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The Bad News Bears (16-Apr-1976)
Director: Michael Ritchie Writer: Bill Lancaster Music Adapted and Conducted by: Jerry Fielding Producer: Stanley R. Jaffe Keywords: Sports Comedy, Baseball Former minor league baseball player Morris Buttermaker, now a cigar-smoking alcoholic pool cleaner, accepts the job of coaching a San Fernando Valley little league team notably lacking in all skills baseball. Their first game lost with a humiliating 26-0 score, Buttermaker recruits a girl and a juvenile delinquent and starts taking his job seriously. Very funny film, a surprise success at the box office. Remade by Linklater as Bad News Bears (2005).
CAST | Walter Matthau | ... Coach Morris Buttermaker | | Tatum O'Neal | ... Amanda Whurlizer | | Vic Morrow | ... Roy Turner | | | Co-Starring | | Joyce Van Patten | ... Cleveland | | Ben Piazza | ... Bob Whitewood | | Jackie Earle Haley | ... Kelly Leak | | Alfred W. Lutter | ... Ogilvie | | | The Bears | | Chris Barnes | ... Tanner Boyle | | Erin Blunt | ... Ahmad Abdul Rahim | | Gary Lee Cavagnaro | ... Engelberg | | Jaime Escobedo | ... Jose Agilar | | Scott Firestone | ... Regi Tower | | George Gonzales | ... Miguel Agilar | | Jackie Earle Haley | ... Kelly Leak | | Alfred W. Lutter | ... Ogilvie | | Brett Marx | ... Jimmy Feldman | | David Pollock | ... Rudi Stein | | Quinn Smith | ... Timmy Lupus | | David Stambaugh | ... Toby Whitewood | | | and | | Brandon Cruz | ... Joey Turner | | | Timothy Blake | ... Mrs. Lupus | | Bill Sorrells | ... Mr. Tower | | Shari Summers | ... Mrs. Turner | | Joe Brooks | ... Umpire | | George Wyner | ... White Sox Manager | | David Lazarus | ... Yankee | | Charles Matthau | ... Athletic | | Maurice Marks | ... Announcer |
REVIEWS Review by Tom Timlin (posted on 3-Aug-2008) No one can replace this version of Bad News Bears with a remake, which they tried to do a few years ago with Bill Bob Thorton in Walter Matthau's place as the coach.I have nothing against Mr. thorton, have seen him innother movies he has acted and/or directed produced. But Walter Matthau was a first class actor and could carry a film all by himself long before he was known in his final years as the old codger in the Grumpy Old Men films. Just watch the Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3" made a couple of years before Bad News Bears. Walter's facial expressions at just the right time, his looks of joy and sadness, anger, confusion, sighs, are all there. No way was he really drunk to be able to do that in this film, he was just an excellent actor who cared about his craft.
Tatum O'Neal - she really had something, she knew instinctively how to act as a child actor, and could have been another Jody Foster. Paper Moon, Bead News Bears, and then after that, it all fell apart. Perhaps a tortured soul in a broken family and consequentail personal problems. I am very fond of her in those films, she emotes empathy and reality in the same time. She had a rough edge to her acting which lent itself well to anything. It is too bad they would not give her a chance at some meaningful scripts after that. she was not just a child star, she was an excellent actress.
The film: So much more more real than it's remake, it goes for relationships and not just gags. the cript sticks to character and story development.Every character is important to the story in this film. I think the worst part was the athletic kid on the motorcycle...he had one or two good scenes and then they spoil it withmaking a pass at an adult in a dance class-pretty stupid and contrived. no kid looks at an adult that way...adults are the enemy and the heroes in the eyes of the kid, and the only reason they through it in was for a cheap laugh. it would ha ebeen more real if he would have made a pass a Tatum"s characterand Tatum would have belted him in the mouth. Vic Morrow is also excellent, his best role since Combat TV series and his last good role before his untimely death on the set of "Twilght Zone" in ca.1980.
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