Tag Archives: billiards movies

The Honeymooners – “The Bensonhurst Bomber”

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The 2012 World Nine-Ball Champion Darren Appleton once said in an interview, “It’s important to try and intimidate your opponent…let him know who’s boss.”  A scan of billiards movies would confirm Appleton’s remark.   Consider the intimidating gaze of “Cue Ball” Carl Bridgers, as he sucks on chicken feet, in Shooting Gallery, or the menacing stare of Third Eye Ryu, the junkie three-cushion billiards player, from Wandering Ginza Butterfly.

But, for a particular bus driver named Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason), intimidation on the billiards table comes in the form of “my friend Harvey.”   That’s the premise of “The Bensonhurst Bomber,” one of the great billiards TV episodes of all time, from the classic sitcom The Honeymooners.   The entire episode can be viewed here.

In this 1956 episode, Kramden and his pal Ed Norton (Art Carney) begin to play pool on what seems to be an unoccupied billiards table.  The opening dialogue includes Norton calling one of the best and most hilarious combinations in billiards TV history:

“I will knock the 8 and the 15 ball into the corner pocket there, but before the 8 ball goes into the corner pocket, it will kiss off the 3 there, causing the 9 ball to drop into this here side pocket.  Before the 9 ball drops into that pocket, it will hit there, caro-o-o-m off the cushion there, come bouncing into these balls here, which will cause a chain reaction, making all of the balls go into the corner pockets, with the exception of the number 4 ball, which will end up there on my upper left in that corner.”

Honeymooners - Bensonhurst BomberThey’re then approached by a mousey, nasal-voiced man, who claims he was already using the table.  The corpulent Kramden, amused and annoyed, brushes off the man.  But, the man insists that unless he gets the table, he will get “[his] friend Harvey.”  This naturally produces ridicule, until the man returns with Harvey, who is a foot taller than Kramden and looks like he regularly spars with wild moose.  Kramden’s apologies get him nowhere, and Norton’s foot-in-mouth commentary leads to Harvey challenging Kramden to a “fight at Kelsey’s gym.”

The remainder of the episode occurs outside of the pool hall.  Kramden initially proposes that he flee town, but Norton reminds him that he’s committed to fighting Harvey.  Eventually, Norton concocts a scheme, which goes both horribly right and oh-so-wrong, to make Harvey think Kramden is, in fact, a dangerous fighter.

Honeymooners - Bensonhurst Bomber“The Bensonhurst Bomber” is great comedic television, but I was particularly mesmerized by the opening pool scene for two reasons.  First, watching the physicality of Art Carney as he lined up to take his shots reminded me so much of the billiards scene from 1934 film Six of a Kind in which W.C. Fields, as Honest John, prepares to play pool.  And, of course, second, watching Jackie Gleason, immaculately dressed and perfectly holding a cue stick in a scene that is a harbinger of his future role as Minnesota Fats in the 1961 billiards classic The Hustler.  It made me want to yell out, “Fat Man, you shoot a great game of pool.”

******

A special thank-you to my friend and relative-in-law Tom Osterman, who as soon as he learned about my blog, said to me, “You’ve watched that great Honeymooners billiards episode, right?”  Now I have, Tom.

The Odd Couple – “The Hustler”

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From the masterful Crimes & Misdemeanors to the mirthless Horrible Bosses, the movie trope of the over-pampered looking to the underworld to commit reprehensible acts on their behalf is a cinematic mainstay.  A variant of this narrative cliché is when highbrow culture survives only through its dependence on lowbrow culture.

Odd Couple - The HustlerSuch is the storyline behind “The Hustler,” (1973), an episode from the third season of the award-winning television series The Odd Couple.   In this billiards TV episode, Felix Unger (Tony Randall) is desperate to generate enough money to buy costumes for his opera group.   As the frou-frou members are unable to raise the funds on their own, Unger turns to his roommate, Oscar Madison (Jack Klugman), who is unencumbered by the same blue-blooded sensibilities, and thus far more capable of raising money through less desirable means, such as gambling and pool hustling.

