Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Tad Pole " . . . to carry my coffin," sings the back-up catcher of the pin-striped "New York Mammoths" MLB club as battery man "Bruce Pearson" (Robert De Niro), an eerie precursor of real-life N.Y. Yankees captain Thurman Munson, refuses to acknowledge the Grim Reaper swinging his scythe all around everywhere he goes. Munson went down in flames a day after driving in all the runs in a Yankees victory. (He had agreed to become the first Yankee captain since Lou Gehrig, not seeing any curse of pinstriped doom there.) Widely considered the saddest sports flick of all time, BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY ends on a bittersweet note. After getting the pennant-clinching hit, Bruce must waste away down in his native Georgia while his teammates sweep to victory in the playoffs and World Series. Bruce's career year ends with only ONE Mammoth attending his funeral. (As everyone but Pete Rose knows, there's been no gambling in baseball since 1919; they might have had "16 gamblers" on "The Streets of Laredo," but even the infamous Chicago Black Sox could manage just eight in 1919--and that's only IF you believe the verdict of "Hanging Judge" Landis.) Shoeless Joe would have been around to help shoulder Bruce had he been a Mammoth, but MLB had pretty much outlawed real men before BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY came out. Thanks to this movie, EVERY Yankee attended Munson's funeral.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Very probably the best of the slew of a loved one dying of an unnamed and incurable disease movie of the early 1970's Bang the Drum Slowly predated the grand daddy of all those five handkerchief tearjerker-"Love Story"-by some 15 years. The 1973 movie was originally shown on TV's United States Steel Hour in September 1956 staring Paul Newman and Albert Saimi in the leading roles of Henry Wiggen & Bruce Pearson.It's when New York Mammoth star pitching ace Henry Wiggins, Michael Moriarty, held out sighing his yearly club contract during spring training that it was suspected that he wanted something far more then the money, 70,000 smackers, that his team offered him. Soon it became obvious that his relationship with his roommate and catcher Bruce Pearson, Robert De Niro, was behind Wiggens holding out! That, Wigens relationship with Pearson, was far more important then what he can get in cash from the Mammoth's owners. Wiggens insisted that if Pearson, who was having a rotten spring training, is ever traded to another team he's to be traded along with him!You could just imagine all the rumors and snickering Wiggens' demands conjured up among his fellow Mammoth teammates and the teams manager, the I've seen it all but in this case I'll have to pass, Dutch Schnell, Vincent Gardenia. What exactly is going on between these two guys anyway! Was it that mysterious hunting and fishing trip last winter to the wilds of Minnesota that somehow caused them, in being alone in the states dark and forbidden forests, to somehow change their outlook on life. Did that romp in the woods cause then to get off the straight and narrow road and become unnaturally friendly with each other?It's later in the baseball season with poor Bruce Pearson, playing the best baseball of his entire career, being on the verge of collapsing from sheer exhaustion that Wiggens finally reveals to Mommoth teammate Goose Williams, Tom Signorelli, the shocking truth behind his odd friendship with his ailing battery mate. It was that winter when a concerned Wiggens had his friend Pearson secretly checked into the Mayo Clinic, in Minnesota, that he found out that he was in fact dying from an incurable disease: Hodgkins lymphoma! All Pearson now wanted was to not only finish out the season as the club's first string catcher but be a part in helping the team win the league's pennant as well as the World Series.With the cat now out of the bag in what Pearson is going through, in him having a few months left to live, the Mommoth players stop their bickering with each other as well as picking on and needling the good natured and friendly Bruce Pearson and instead get down to business. It's then that he Mommoth players join together as a team and, with Pearson providing the glue, stick together and go all the way to the top of the baseball world as its World Champions.***SPOILERS*** In the end Pearson didn't live out the year dying just before Christmas but at least being part of the Championship New York Mammoth team. This had Pearson go out of this world as a winner not only in baseball but even over the dreaded and fatal disease that eventually took his life Hodgkins lymphoma. It was fitting that only Pearson's good friend and teammate Henry Wiggins was the only members of the Mammoth team to attend his funeral. Since it was Wiggens who was by Pearson's side right from the start until the end as he was dying from his incurable disease. And it was Wiggens more then anyone one else, with the exception of Persons family members, who should have been with him when he was laid to his final resting place.P.S it was nice to see that some of "Bang the Drum Slowly" scenes were filmed at the old old, before it was closed down and completely refurbished in 1974, New York's Yaknee Stadium known as "The House that Ruth Built". Unlike in the new and now even newer, opened last years, Yankee Stadium it was in that historic and majestic ballpark that the great Babe Ruth himself played most of his major league games and gave the fans who watched him play their greatest baseball memories.

fred-houpt Finally watched this film. First of all the story is a good one though the manner in which it is fleshed out is a bit too limp for my tastes. There are opportunities for more sparks and tension but they are avoided. Of course de Niro is at the beginning of a tremendous career and we get the glimpses of his genius. His portrayal of a dim witted country bumpkin is quite enjoyable and believable. His predilection for gobs and blobs of sticky chewing tobacco just make you cringe but the gag is used to color his character. I enjoyed the way in which their top pitcher, played by Michael Moriarity, takes pity on his dying buddy and does whatever he can to protect him from being isolated. While no one can explain de Niro's characters sudden self confidence and above average abilities, the audience knows that it is because he has been encouraged to feel better about himself and that is the gift of his protective pitcher friend. The socializing scenes of the players sitting down to play a knucklehead game of cards (with ad hoc rules) is funny but it wears thin after watching a few times. The coach reminds me of Zero Mostel but on a much reduced scale. Shame they didn't get Mostel to do the role as he would have added the extra manic energy that would have made his character truly hilarious.There was much more this film could have done but the entire movie seems to me shot in too soft shades with none of the serious tensions that surely erupt between hard driven major league players. Moriarity's character is just too sweet for the role and after a while I lost the ability to believe in him and frankly was put off by all the smiles and good boy looks. Give me a break. This is a film that needs to be remade with a much harder tone and edge to it. I can imagine Sean Penn playing the dying catcher. I can imagine someone like Damien Lewis as the pitcher, Ron Livingston as first base (both did so well in Band of Brothers). As a matter of fact, so many of those guys on that film would be excellent in a remake. Oh well, such are my dreams. Not a bad film but not a great one by any standards. I think that "A league of their own" is by far a much better film on any level. "Fields of dreams" is another and there are many finer baseball films out there.

bc-in-va DeNiro (as Bruce Pearson) and Moriarity (as Henry "Author" Wiggen) really shine in their roles and have great chemistry in this story about a journeyman catches stricken with Hodgkin's disease, and his friendship with his star pitcher teammate. I don't understand why this doesn't get more mention when people talk about great baseball movies. Maybe it's because while baseball dominates the scenes, it's not really a baseball movie.A few scenes really stand out to me in this movie as moving and really well done.1) Near the opening, Bruce burns all of his old press clippings at home after getting the diagnosis. It's as if since his future looks limited, his past no longer has meaning to him.2) Bruce's father, a simple man like his son, visits and has a talk with Wiggen. Mr. Pearson's struggle to accept his son's fate and then coming out with the words to express himself, coupled with Wiggen's emotions during and after the talk is a marvelous scene.3) The pennant clinching game. IThe ump sees Bruce struggling and uses the excuse of brushing off the plate to talk to him. "Don't slow down the game. You all right? You don't look all right." Wiggen is at his best, pouring in strike after strike as the pace picks up, and then it abruptly goes to slow motion with a pop up in front of the plate. The whole game sequence is very well done.The music really set the tone for the movie too, but if you don't like "Streets of Laredo" you won't appreciate it.