Tag Archives: billiards movies

Mr. Belvedere – “Tornado”

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Mr. BelvedereBob Uecker is affectionately known as “Mr.Baseball,” a moniker given to him by Johnny Carson. The sobriquet fits well, as Uecker not only played professional baseball for six years, but also was a colorful commentator for network broadcasts and has been the play-by-play radio announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers for more than 40 years.

Actually, Uecker’s affinity for sports extends well beyond baseball. He started playing basketball in eighth grade. He appeared in a series of commercials for the Milwaukee Admirals of the American Hockey League. He hosted a historic 1984 tennis match between Kenny Rogers and Bobby Riggs for his show War of the Stars. He even was the ring announcer for the famous WrestleMania III match between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant.

Mr. BelvedereHowever, one sport Uecker has little, if any, connection to is billiards. (Well, that excludes him hosting a 1986 episode of Bob Uecker’s Wacky World of Sports which featured a pool-playing poodle.) So, that made it just a bit disappointing to watch him in the Season 2 episode of Mr. Belvedere entitled “Tornado.”

Mr. Belvedere was an ABC sitcom that ran from 1985 to 1990. Based on the 1947 novel Belvedere, the series featured a posh housekeeper, Lynn Belvedere (Christopher Hewitt), who struggles to adapt to Owens household. Uecker plays the patriarch of the family, sportswriter George Owens.

In the October 1985 “Tornado” episode, a tornado strikes the town of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, where the Owens family resides. Taking the necessary safety measures, the entire family retreats to the basement. But the close quarters only exacerbate the brewing tension between George and Mr. Belvedere. That tension gets channeled toward the pool table, where George challenges Mr. Belvedere to a 100-point game of straight pool.

Mr. BelvedereUnfortunately, no imagination is given to the filming of the pool game. In comparison to other billiards sitcom episodes like The Brady Bunch – “The Hustler” or The Steve Harvey Show – “Pool Shark Git Bit,” the shots in “Tornado” are all incredibly basic and unoriginal. Sprinkled between the shots is some studio audience-friendly, G-rated banter, such as George saying to Mr. Belvedere, “Have a seat Fats, I could be here for a while,” or Mr. Belvedere’s reply when George misses, “Tough stuff, cream puff.”

The Owens’ kids seem to interpret this exchange of taunts as a sign that Mr. Belvedere’s future employment may be in question. But, with one point remaining and with the 8-ball balanced on the edge of the far corner pocket, the tornado strikes the Owen house, forcing the game to end and the men to go into a protective huddle and set aside their differences.

A clip from Mr. Belvedere – “Tornado” episode is available to watch below:

 

Ironside – “Side Pocket”

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Having watched incredible footage of World Wheelchair Pool Champion Fred Dinsmore, I was rather hopeful when I learned there was a billiards episode, “Side Pocket,” from Ironside, the ground-breaking, late-60s television series that starred Raymond Burr as the paraplegic, wheelchair-bound Chief of Detectives Robert Ironside. Perhaps Ironside, normally depicted relying solely on logic and reasoning to solve criminal cases, would showcase some hidden billiards talents as part of his crime-solving efforts.

Ironside - Side PocketUnfortunately, and notwithstanding the misleading picture to the left, the 1968, season 2 episode left Ironside to his usual sedentary crime-solving, albeit his office houses a beautiful table.

Instead, the episode focuses on Tim Patterson, a pool hustler who is ready to turn in his cue stick in exchange for the opportunity to pursue an engineering degree at Carnegie Tech. Tim asks Ironside for a letter of recommendation, but then inexplicably agrees to a high-stakes game against Money Howard (Jack Albertson), a legendary billiards champion.

It turns out Tim’s brother, Bobby, is in serious debt to Vance, a local mobster. Tim beats Money Howard, suspiciously winning $2000, but causing his brother to go further into debt to Vance for mistakenly betting against Tim. It’s at this point that Tim decides to continue hustling, rather than go to college. Such an about-face prompts Ironside and his entire team to investigate.