After the underground casino plan backfires and puts Unger into greater debt, Madison agrees to raise the money through a 250-point match of straight pool with a local shark, Sure-Shot Wilson.  As Madison prepares for the match, the highbrow/lowbrow divide between the two roommates becomes farcically obvious.   Unger, whose “mother wouldn’t let him [go to a pool room],” thinks that “pool is the same as golf – you just put a ball in the hole,” learns that the billiards balls have “little numbers on them” and realizes that the game is “much harder that way” when you can’t put the ball anywhere on the table.

Odd Couple - HustlerThe next day, the two men return to the pool hall for Madison’s math against Sure-Shot, a corpulent, tousled man with a sonorous cough and a penchant for smoking while shooting.  With Madison in danger of losing, Unger engages a reluctant Sure-Shot in a conversation about his cough and the deadly effects of smoking four packs a day.  Sure-Shot becomes so distracted and concerned with his well-being that he opts not to take his next shot while holding his customary cigarette, and ends up missing, ceding the game and the winner’s pot to Madison.  Of course, the irony is not lost that it is Unger who, in effect, saves the game, which in turn, saves the opera club.

As far as the actual pool-playing goes, it’s pretty uninteresting, though Jack Klugman has a strong stance and seems very comfortable with a cue stick in his hand.  Perhaps that’s because twelve years earlier, he starred as Jesse Cardiff, a pool shark, in The Twilight Zone episode “A Game of Pool,” still probably the single best billiards television episode.  (In fact, Klugman was known to be a fan of billiards.  He even played pool with Three’s Company actress Suzanne Somers on the 1977 television special, Celebrity Challenge of the Sexes 2.)

Interestingly, “The Hustler” episode was remade when The Odd Couple was updated on ABC in 1982 as The New Odd Couple.   Desmond Wilson played the role of Oscar Madison.  This is another sign of billiards television continuity, as Wilson formerly played Lamont Sanford on the series Sanford & Son, which had its own billiards episodes, “A House is Not a Poolroom” (1973).

“The Hustler” episode of The Odd Couple is available to stream on Hulu.

 

Chasing Wincardona

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Billy Incardona - Chasing Wincardona

William “9-Ball Billy” Incardona

In Moby Dick, Herman Melville tells the canonical story of Captain Ahab and his maniacal, obsessive pursuit of the great, white sperm whale.  Had Melville been writing today, rather than 150 years ago, he might have told a similar story about an emerging billiards talent Ronnie “Wiseguy” Wiseman and his 25-year pursuit of a re-match with William “9-Ball Billy” Incardona. [1]

The billiards community doesn’t have a Melville, but it does have documentary filmmaker Angel Levine, who interviewed Incardona and Wiseman the day after his quarter-century chase culminated with a game of one-pocket at the 1st (inaugural) Annual Southern Classic Tournament in Tunica, Mississippi.  The interview, along with a few snippets of the match, are presented in Levine’s nine-and-a-half minute 2013 film, Chasing Wincardona, available to watch below in its entirety.

http://youtu.be/eQwAB0kKrNs

Levine describes Incardona as a “former nine-ball champion and ex-hustler [who] through his expert negotiations and handicapping of the games he enters into, has played and beaten the world’s best, both in the tournament arena and in private one-on-one matches after hours since 1970.” Today, he’s also a member of the One-Pocket Hall of Fame, the “voice of Accu-Stats,” and a commentator for ESPN.

As the story goes, future Pro player Wiseman first met Incardona at Bogart’s Billiards on April Fool’s Day, 1987.  Incardona convinced Wiseman he didn’t know how to play nine-ball, and subsequently proceed to hustle him.  Says Wiseman: “I paid a couple thousand for my lessons [on that day].”

Wiseman spent the next 25 years following Incardona around the country, trying to win back his money and regain his honor.  As Incardona says, “Every time I see [Wiseman], he plays the same record…It’s in his craw.” The film doesn’t broach why Incardona didn’t give Wiseman a second chance all those years, or why this particular tournament broke the spell.  But, the two ultimately do play in a $2500 one-pocket game of two-against-one, with “Downtown” Eddie Brown as Wiseman’s partner against Incardona.

Given the 25-year desire to “revenge that loss,” it’s amazing to listen to the jocular spirit between these two.  Moby Dick fans will recall that when Ahab finally encountered his nemesis, he said, “From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”  There’s no such enmity here.  The two laugh, joke, trade barbs, and remind us all that the competitive spirit that governs play on the pool table doesn’t have to remain off the table.

