Cinema Saturday: Hoosiers

We started off the month with a Cinema Saturday post with a movie starring Gene Hackman.

So for this last Saturday on February, let's look at another classic starring Gene Hackman. 

And given as we are getting closer to tournament season for college basketball, I think it would be a good time to talk about what many consider the best basketball themed movie of all time, Space Jam. 

No, scratch that!  

The best basketball themed movie of all time, from 1986, Hoosiers. 

The Year: 1951

The place: Hickory, Indiana 

It's a small rural town surrounded by corn fields and populated by good ol' conservative Americans who by God do love their basketball. 

Into this town arrives Norman Dale (Hackman) who is there to be the new civics and history teacher. 

And the new head basketball coach. 

The town immediately takes a dislike to the new coach.

1) He ain't from around here.

2) A man Norman Dale's age does not come to a small town like Hickory unless he's on his way down or with something to hide. What is his deal anyway?

3) What the hell is he doing with the team anyway? He's got the boys doing wind sprints, jumping around chairs like dance partners and passing the ball! Passing? The name of the game is to shoot the ball! PUT THE BALL THROUGH THE HOOP!!

Look, what the team needs is to get back their best player, Jimmy Chitwood.  The previous coach was a surrogate father to Jimmy and the old coach's death hit him hard.  

Dale goes to talk to Chitwood but NOT about the basketball team. He chides the young man for missing class. 

Then Norman Dale is down to 5 players when he kicks two of them off the team for not knowing when to keep their mouths shut. 

And the Hickory Huskers basketball team loses their first two games under Coach Dale and the town is ready to fire him.

Until Jimmy Chitwood announces he's ready to play basketball again (Hoo-ray!) but only if Norman Dale stays as coach. 

What Norman Dale is looking to do here is build a team, not a random collection of individual players.  There's more to basketball than taking shots. It's about playing smarter, employing strategies, relying on each other and being prepared for whatever the other team comes up with. 

Not all of Norman's projects turn out well. His efforts to turn Hickory's town drunk, Wilbur "Shooter" Flatch, into a clean and sober assistant coach work for awhile. Until an unfortunate relapse sends Shooter into the hospital for rehab. 

But the team starts to get what Norman is trying to do. 

They're not just taking shots, they are executing plays and they  become a smarter, better team.

A team that makes it to the state championship game. Against a bigger, better big city high school. 

Is it much of a spoiler to tell you the Hickory Huskers win that game?  Well, maybe but damn it's not without a fight and I've seen Hoosiers multiple times and I am always on the edge of my seat as the Huskers struggle to pull themselves into contention in the final seconds of the game. 

What makes Hoosiers so good?  

For one thing, it's true. OK, I don't mean that it's a documentary (Although it is inspired in part by the Milan High School team who won the 1954 state championship.) But anyone who grew up in a small town with an obsession with high school sports recognizes Hickory, Indiana. In the town where I grew up, the fields were tobacco fields and the sport was high school football but damn, the attitudes and people in Hoosiers ring so true. 

Also Gene Hackman brings the goods once more. Norman Dale can be congenial as needed but is often quiet and reserved.  But when it comes to coaching his team, he shows a strong and intense level of focus. Coach Dale is no bully but he does not hesitate to assert his authority as coach, not just over the young men in his charge but also over the town elders who think they know better about coaching a high school basketball team. It's an uphill battle but over time Norman Dale earns the respect of his team and this town.  Dale is a complex character and Gene Hackman is more than capable of bringing him to life.  

Tomorrow's Cinema Sunday turns to another sport and that game is pool which begins with "P" and rhymes with "T" and that stands for trouble for Paul Newman as we look at the classic film, The Hustler. 

Next week's Weekend Movies are set in small towns where there's trouble a brewin' if those the grown ups would listen to those dang meddlin' kids already.

Cinema Saturday - Ghostbusters: Afterlife 

Cinema Sunday  - The Blob