Ironside - Side PocketIronside soon learns that Vance is now stake-horsing Tim. Says Vance, “I got the kid who beat Money Howard. I got tournaments lined up across the country. I got tie-ins with pool table companies, billiards ball companies, cue stick companies.”

Ironically, Ironside never seems too concerned that Tim may be in grave danger, working for a mobster. Instead, Ironside’s primary concern is that Tim is forsaking his chance to go to college and continuing a career in hustling, a no-good, amoral lifestyle, in which one “lives in hotels, sleeps all day, smells of stale cigar smoke [and] hops from town to town, looking for suckers.”

The storyline doesn’t make a ton of sense. And the pool-playing is rather laughable, given Money Howard is supposed to be “the greatest pool player in the world…correction…the greatest pool hustler in the world.” At least Howard is played very well by veteran stage actor Jack Albertson, who ironically, had also played a pool hustler in the Gunsmoke episode “Cowtown Hustler.” (But even that acting had limited joy, as I couldn’t disassociate Albertson from his subsequent portrayal of that famous octogenarian, Grandpa Joe, from Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.)

In the end, the best part of this episode may have been Quincy Jones’ opening synthesizer theme, which Quentin Tarantino smartly appropriated for Kill Bill. But, then, you didn’t really need a billiards episode to appreciate that.

The Ironside episode “Side Pocket” is available to watch on Hulu Plus.

Who’s the Boss? – “The Two Tonys”

As the historian George Fels referenced in an article for Billiards Digest, some celebrities aren’t just acting…they really can shoot a mean game of pool: James Caan (Cinderella Liberty). Jerry Orbach (Law & Order).   Montgomery Clift (A Place in the Sun). Don Adams (Get Smart – “Dead Spy Scrawls”).   Fred Astaire.   W.C. Fields (Pool Sharks). Jack Klugman (Twilight Zone – “A Game of Pool”).

Who's the Boss - The Two TonysTo that esteemed list, we must add Tony Danza, the star of the Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award-winning sitcom Who’s the Boss? Running from 1984-1992, the series featured Danza as retired and widowed major league baseball player Tony Micelli, who relocates to suburban Connecticut and gets a job as a live-in housekeeper for divorced advertising executive Angela Bower (Judith Light).

As we learn in the 1988 Season 4 Who’s the Boss? episode, “The Two Tonys,” Tony can not only play baseball, but also shoot billiards. The set-up is that Tony takes to Angela to Marty’s Melody Room for a particular dining experience, when he runs into Darlene, an old flame, who has since married another Tony. This second Tony (‘Tony 2’) has lived in the shadow of Tony Micelli ever since. “I’ve been chasing the myth,” says Tony 2.

Attempting to debunk Tony, Tony 2 challenges him to a 100-point game of straight pool. Tony, allegedly an exceptional pool player, acquiesces to Angela’s request that he “throw the game,” an idea verboten in Tony’s competitive world, so that Tony 2’s ego won’t be further damaged.

Who's the Boss - The Two TonysThe match starts off reasonably well, with Tony winning Angela’s appreciation as he intentionally flubs shots. (“What you’re doing is for the greater good,” Angela says to Tony. He replies, “Yeah, they’re going to name a church after me.”) But, as Tony 2 creeps closer to victory, his taunts and braggadocio get more extreme. (“You need to clean this table and the next one. Of course, all that cleaning shouldn’t be too difficult for a housekeeper.”)

Eventually, and staring at a 21-point deficit, Tony can no longer constrain his skill or contain his anger. Chalking up to George Thorogood’s billiards anthem “Bad to the Bone” (which, of course, featured pool god Willie Mosconi in the memorable music video), Tony goes on a streak, pocketing one ball after another, until they are tied at 99 points. Tony is then faced with “an impossible [cut] shot” (in which the object ball is frozen on the middle of the far rail). He misses, giving Tony 2 an easy shot to win the game and walk out with his ego and wife in tow.

