The making of this movie had a whole lot of problems. For one, the NFL wouldn't approve the use of the Giants and Jets trademarks; so the producers had to substitute fictitious names. Also it seems the screenwriters were nervous about the sex and obscenities in book so they tamed it down. Would love to see this movie remade but if all else fails; we have the book.
shareI couldn't agree more with the title of your topic. What ruined it for me more than anything was the ridiculous amount of time they spent on all the self-help BS. I don't recall ANY of that crap in the book. I guess they were trying to be topical for the 70s, but I found those segments of the movie just stupid and dreadfully boring.
I also felt the movie was miscast in many ways. As I recall, BC and the gang were all in their late 20s. So Burt and Kris were definitely too old for the roles, and as much as I love Jill Clayburgh (I fell in love with her a couple years earlier in Silver Streak), she just didn't seem right as Barbara Jane. Robert Preston was fine as Big Ed, but the scene with him and Burt crawling around his office was again, just stupid. Brian Dennehy made a good TJ, and Roger Mosley was fine as Puddin. Of course had the movie been better written, all of the casting would have been a bit easier to accept.
Also, none of the football sequences were well staged or exciting, and that had to be to dreariest depiction of a Super Bowl in ANY movie ever.
In all, a movie I was REALLY looking forward to back in the 70s, that for me at least, turned out to be a huge disappointment.
I'm a huge Dan Jenkins fan. The director just didn't get Jenkins at all. Neither did Reynolds for that matter. The lines just were not delivered as intended. The female lead was waay off. I would have thought Candace Bergen, Dyan Cannon. Cybil Sheppard would have been dead solid perfect. Preston did a good job. Spent way to much celluloid on the self help stuff.
» “Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’…he admonished gravely.” – Elmore Leonard
I'm sorry, but this movie is worse that "lousy". Horrible is more like it. Even Dan Jenkins said that while Jill Clayburgh is a very nice person, there was no way she was a 10. And while I really enjoyed Kris Kristofferson, he was too old for this part, and personally, Burt Reynolds peaked with his role as Quint Asper in "Gunsmoke", but he was the flavor of the month in the late 70s.
"Stalker?"
"Yup, big time"