Raising the HustlerThe Chasing Wincardona footage is just a tiny sample of the 600 hours of film that Levine has collected over the past seven years as part of her forthcoming documentary Raising the Hustler.  To anyone who hopes to see that opus on the large screen, I encourage you to support Levine through her current fundraiser, in which she is selling t-shirts to fund the film’s final editing and post-production. You can show your support at the Booster-Raising the Hustler website.

Also, as a final postscript, Chasing Wincardona was co-written and co-narrated by George Fels, who passed away on New Year’s Eve.  Fels was one of the most acclaimed and prolific billiards writers, earning the nickname “Pool’s Poet Laureate.”  Thank you for everything you did for the sport, Mr. Fels.

[1]       Melville may never have formally written about billiards, but there are occasional references to billiards in his writing.  For example, in Moby Dick, he likens preparing porpoise meat to making the meat “into balls the size of billiards balls.” And, when Melville first arrived at Oxford, he described the grass as “smooth as the green baize of a billiards table.”

Bad Boy

Let’s all agree: Hollywood is hot for its Bad Boys.  And I’m not just talking about Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, the stars of Bad Boys (1995) and its sequel Bad Boys II (2003).  Or, Sean Penn, the headliner in Rick Rosenthal’s 1983 movie Bad Boys.  I’m talking about a more general infatuation with the charismatic, misbehaving, Bad Boy archetype.  As Laura Jacobs wrote in a recent Vanity Fair article, “America has always loved its bad boys, but it wasn’t until the movies that we got to revel in them as one nation. Suddenly, in the 1930s, the libertine, gangster, outlaw, scofflaw, public enemy, serial seducer, bank robber, and sexy barn burner had faces.  And what faces!”

Bad Boy - billiards movieTo that list of no-gooders, we must add one more bad boy – the infamous pool hustler.   That is the premise of John Blystone’s 1935 billiards movie Bad Boy, based on the story of the same name by Viña Delmar.  To my knowledge, Bad Boy is the first full-length (56 minutes) billiards movie, though other short films about billiards (e.g., Billiards Mad (1912), A Game of Pool (1913), and W.C. Fields’ well-known Pool Sharks (1915)) preceded it by more than two decades.

In Bad Boy, James Dunn plays Eddie Nolan, a wisecracking pool ace in love with the sweetheart Sally Larkin (Dorothy Wilson).   Eddie’s plans to proclaim his love of Sally to the woman’s parents are foiled when the father recognizes him as the “pool shark” who periodically hustles him.  In a fit of rage, the father makes it clear the romance has no future, saying he “had higher hopes [for his daughter] than to marry a street-corner loafer” and insisting that she stop “chasing a pool hall hoodlum.”  Her mother echoes this sentiment, bemoaning that her daughter is “too fine a girl to get mixed up with a bad boy.”

Hoodlum?  Street-corner loafer?  Bad boy?  Since when did playing pool take become so sinful? So akin to the aforementioned list of criminals and reprobates?

Bad Boy - billiards movieAlas, for Nolan there is no nobility playing in pool in the 1930s (some might argue the same is true today, unfortunately), so the only path to legitimizing his love and making his marriage public is to find a real job – ideally selling pool tables at a local sporting goods store — before a competing suitor, who has a “good job at a bank, car all paid for, two lots in Flushing, and a savings account” makes in-roads on his missus.   He doesn’t get the job initially, but things do seem to work out, albeit very abruptly, in the end.

Bad Boy is quaint and dated, though it still retains a certain gosh-golly Capraesque feel.  But, as a billiards movie, it sets a standard in trick shots that was not surpassed until 1961 with the production of with The Hustler.  Even more impressive, James Dunn makes all his own shots.  Sure, they’re classic trick shot setups, but the opening scene shows Dunn (1) making a backspin draw shot that sinks two opposing balls in the middle pockets; (2) hitting a frozen cue ball corner shot; (3) doing a beautiful masse shot; (4) using his Stetson as a pseudo-bridge for his cue stick; and (5) shooting one-handed through the bend at his elbow.  (All of these are made as part of a straight pool game to 100 in which the winner gets $2.)

Bad Boy is available to buy as a DVD for $15 from Loving the Classics.  Even if you don’t watch the whole movie, it’s worth buying for the opening few scenes that feature the aforementioned sequence of shots.  They’re pure billiards gold.

