the secret ballot has been cast, but while it is still being counted, that he wants to rejoin the team, but only if Dale is going to be the coach.  However, the townsfolk  have already decided to dismiss Dale.  But an immediate re-vote is called after Jimmy's revelation and Dale is, of course, kept on as coach.

With "Shooter" Flack (Dennis Hopper), alcoholic father of one of the boys, and with the addition of Jimmy in the lineup, the town's team goes on a winning streak that could only happen in Hollywood (or in the dreamland of 50's Indiana...).   They continue to win and eventually advance into the playoffs.

In reference to Shooter, he is a hard-bitten alcoholic, and, although he tries hard to stay sober for the good of the team and his new-found usefulness, he doesn't succeed throughout the movie.  In this movie, Dennis Hopper pulls off a very well earned nomination for Best Supporting Actor (which he lost to Michael Caine).  Hopper had a special care for the role as he was in recovery himself.  In fact, the original script had Shooter skipping out of the rehab center where he was sent in order to watch the game in person, but Hopper insisted that that would be wrong for the character.  Despite the writers' (and director's) objection to the change, they filmed it as Hopper thought it should be, with Shooter remaining at the rehab and just listening to the game on the radio.  And that proved to be the better solution after all.

The basketball games scenes are the most adrenaline pumping scenes of the movie.  I've watched this movie a dozen times or more and I was amazed when I learned that only about 6 minutes of film time involve actual scenes on the court.  Yet, especially with the scenes taking place in the finals game, the rousing inspiration which caused  me to add this movie to the blogathon  is really evident.  True to fact, the small town Hickory team does indeed appear small against the giant from South Bend Central.  And true to fact, the final result depends on the final shot coming as a buzzer beater to win the game.

You can't help but be drawn into the characters in this movie, the only downside in my opinion was the director's need to create some sort of May-December relationship between Dale and Myra.  Was it really necessary?  Maybe in terms of drawing a female audience into the picture, but in my opinion the two could have developed a handshaking acquaintance and it would not have detracted from the emotional impact of the two changing from a somewhat hostile relationship to one of a more friendly nature.

More so than any other movie I have seen, this is one that really gives one an incentive to stand up and cheer at the end of the movie.  And there is something that is sorely missing these days.  I understand it was not uncommon back as late as the 50's and maybe even 60's for theater audiences to actually stand and applaud films like this, despite the fact that the actors were not present to receive the accolades.  So ring in the new year with a new faith in the common man to overcome the odds and prevail by watching this one, and perhaps even you too may stand and cheer at the end.


Quiggy