But, with Tony 2 gone, it is revealed that Tony actually threw the game (as originally instructed), for the shot was not impossible, as he proves moments later when he makes the exact same shot for Angela’s bemusement. Which brings us back to Tony Danza, who clearly knows enough about billiards, English, and backspin, to make the incredible (and very difficult) shot. Nice cut, Tony.

The full episode is shown here:

 

 

Sharks Web Series

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In last week’s post on the billiards movie Legend of the Dragon, I highlighted the creative casting of snooker sensation Jimmy White as the primary nemesis in the film. Mr. White has almost no lines in the movie, but he lights up each of his scenes because he is prominently featured doing what he does best: shooting snooker. His on-screen time is mesmerizing as a result. It helps that the movie stars veteran Hong Kong comedic actor Stephen Chow and is directed by Danny Lee, who has worked in film with iconic director John Woo.

Sharks Web SeriesIn stark comparison is the Sharks web series, which is set around billiards and shot at Amsterdam Billiards & Bar in New York City. Filmed and released throughout 2012, the series consisted of 21 episodes, each 7-17 minutes in length, and featured an all-star cast of female billiards professionals, including Jennifer Barretta (“Ann”), Borana Andoni (“Kelsey”), and Caroline Pao (“Samantha”). Many other notable players make cameos.

Sharks 1The problem, however, is that billiards is only tangentially relevant to the overall storyline, which is about betrayal, jealousy, deception, and winning, and reads like a poorly-stitched collection of inane dialogue from amateur, hackneyed soap operas.   With talent like Ms. Barretta, Ms. Boroni, and Ms. Pao, the fundamental want is to see them play pool, not watch them try to act their way through lamentable scenes of late-night dinners, exercise workouts, urban strolls, and domestic violence. (Ms. Barretta seems to have unfortunately stumbled into the casting niche of abused pool player, given her similar role in the 2012 billiards film 9-Ball.)

It also doesn’t help that the production value is god-awful. Created, directed and produced by Jim Murnak, the gifted craftsman behind Murnak custom cue cases, Sharks is rife with cheap green-screen production, bad audio dubbing and background noises, amateur editing, ill camera direction choices, unnecessary montages, prop gaffes (i.e., Jennifer Barretta’s character Ann wearing a “Jennifer” necklace in Episode 6) and an over-reliance on music.

Fortunately, most of the episodes include, albeit jarringly and poorly edited, a billiard scene. Those scenes are the hallmark of Sharks.   For example, Episode 6 (shown below) includes Mika “The Iceman” Immonen, a past winner of both the WPA World Nine-Ball and World Ten-Ball Championships, schooling an out-of-towner in nine-ball with a dazzling display of pool prowess. (Humorously, the out-of-towner is played by Carl Yusuf Khan, a well-known pool player.)

Similarly, Episode 3 features the incredibly sexy Yomaylin Feliz hustling a local yokel. She makes some incredible shots, even if they are unfortunately interspersed between some dreadful third-grade banter.

One of my favorite sequences was from Episode 2, watching Jennifer Barretta and Borana Andoni’s compete in nine-ball. I chose to ignore the purpose of the match, which was to see who would ‘win the boyfriend,’ and instead focused on the beautiful safety shots, trick shots, and cuts made expertly by both players. Ms. Andoni also has a wonderful straight pool sequence in Episode 5. And Ms. Barretta is elegant in her execution of the nine ball “L Drill” in Episode 6.

In short, so long as Sharks lets the players shoot billiards, there is beauty to behold. But, whenever that pool is suffocated by the bad dialogue, acting, and production, the series suffers to an unwatchable level.   That’s why the scene with Mr. Immonen is so rich. Like Jimmy White in Legend of the Dragon, it’s just a master with his cue stick, doing only what he does best: shooting pool.