Malcolm in the Middle – “Water Park”

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Malcolm in the Middle - billiards sitcomMost billiards sitcom episodes are pretty light on substance and pretty glib in their treatment of pool.   (Among the top offenders: Married With Children – “Cheese, Cues, and Blood.”)  “Water Park,” the final episode of the first season of Malcolm in the Middle, is no different.  Aired in May 2000, this episode pits Malcom’s older brother Francis (Christopher Masterson), a cadet at the Marlin Academy, against Commandant Spangler (Daniel von Bargen) in a game of eight-ball. Francis’ predicament is that if he beats the Commandant, his fellow cadets will “torture him with hours of educational programming on PBS,” but if he loses to the Commandant, he will be suspected of throwing the game and his fellow cadets will have all their privileges revoked by the Commandant.  Oh, what a conundrum indeed.

For those not familiar with Malcolm in the Middle, the highly popular, award-winning series aired on Fox from 2000 to 2006, the show primarily revolved around Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), the middle child in a dysfunctional, suburban family, though side stories also focused on his siblings.  Unlike other sitcoms of that time, the series allowed Malcolm to ‘break the fourth wall’ and talk directly to the audience, abandoned the use of a live audience, and used a lot of contemporary music (in place of any laugh tracks) to set mood.

To call the series original a decade later seems almost comical (something this episode was certainly not, but then again, I’m hardly the target demographic).  However, in getting back to the pool, this billiards sitcom episode does have a particularly original, albeit utterly nonsensical, resolution.  Francis and the Commandant opt to compete to see who can lose in eight-ball the most times in the most spectacular fashion.  (You read that correctly.)  Set to Beck’s contagious song “Mixed Bizness” from the same year, Francis and the Commandant battle it out with a series of trick shots (some real, some edited) to scratch on the 8-ball.  Overall, it’s a pretty enjoyable billiards sitcom scene, though it’s deplorable that no credit is given to the billiards technical advisor behind the scenes who is the real masse maestro.

The billiard sitcom episode “Water Park” is available to purchase as part of Season 1, though digital sleuths can find it one some bit torrent sites, as well.

Bar Rescue – “Empty Pockets”

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“This bar will never be profitable if we don’t monetize those pool tables,” bellows Jon Taffer, the star of the reality series Bar Rescue, as he bemoans the disastrous condition of Zanzibar, the Denver billiards bar he has been tasked with saving in the March 2013 episode “Empty Pockets.”  “Real billiards operations monetize their tables in a number of ways.  First, they charge you for every hour then they play.  Then they often put in a drink minimum.  [Zanzibar is] making no effort to monetize these pool tables.”

Empty PocketsLike all episodes of Bar Rescue, the Spike TV hit show that first aired in 2011, “Empty Pockets” adheres to the series’ well-tread, and highly engaging, formula.  A desperate bar owner (in this case, Ami, the proprietor of Zanzibar Billiards) fears his establishment is on the verge of closing.  He calls Bar Rescue, which results in Jon Taffer, a long-time food and beverage industry consultant, descending upon the bar and doing a combination of reconnaissance and surveillance, before introducing himself to the owner to boldly proclaim his findings.  Tempers flair, egos are stomped on, initial training ensues, and then the bar is put through a “stress test” to see how well the bar’s employees handle a busy night.

Empty PocketsIn the case of Zanzibar, the stress test is an unmitigated debacle, exposing multiple failure points, including a dictatorial owner, an overworked kitchen, an illegible system for taking orders, wasteful bartending, and an absence of help on the billiards floor, which has 10 Brunswick Gold Crown pool tables that occupy 50% of the bar’s square footage.  Taffer’s pronouncement:  “This place is a disaster.  And the owner is the biggest disaster of them all.”

But, since this is reality TV, all invective ultimately furthers the end goal.  Ami and Taffer put their outrage (and near physical blows) behind them, and start planning for the future, specifically, the three-day turnaround in which Zanzibar will be transformed, physically, culturally, and thematically (to give greater emphasis to the billiards).

One fundamental set of changes is to the menu.  To create a “lot of fun in the billiard room” and enable the kitchen to deliver food in 10 minutes or less, Taffer and his team create a “sticks (cues) and balls” menu, which includes BBQ glazed meatballs, Polish sausages on a stick, and “rack spuds.”

