Category Archives: Billiards Short Films

The Billiards Short Films category is about films less than an hour in length that prominently feature billiards or that have plots focused on billiards.

Death Billiards: Anime and Pool

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The newest entry to the pool movie genre is not Anthony Palma’s 9-Ball from 2012 (the subject of a future post), but rather the March 2013 anime work Death Billiards, directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa and produced by anime juggernaut Madhouse Studios.

Death Billiards - billiards short filmThis 26-minute psycho-fantastic film is one of 4 anime works that each received 38 million yen (about $480,000 USD) from the “2012 Young Animator Training Project,” an animation labor group, funded by the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, that distributes the bulk of its funds to studios which provide on-the-job training to young animators.

The rather hallucinogenic plot involves a young man and an old man, who are brought to a cavernous, stained glass bar to compete in a game of billiards and to “play as if their lives depended on it.”   Aside from the two men, there is a somewhat scantily clad hostess and a mysterious, laconic bartender who explains the rules of the game. With no idea of how they got to the bar, the younger man proceeds to wig out and the older man stoically accept the stakes.  They compete in a game of 8-ball with balls that are adorned with images of the players’ organs.  As the two men play, it becomes apparent that the older man is the far better player, as he demonstrates with two trick shots and a jump shot.  Ultimately, a fight ensues, a players is presumed dead, no rules are broken, and a bunch of viewers are left scratching their head about what just ensued.

http://youtu.be/nof4Z7xpAWY

Judging from online forums, this cryptic ending is not unintentional.  Through the melee, we learn about the players’ backgrounds and that both men have led imperfect lives.  And while each player’s outcome is open for debate, the final scene suggests that other individuals will be subsequently summoned to this billiards purgatory to have their fates determined.

To my knowledge, Death Billiards is the only anime member of the pool movie genre. Fortunately, it’s a great inaugural member, as the animation and art is beautifully done, with rich background detail, a gorgeously dark palette of colors, vivid facial expressions, and accurate pool showmanship.

Death Billiards is widely available to watch for free online.  The full movie can be watched above.  Also, for the most thoughtful interpretation of the movie, I suggest reviewing the Panda’s blog – “A Different Point of View,” which impressively deconstructs the movie’s symbolism and equates it with Noh theater.

Death Billiards v2 - billiards short filmOther worthy blog reviews on Death Billiards:

A Century Ago: Billiards Mad, A Game of Pool, and Pool Sharks

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It has been more than a century since the first pool movie was filmed.  While some billiard enthusiasts credit the 1915 short Pool Sharks with originating the pool movie genre, the true trailblazer is Frank Wilson’s Billiards Mad, an English comedic short filmed in 1912 in which a man dreams he plays billiards in unlikely places.  Wilson was a prolific director, making more than 250 shorts between 1910 and 1920. Unfortunately, little appears to be known about Billiards Mad, and, to my knowledge, no copies are in distribution.

A year after Billiards Mad was released, the first American-made pool movie came out.  Wilfred Lucas’ silent comedy, A Game of Pool (also known as The Pool Shark) was released on August 7, 1913, as part of a split reel that also featured his film The Latest in Life Saving.  Here again, unfortunately, little seems to be known about this short, and, to my knowledge, no copies are in distribution.

Perhaps then it is no surprise that the film commonly deemed the “first pool movie” is the 10-minute silent movie Pool Sharks, released September 9, 1915.  This short is the acting and writing debut of William Claude Dunkenfield, better known as W.C. Fields, the legendary comedian, actor, juggler, poker player and billiards player.  Fortunately, this film is widely available online, as well as on DVD as part of the W.C. Fields “6 Short Films” Criterion Collection.

pool sharks

The movie’s premise is simple:  two men are vying for the attention of a woman.  Their squabble moves from the outdoor picnic area to the indoor billiards room, where the men shoot a series of impossible trick shots, before the game turns into billiard-ball throwing mayhem. The film’s antics are classic W.C. Fields, though the pool, a mish-mash of stop-motion animation and prop tables, ironically does not show Fields playing pool, even though his biographers indicate he was an expert player, taught by hustlers and pros he met doing vaudeville.

Pool Sharks was not only an auspicious debut for Fields, but it was the precursor to films that featured far funnier pool scenes with his famous crooked cue stick.  Though neither his Six of a Kind (1934) nor The Big Broadcast of 1938 meet my purist definition of a billiards movie, they both, as shown below, include wonderfully humorous pool scenes with the crooked cue.  Enjoy and laugh out loud.