Legend of the Dragon

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Legend of the DragonIf Legend of the Dragon (Long de chuan ren) sounds more like a Bruce Lee movie than a billiards movie, that is very much intentional. The 1991 Hong Kong film, starring comedian Stephen Chow, is in many ways a paean to the martial artist, though it replaces the hand-to-hand combat with a showdown on the snooker table.

For starters, Legend of the Dragon sounds like the natural sequel to two of Bruce Lee’s most famous films, The Way of the Dragon (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973). Stephen Chow (perhaps today better known as the director and star of the hyperkinetic comedies Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer), plays Chow Siu-Lung, who is named after Bruce Lee Siu-Lung. (Stephen Chow is well-known for his cinematic admiration for Bruce Lee, as evidenced in this great clip comparing Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury (1972) with Chow’s First of Fury (1991)).

Chow Siu-Lung lives in the small fishing village of Tai O, on the western side of Lantau island in Hong Kong. Much of the land is owned by his father Hung (Yuen Wah), a master of the local kung fu school and a former stunt double for Bruce Lee. While Hung wishes his son would become a disciple of martial arts, Chow is uninterested in martial arts, neglecting his studies and preferring to live simply and naively, whether that is flying kites, goofing around with his childhood friend Mao (Teresa Mo), or playing snooker.

Legend of the DragonBut, Chow’s child-like existence is disrupted when his cousin, Yan (Leung Ka-Yan) from the mainland, returns a favor to Chow’s father by agreeing to show Chow Hong Kong. The “fish out of water” scenes that follow (similar to Bruce Lee’s scenes in Return of the Dragon) showcase the dewy-eyed and under-socialized Chow mesmerized by everything from the buildings to the traffic to sight of women’s breasts (Hong Kong sex symbol Amy Yip in a cameo appearance).

Yan, who is seriously in debt to the local yakuza, has alternate intentions, however, aside from showing his cousin Chow a good time. When Yan fortuitously realizes that Chow is an amazing snooker player, he hatches a plan to bet on Chow’s games. The yakuza catch wind that Yan is stake-horsing Chow. They promise to wipe clean Yan’s debts if Yan can arrange for Hung to bet the deed to his land on a game between Chow and the yakuza’s “hired” snooker player.

The big reveal is that yakuza’s player is none other than Jimmy “The Whirlwind” White, the real six-time world snooker finalist. (Billiard movie aficionados should not be surprised at the casting of a professional pool player as the main nemesis. See Keith McCready in The Color of Money (1986) or Marcello Lotti in Io, Chiara e lo Scuro (1983) for earlier examples.)

Legend of the DragonJimmy White may look like a fish out of water in this movie, but regardless, it is billiards-nirvana to watch him on the table, and director Danny Lee gives him plenty of opportunity to show off his incredible masse, spin, and shot-making skills. (His cue-ball manipulation is jaw-dropping.) White quickly trounces Chow, who has been traumatized by the knowledge his cousin has been betting on him.

Fortunately, like many great kung fu films, there is a chance for the hero to redeem himself. In this case, it is a rematch against White in the World Snooker Challenge Cup. The snooker match is initially off to the same ill start, with Chow unable to pocket balls. But, in a deft comedic moment, Chow finds himself with the opportunity to make a truly easy, direct, corner pocket shot. Filmed in slow motion, Chow makes the shot, and his confidence returns. The snooker “combat” then becomes a shot-for-shot slugfest between two evenly matched opponents.   Of course, there must be a winner, and with a final shot that combines billiards and karate-like aerodynamics, Chow pockets the final ball, winning the match and the land back for his father.

Legend of the Dragon is available to rent or purchase on DVD.