Another overhaul is behind the bar. Taffer and his team created a list of six special, billiard-themed cocktails.  The potables include The Break (1.5 oz vodka + 1 oz orange juice + 1 oz pineapple juice, topped with club soda), the Hustler (1.3 oz 90-proof vodka + 2 slices jalapeno + 2 slices cucumber + .75 oz lime juice + 1 oz simple syrup), as well as the 8 Ball, the Scratch, the Corner Pocket, and the Trick Shot.

Empty PocketsThe pool area is also reworked.  One of the tables is removed and replaced with a billiard counter so that the pool (formerly free) can be monetized, such as through the sale of the Billiards Special (4 beer well drafts + 2 appetizers + 1 hour of pool = $19.95).  The tables are re-felted and re-leveled (by Thin Air Billiards) and set up with detail lighting on the bottom (by LED Baseline Inc).  A final touch, and the grand reveal, is renaming Zanzibar as Solids & Stripes, a “Badass Billiards Bar,” that celebrates Ami’s love of America with his love of pool.

All these changes result in a glorious opening three days later, a motivated and recharged staff, happy patrons, lots of warm embraces, and a 50% increase in sales, including $1000 from just the billiards area.

Having never been to Zanzibar (either before or after the rescue), I was curious how the changes held up, as one criticism of Bar Rescue is that, in some cases, the results wane once the cameras stop rolling.

The most obvious post-rescue change is that the bar reverted back to its old name Zanzibar.  (Based on a Facebook thread on Zanzibar’s home page, it sounds like this reversal happened around the same time the episode aired.)  The second change, based on viewing the bar’s website and seeing it on Google Earth, is that it reverted back to “FREE POOL EVERYDAY!!”  and, apparently, added three additional Brunswick tables, bringing the total to 12.  The reviews on Yelp are pretty mixed, though most suggest a lot of the customer-facing changes didn’t stick. One “serious billiards and snooker player” recently described the pool hall atmosphere as “having plenty of space, [but] the [tables] by the wall have no space for the cue stick. This place feels like it can and has the potential to be a lot better, better decor, better quality, better atmosphere and slightly cleaner.”  That review was balanced by others that equate free pool with good pool.

If anyone has been to Zanzibar recently, please comment and share your thoughts.  I know I plan to shoot some billiards there the next time I’m in Denver.

The full episode of Bar Rescue – “Empty Pockets” is available to watch free on Spike TV.

“Break!” – Mission: Impossible

Trick shots are de riguer for billiards movies, ranging from the incredible (The Color of Money) to the preposterous (Equals Against Devils).  But, I thought I was one-and-done with techno-gadget guided shots when I watched the lamentable 1990 Quantum Leap episode “Pool Hall Blues,” in which Dr. Beckett becomes an overnight billiards ace through the use of Al’s Handheld, a super-computer that can show the precise angle to hit every shot.  Little did I realize that episode could trace its origins to the 1972 Mission: Impossible episode “Break!”

Mission: Impossible - Break!Like the Tom Cruise blockbusters of the same name, Mission: Impossible followed the exploits of a small team of secret agents (Impossible Missions Force) assigned to thwart dictators, evil organizations, and eventually crime lords.  The series aired on CBS from 1966-1973.  “Break!” was the opening episode of the series’ final seventh season.

In “Break!,” Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) must infiltrate a gambling ring to recover incriminating microfilm hidden in the wristwatch of a dead agent before the microfilm deteriorates.  The plan requires Phelps to pose as a pool hustler, win the attention and confidence of Press Allen (Robert Conrad), the crime syndicate’s number two man, and then convince him to unwittingly turn against his own boss.   The episode takes place in New Orleans, a frequent setting for billiards movies (see The Baltimore Bullet; Shooting Gallery; and the unfinished Ride the 9).

The plot has more holes than Mission: Impossible III, but that’s hardly the point.  The real kicker is how Phelps can overnight develop pool shark prowess.  That’s what tech wiz Barney (Greg Morris) enables in the form of an “inertial guidance system” hidden within a cue ball.   As Barney explains, “[It’s] the same kind that’s used to keep missiles on course. Our missile: one cue ball. The other balls will be radioactively marked so they’ll show up on the control screen.”  Then, from behind the curtain, Barney will help ‘guide’ the balls into the pockets.  As he explains to Phelps, “The computer guidance could only give you a 5% edge.  And deduct 5% from your opponent.  Of course if you weren’t a pretty fair pool shooter yourself, we wouldn’t have a chance.”

