The Bad News Bears (1976) Paramount/Comedy RT: 102 minutes Rated PG (language, racial epithets, alcohol consumption, smoking- all involving preteens) Director: Michael Ritchie Screenplay: Bill Lancaster Music: Jerry Fielding Cinematography: John A. Alonzo Release date: April 7, 1976 (US) Cast: Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Vic Morrow, Joyce Van Patten, Ben Piazza, Jackie Earle Haley Jr., Alfred Lutter III, Chris Barnes, Erin Blunt, Gary Lee Cavagnaro, Jaime Escobedo, George Gonzales, Scott Firestone, Brett Marx, David Pollock, Quinn Smith, David Stambaugh, Brandon Cruz. Box Office: $42.3M (US)
Rating: ****
I remember my father taking me to see The Bad News Bears one Sunday afternoon when I was in third grade. He assumed a movie about kids playing Little League baseball would be perfect for 9YO son who never showed the slightest interest in any kind of sports. About two hours later, I emerged from the theater with my enraged father, angry about (and I quote!) “all the G.D. bad language!” That’s what I remembered most about the movie, the cursing. It sounded like they used “every word in the book” to my young ears. They talked exactly like the kids in my neighborhood.
People were understandably shocked by some of the material in The Bad News Bears. Nobody had ever seen or even heard of a movie showing preteen kids swearing, smoking and drinking beer. It showed exactly how kids behaved and related to one another with the fighting and insults. It’s exactly what I saw and heard at school and the neighborhood playground every day. Screenwriter Bill Lancaster (The Thing) and director Michael Ritchie (Wildcats) have a great understanding of this microcosm and provide an unsparing and realistic glimpse into a world to which adults have no access. On a much deeper level, it’s a look at how competition affects American society, particularly impressionable youths who tend to mimic the behavior of the parents and coaches. Aside from that, it’s funny as hell!
Morris Buttermaker (Matthau, The Odd Couple), an alcoholic and former minor-league baseball player, gets hired to coach a Little League team full of misfits. City councilman/attorney Bob Whitewood (Piazza, Mask) filed a lawsuit against the Southern California Little League and forced them to add another team to the roster, a team composed of the kids that were excluded from the other teams due to their lack of skills. He hires/bribes Buttermaker to coach the motley collection of kids, a group that includes his own son Toby (Stambaugh). The team includes an overweight catcher (Cavagnaro), a foul-mouthed shortstop with a Napoleon complex (Barnes), a black kid who idolizes Hank Aaron (Blunt), a near-sighted and uncoordinated pitcher (Pollock), an extremely shy boy (Smith), a super-intelligent bookworm (Lutter) and a couple of Mexican kids who don’t speak a word of English. Since he’s only in it for the money, Buttermaker doesn’t make too much of an effort. He shows up drunk for practice and passes out on the pitcher’s mound at one point. Needless to say, the Bears are unprepared for their first game. The other team scores 26 runs in the first inning before Buttermaker forfeits the game.
The team seriously needs some talented players, so Buttermaker approaches his ex-girlfriend’s daughter Amanda (O’Neal, Little Darlings) to pitch for the Bears. She’s a skilled pitcher, but wants to change her tomboy image so she refuses to join the team. However, Buttermaker convinces her to change her mind by offering to pay for ballet lessons and modeling school. He also manages to recruit the neighborhood “bad kid” Kelly Leak (Haley, Watchmen) who happens to be one of the area’s best athletes. He has a bad reputation- he smokes and gambles, he’s a loan shark and rides around on a Harley-Davidson. The league manager Cleveland (Van Patten, Grown Ups) doesn’t even want him anywhere near the ball field.
Once Amanda and Kelly join the team, the Bears start winning games. It looks like they could even play in the championship game against their arch-rivals, the Yankees. The aggressive and highly competitive Yankees coach, Roy Turner (Morrow, Blue Thunder), encourages his boys to play rough and dirty, something that isn’t lost on the team’s pitcher, his own son Joey (Cruz, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father). Buttermaker gets caught up in the aggressive competitive spirit and doesn’t realize that he’s passing along bad values to his young players.
A friend pointed out that a movie like The Bad News Bears would not get made today. The filmmakers would never get away with scenes that feature 12YOs smoking and drinking beer. Richard Linklater attempted a remake in 2005 that got slapped with a PG-13 and earned a paltry $35.3 million at the box office. It’s lame, btw.
It’s the swearing that really stands out for a lot of viewers, especially bigoted Tanner’s colorful and unrepeatable description of his teammates. He’s the stand-out kid. Matthau turns in an excellent performance as the washed-up ball player/drunken coach who needs to learn a few lessons about the true spirit of the game himself. He’s hardly the ideal coach/role model for a group of preteens. He drives them around while he’s drunk (no seat belts either!). He makes them clean pools for him. He even has one of them fix him a martini. It’s both outrageous and funny.
Both O’Neal and Haley deliver exceptional performances. She’s a commanding presence whenever she’s on-screen and Haley makes a perfect juvenile delinquent. All of the kids turn in great performances. There are some very memorable characters in The Bad News Bears. I would specifically point out Chris Barnes as the foul-mouthed half-pint Tanner and Quinn Smith as extremely shy and socially inept Lupus. The late Morrow makes an excellent nemesis for Buttermaker; he perfectly displays the ugly side of competitive junior sports.
Jerry Fielding, borrowing heavily from the opera Carmen, contributes an unforgettable score. The game scenes are well-orchestrated. Ritchie doesn’t hit a single foul ball in his depiction of an American Little League team and the temperamental parents that offer nothing but criticism and bad advice, Whitewood in particular.
The Bad News Bears is an excellent movie. It’s both funny and exciting. It’s one of my favorite sports-themed movies of all time, mainly because it approaches its subject matter in such an irreverent way that it comes as a nice surprise when you realize it condones good values concerning sportsmanship and fair play. In other words, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Perhaps it should be mandatory viewing for today’s professional athletes, both young and old.