Get Smart – “Dead Spy Scrawls”

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Remote-controlled cue ball? Shotgun concealed in a cue stick? Decoding machine hidden inside a billiards table? Leonard Nimoy playing an assassin named Stryker?   Quadruple-check. It’s all part of the hilariously outlandish billiards TV episode “Dead Spy Scrawls” from the first season of Get Smart. The full episode is available to watch here.

http://youtu.be/eUX-dnwtDLc

First aired in 1965, Get Smart was created as a lampoon of earlier spy series, such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and, of course, the James Bond franchise.   The comedy featured Don Adams as bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart (aka Agent 86), who works for the US counter-intelligence agency CONTROL. Many episodes pitted Maxwell Smart and CONTROL against their nemesis KAOS, an “international organization of evil.” Such is the storyline for “Dead Spy Scrawls” in which CONTROL learns that KAOS has a machine that is intercepting US government secret communication.

Get Smart - Dead Spy ScrawlsThe location of the “decoding machine” remains a mystery to CONTROL until the Chief deduces from an informant’s dying words, “Shark…pool…mother,” that “One of the best pool players in town is a man known as The Shark. And he runs a place called Mother’s Family Pool Parlor….Well, if The Shark is a KAOS man, it’s just possible that the decoding machine could be hidden in Mother’s Family Pool Parlor!”

To infiltrate Mother’s and leave time for Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) to find the machine, Smart must play the Shark (Jack Lambert) in pool. Though Smart tells the Chief he knows the game “inside and out,” the Chief, taking no chances, hires pool professional Willie Marconi (an obvious spoof on, and tribute to, pool legend Willie Mosconi) to teach him the game. But Smart, in the comedic tradition of earlier pool players such as W.C. Fields (Six of a Kind) and Peter Sellers (A Shot in the Dark), is a butter-finger with the cue stick, ultimately maiming Marconi in both the face and the hand and tearing the baize through a bungled masse shot.

Get Smart - Dead Spy ScrawlsFortunately, CONTROL is able to outfit Smart with a can’t-miss cue ball that is remotely controlled by Agent 99’s lipstick and a cue stick that conceals a single-barrel shotgun. So, armed with the necessary pool gadgets, Smart and Agent 99 head to Mother’s to challenge Shark. There, Smart plays Shark in a game with physics-defying shots.   In a final shot, Smart finds himself with the 8-, 10-, 5, and 1-balls in a row, next to the side pocket. (As we learned earlier, these four balls pocketed simultaneously serve as the combination to unlock the decoding machine, which is hidden inside the belly of the billiards table.) Smart makes the shot (which, in fact, is one of the most famous trick shots in billiards), unlocking the decoding machine, and apprehending the members of KAOS.

“Dead Spy Scrawls” is refreshing in its absurdity. In subsequent years, the remote-controlled billiards ball concept would be repurposed in a less satisfying manner (e.g., Mission: Impossible – “Break”; Quantum Leap – “Pool Hall Blues”). But, in “Dead Spy Scrawls” it works beautifully, perhaps because there is still respect for the game, as evidenced by the cultural reference to Willie Mosconi and the use of several well-made trick shots.

Get Smart - Dead Spy ScrawlsIt’s also worth noting that, unlike Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) or Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Don Adams was an exceptional pool player in his own right. (The episode acknowledges as much when Shark references a famous pool player named “Three Fingers” Yarmy. Yarmy is Don Adams’ real surname.) In fact, Adams appeared as a guest on Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats, played (many years later) in the $20,000 “Sportsworld” Celebrity Billiards Tournament, and of course, merged his billiards ability and comedic genius by starring in the famous 1970 advertisement for Skittle Pool.

One Too Many 8 Balls

I will concede that if I were writing or producing a billiards movie, I might consider throwing “8-Ball” or “eight ball” in the title, such as Up Against the 8-Ball or Behind the Eight Ball or even the whimsical 8 Ball Stud. After all, the eight-ball is laden with symbolism, given its inherent neutrality in the battle of solids and stripes, as well as its association with both good and bad, depending on whether it leads to someone’s victory or defeat on the billiards table.

But, to name the movie just 8-Ball? Where’s the originality in that? This is a crowded market folks, and as difficult to believe as it may be, I uncovered five billiards movies and short films called 8-Ball, as well as a couple of non-billiards movies of the same name. Welcome to a world of confusion.