So, in other words:  swap out the real cue ball with the machine-guided cue ball, spread some radioactive lacquer on the remaining balls, mount your handy-dandy self-adhesive circuit board beneath the pool table (better not pick the wrong table), and cue Lalo Schifrin’s immortal theme song because, abracadabra, you’re performing 14-1 straight pool magic.

Mission: Impossible - Break!There is a lot of on-screen straight pool played in Break!  But, as any experienced player knows, most those shots are neither the result of Graves’ expert ability nor of any ‘inertial guidance system.’ Rather, they are a series of two- and three-ball frozen carom shots that dazzle on screen, but are actually far harder to miss than to make, once a billiards technical advisor has done the initial off-camera set-up.

Break! is enjoyable largely because it’s absurd.  After all, it’s one thing for Tom Cruise to repel down the side of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s largest building in the world, in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.  But, it’s quite another to achieve off-the-chart Earl Strickland ability levels through a radio-controlled cue ball.  Now that is absurd!

Mission: Impossible – “Break!” is available to rent or buy online as part of the Season 7 collection.

“Pool Sharks Git Bit” – The Steve Harvey Show

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Pool Sharks Get Bit“Pool Sharks Git Bit,” an episode of The Steve Harvey Show that aired in December 1996 during the sitcom’s first season, is for the most part, pretty dreadful billiards TV.  The storyline is that Romeo and Bullethead, two students at Booker T. Washington High School where ex-funk legend Steve Hightower (Steve Harvey) is now the music teacher and vice principal, try to earn some extra cash for Motown field trip by hustling pool.

Bullethead, who is known inside the East Side Billiard Club as the “Goofy White Boy Who Got Game,” believes “it’s not gambling if you can’t lose, and you saw me, I can’t lose.”  And with that predictable set-up, he of course loses, not only the game, but also the school’s field trip money. Fortunately, Steve Hightower, along with his friend Cedric Robinson (Cedric the Entertainer) is able to get back the money by ‘hustling the hustlers.’  Yawn.

Now, obvious story aside, there are three aspects of “Pool Sharks Get Bit” that not only save the episode but also make it somewhat enjoyable, or at least, memorable.

The first is the hustlers who beat Bullethead.  Breaking with stereotype, the hustlers are women, specifically two ladies named Raven and Jody.  Lured by their looks and fooled by their miscues, Bullethead attempts to take all their money, saying “I do not discriminate against race, religion, or fineness,” and ends up losing everything, including his bus pass.  But, I must still celebrate the incorporation of female hustlers, as Raven and Jody join a select pantheon that today includes Kailey (Turn the River), Sara and Karen (Stickmen), Mary Beth Phillips (The Baron and the Kid), Kelly Bundy (“Cheese, Cues and Blood” – Married with Children) and, of course, Jordan ‘J.J.’ Jamison (Virgin Pockets).

The second aspect is the use of the “African pool scam.”  In order for Steve Hightower and Cedric to get the cash back, they must hustle the hustlers.  Thus, they don African clothing, come into the bar sounding like an extra from Coming to America, and pretend to be naïve Rwandan tribesman who are big fans of billiards and the new pool movie Cool Hand Luke. (Snicker, snicker.)   The scene is footnote worthy because I have otherwise yet to find a billiards movie or TV episode from any country in Africa.

The final aspect is the on-screen billiards shooting, which is terribly edited, but otherwise features some pretty amazing trick shots by Steve Hightower (but not really).  Though the full episode is below, make sure to watch the clip from 19:51-20:19.  You’ll see a series of billiards beauties, including a jump shot that pockets two balls cross-corner, a powerful backspin shot that knocks two balls into the opposing side pockets, a great masse shot, and a six-in-one shot.

http://youtu.be/yBuiWEMNKvY

I later learned that this six-in-one is called the “Pool Shark Git Bit” shot, according to Chef Anton, the behind-the-scenes billiards maven who is the real artist making the trick shots in this billiards TV episode.  In fact, Anton, whose distinguished career includes becoming the first two-time United States Trick Shot Champion of Pool, has been a regular technical consultant for television stations, such as NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox.