8-Ball

8 Ball MovieAt the top of my watch list is the forthcoming billiards crime drama 8-Ball, starring and executive produced by David Barroso.   Mr. Barroso promises the movie will borrow elements, narration, and plot elements from Godfather Part II, GoodFellas, The Usual Suspects, and The Silence of the Lambs. According to the movie’s Twitter feed, it’s now expected to hit theaters this fall. Fortunately, this is the only full-length film with the title 8-Ball.

8 Ball

8 Ball MovieLess about billiards as sport, and more about billiards as an allegory for life, is the 2007 short film 8 Ball, directed by Inon Shampanier. As Shampanier shared with me, the larger allegory is that “like balls on a pool table, the lives of strangers collide and change course.  The film poses questions about the accidental nature of these collisions and the sense of ‘order in the chaos.’”

8 Ball

This seven-minute Australian film, shown as part of the 2012 Aurora Short Film Festival, anthropomorphizes the 8-Ball as an enlightened maverick, fleeing the confines of a pool table to explore the outside world. (“There was nothing these suckers could do to stop me.”) While the concept is interesting, the dialogue is terrible, including the encounter with a female tennis ball. A far better movie that brings pool balls to life is Pool Talk, a two-minute 2009 short film.

8 Ball

This four-minute American film, made some time in 2012 or 2013, has no dialogue, no plot, and sadly, no purpose. Directed by George Monard when he was probably 17 or 18, it features a “dangerous” pool player who is unsuccessful in his intimidation of the other players. A match ensues; he loses, so he shoots his opponent. I didn’t get it either.

8 Ball

8 Ball MovieUsing billiards as a backdrop, this four-minute American film, made a few years ago, was directed by Garrett Gutierrez, while a graduate student at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. It basically features two friends arguing about religion. The project was intentionally constrained to 3 pages, 2 characters, and 1 location.

OK, at this point, cinematic confusion should be setting in. But, now is when it gets really weird…

8-Ball

8 Ball MovieIn 2012, the short film 8-Ball was released in Argentina. Having nothing to do with billiards, the movie is about a man having a personal crisis who seeks solitude in a park, when a passing stranger named 8-Ball takes an unwelcome interest in him. The movie won a host of awards throughout the UK. Apparently, no one thought to question the inanity of the title.

8-Ball

8 Ball MovieFinally, there is the 2013 full-length Finnish crime film 8-Ball. It is about a single mother who, having just been released from prison, is trying to start her life anew. The return of her former boyfriend stirs up a past she preferred to leave behind. I don’t know why it’s called 8-Ball, but I’ll cut the director Aku Louhimies a little slack, since its original title is 8-Pallo.

 

So, the next time you’re thinking about making a film about billiards (or not about billiards for that matter), heed this advice:  There’s still an opportunity to cash in on the 5-Ball or 13-Ball. Just stay away from (un)lucky number 8.

I Dream of Jeannie – “Help, Help, a Shark”

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My colleague Matthew Sherman, an avid proponent of, and author on, billiards, began his article, “The Most Important Stroke in Pocket Billiards,” by discussing an old tale about a pool genie. In the story, the pool genie offers the lamp-rubber any wish to improve her game. The woman rubbing the lamp responds, “There’s one pool shot that if I made it every time would make me the greatest woman player on Earth!” Perplexed, the genie asks which shot would achieve that. “The next shot!” responds the player proudly.

Help Help a SharkUnfortunately, such simple wisdom is completely lacking in the one billiards television entry that actually features a pool genie. That would be “Help, Help, a Shark” from the fifth and final season of the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. Produced in 1970, “Help, Help, a Shark” continues the romance between astronaut Major Tony Nelson (Larry Hagman) and Jeannie (Barbara Eden), the genie desperate to please her master.

“Help, Help, a Shark” begins with a the final shots of a 500-point straight pool match between General Schaeffer and General Fitzhugh (Jim Backus, better known as Gilligan Island castaway Thurston Howell III). Rivals for years, General Schaeffer is about to win and reclaim the trophy, when Major Nelson screams (in reaction to pocket-size Jeannie busting out of his jacket), causing General Schaeffer to miss the shot, lose the trophy…and rip the felt of the table.

Help Help a SharkTo make it up to the General, Major Nelson is able to set-up a 200-point rematch. Unfortunately, in his giddiness, he slams a door on the General Schaeffer’s hand, making the general unable to play and requiring Major Nelson to step in and avenge the General in the rematch. The only catch…Major Nelson can’t play pool. What’s a spaceman to do?

Well, as we know from other billiards television shows that have since recycled this same theme, the only way to turn a bumbling billiards player into a pool professional is through science or the supernatural (i.e., Quantum Leap – “Pool Hall Blues”; Mission: Impossible! – “Break”; Pretender – “Pool”).   In “Help, Help, a Shark,” which predates all these other episodes, the secret-power to turn Major Nelson into a hustler is his very own genie from a bottle. Jeannie, simply by seeing the pool table and blinking (cue the boing sound effect), can turn the most heinously-played shots into combinations that sink five, six, seven balls simultaneously.

Help Help a SharkTherein lays the absurdity of this episode, for it’s not that Jeannie makes Major Nelson a better player. It’s that she manipulates the movement of the cue ball, so that it makes impossible trajectories and defies physics by caroming into multiple balls. Yet, none of these players (who regularly play 500-point straight pool games) question the improbability of the game. And given the game is straight pool, there is no possible reason why Jeannie can’t just help Major Nelson make “the next shot,” rather than these inane multi-ball shots.

I know, I know…it’s just a TV show…don’t take it so seriously. But, if a sitcom is going to devote a storyline to pool (and most of the screen time in “Help, Help, a Shark” is, in fact, focused on pool), then at least tell a reasonable story or show some exceptional pool-playing. (For example, “Pool Shark Git Bit” from The Steve Harvey Show is pretty lame television, but at least it has some sweet pool sequences.) This lamentable episode gets it all wrong, with one exception – the title. As the name suggests, this episode really needed some “Help, Help.”

Mr. Ed – “Ed the Pool Player”

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My initial problem wasn’t that the horse talked.   That was always the premise of Mr. Ed, the 1960s CBS television series that featured Mr. Ed, a talking horse, and his amiable, goofy owner Wilbur Post (Alan Young), the only person with whom Mr. Ed conversed.

Ed the Pool PlayerNo, my initial problem was the horse played pool, as he does in the 1964 fifth-season episode of Mr. Ed called “Ed the Pool Player.” Talk about preposterous. As I’ve ranted in previous blog posts, billiards is not about simply knowing the angles. It can take years to master one’s stance, grip and bridge, all essential elements of the game. Even for an equine as intelligent and apparently well-schooled as Mr. Ed, it’s absurd – and physically impossible – that a horse could shoot billiards, simply by holding a cue stick in its mouth.

Who am I kidding? This is Hollywood, which has brought to the silver screen far more outlandish feats of animal athleticism than a pool-playing palomino. There have been basketball-playing dogs (Air Bud, 1997), football-playing mules (Gus, 1976), baseball-playing chimpanzees (Ed, 1996), horse-racing zebras (Racing Stripes, 2005), and even boxing kangaroos (Matilda, 1978).

That’s the fictional stuff. But, reality can be stranger than fiction. YouTube is littered with videos of animals excelling at sports, such as bears playing hockey, chimps ice-skating and squirrels water-skiing. Billiards is no exception. In 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported on a real dog named Halo that “not only sinks billiard balls into the pockets, but does so with a technical expertise we never would have thought possible.”

Watching the video of Halo the dog sinking some shots (sans cue stick, of course) pushed me beyond my initial resistance to “Ed the Pool Player” and freed me to evaluate the episode on the merit of its writing and acting. The full episode is available to watch here.

The basic storyline is that Alan’s neighbor Gordon (Leon Ames) needs to get out of the house, so his wife can cook without interruption. Alan suggests they play some billiards at the local men’s club. There, Gordon befriends Mr. Vernon, who turns out to be the pool shark Chicago Cubby (Thomas Gomez, the accomplished actor and Oscar-nominated thespian for his supporting role in Ride the Pink Horse). After a couple of convivial days shooting pool, Chicago Cubby ultimately hustles Gordon out of $430 (about $3200 in today’s dollars).

Ed the Pool PlayerThe ever-ignorant Gordon feels he just had a run of bad luck and proposes trying to win it back from his “friend,” but the ever-wise equine knows Gordon has been hustled and comes up with a different plan. Mr. Ed suggests they invite Mr. Vernon back to Alan’s place to play pool against an unnamed opponent. Mr. Vernon accepts the challenge and returns with Alan, at which time he finds out his opponent will be Mr. Ed. Feeling exceedingly confident that he can beat the horse, Mr. Vernon wagers the full $430. But, Mr. Ed, who earlier in the episode revealed he was an expert croquet player, “picks up” a cue stick and proceeds to demonstrate he is equally competent in billiards, running the tables on Mr. Vernon.

The match culminates with Mr. Ed making the over-used, never-fail, audience-pleasing six-balls-in-six-pockets trick shot. It’s kind of a shame. Up until that point, I was finally starting to believe a horse could play pool. But, the six-ball-six-pocket formation occurring naturally in billiards? Now that truly is preposterous.

Second Chance (in production)

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Editor’s Note:  Since my original posting, this movie has been released on DVD.  For a complete review of Second Chance, please visit my blog post here.

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More than two million Taiwanese, nearly 10% of the population, play billiards. Pool is now the second-most-popular sport in Taiwan next to baseball. Today, in the World Pool-Billiard Association rankings, four of the top 10 women, and one of the top 10 men, are Taiwanese. This all begs a fundamental question: When will we see a full-length billiards movie from Taiwan? [See Note 1]

Second ChanceIt turns out such a movie exists, although the details about the film are still rather fuzzy. Produced by Double Edge Entertainment, [UPDATE: the movie is called Second Chance.] This title replaces the earlier reported title, Nine Ball, by the publication Taiwan Cinema 2014, as well as the former working title, A Girl Got Her Cue, which appeared on the Double Edge Entertainment website. The 100-minute film is directed by Wen-Yen Kung.

The movie may still be in production, as the Double Edge website suggests, or may have been completed this year, as the Taiwan Cinema guide suggests. IMDB unfortunately is no help. It has no mention of Nine Ball or A Girl Got Her Cue. [UPDATE:  under the name Second Chance, the movie is now expected to premiere in Taiwan theaters on November 7, 2014.]

Fortunately, there does seem to be some consensus around the plot of the movie. The story focuses on Shine, a beautiful girl, who recently lost her parents in a car accident. Faced with the likelihood that she will be sent to a foster home, Shine is adopted by her uncle, Feng, a former billiards player who she does not know and who has a taste for gambling, drinking, and smoking. Billiards becomes the unlikely, yet critical, connection point for Shine and Feng, who ultimately forge a family bond through pool-playing.

Second ChanceThese scant details are all I’ve been able to uncover about the film, so readers, please share anything you hear about the movie. Given Double Edge Entertainment is a recognized distributor of films (e.g., Killing Them Softly; The Grey; Killer Elite) in Taiwan, I’m hopeful this film will become available for viewing soon. [Update:  the accompanying “9-Ball” music video shows some footage from the film.]

[Note 1: Nine Ball may be the first full-length billiards movie from Taiwan, but it is not Taiwan’s first show about billiards. That award goes to Taiwanese billiards television series Nine-Ball from 2005. Confused yet?]