Well, at least we now know how the episode got its name.

The Color of Money

The Color of MoneyIt’s hard for me to imagine that more than a handful of my blog’s visitors and readers have yet to see the 1986 billiards movie masterpiece The Color of Money.  As this is my 50th blog post, rather than attempt to review this film, I thought I would commemorate it with an appropriately-titled quiz, “50 Questions about The Color of Money.”  Answers appear after the quiz, including some detailed explanations.   Though I anticipate a lot of you will be able to answer many of these questions, I suspect precious few can answer them all, as they range from the easy to the esoteric.   For those who can answer more than 40, you are truly Balabushka-worthy.  Enjoy!

Origins

  1. How many years occurred before The Color of Money was made as a sequel to The Hustler?
  2. Who wrote the book The Color of Money?
  3. In preparation for the movie, who said, “I know nothing about pool.”
  4. Why does Jackie Gleason’s character, Minnesota Fats, not appear in The Color of Money?
  5. Who convinced Martin Scorsese to make The Color of Money?

Actors

The Color of Money

  1. Which three actors have received Oscar nominations since the release of The Color of Money?
  2. Who won a Best Actor Oscar for his acting in The Color of Money?
  3. Who plays Amos, the young man who successfully hustles Eddie?
  4. What actor, who frequently appears in Spike Lee and Coen Brother movies, plays Julian?
  5. What actress from The Color of Money first appeared on-screen as an uncredited extra in another Martin Scorsese film, The King of Comedy?

Quotes

  1. Who provides the opening voiceover in which the game of 9-ball is described?
  2. What does Carmen tell Eddie he’ll be doing if he wins one more game (against Grady Seasons)?
  3. According to Eddie, what are the two things one needs to win?
  4. Who said the memorable quote, “It’s like a nightmare isn’t it?  It just keeps getting worse and worse.  The impossible dream.”?
  5. What are the final two words spoken in the movie?

Critical Reaction

  1. What film critic panned The Color of Money, calling one of its pool sequences “gimmickry that looked like it had been set up for a TV commercial”?The Color of Money
  2. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a white Cadillac among the other mainstream American movies of the season”?
  3. How many Oscar nominations did The Color of Money receive?
  4. What film critic said, “If this film had been directed by someone else, I might have thought differently about it because I might not have expected so much.”?
  5. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a scratch, a contrived cliffhanger that sets us up for Hustler III”?

Music

  1. What famous Warren Zevon classic was used when Vince first plays Moselle and introduces him to “Doom” (the Balabushka in the case)?
  2. What song did Eric Clapton write and sing specifically for The Color of Money?
  3. What punk rocker makes a cameo as one of the many people Vincent hustles on the road?
  4. What famous musician produced the soundtrack to The Color of Money?
  5. What song is the lounge singer singing in the Atlantic City green room?

Pool Professionals

  1. Tom Cruise did all his own trick shots, except the shot in which he jumped two balls. Who made that shot?
  2. What professional pool player plays Vincent’s nemesis, Grady Seasons?
  3. What four pool professionals had speaking roles in The Color of Money?
  4. What two professional pool players served as the principal technical consultants in the movie?
  5. In 1996, what two professional pool players competed in an event called “The Color of Money,” a three-day race-to-120 challenge match of 9-ball?

Pool Playing

  1. What’s the name of the initial hustle that Eddie teaches Vince and Carmen?
  2. What type of pool cue was made to look like the famous Balabushka that Eddie gives to Vincent?
  3. As Eddie starts to regain his confidence, what kind of “trick” 8-ball shot does he successfully make?
  4. In contrasting the game of 9-ball to straight pool, what two games does Eddie mockingly compare 9-ball to?
  5. In which ball does Eddie see his reflection when he decides to forfeit at the Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament?

Locales

  1. What is the name of the real-life pool bar where Eddie first discovers Vincent and hears his “sledgehammer break”?
  2. To what restaurant does Eddie take Carment and Vincent for a meal and a lesson in “human moves”?
  3. What famous Chicago billiards hall is used in the scene where Vince first plays Grady Seasons?
  4. Where was the final Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament actually filmed?
  5. What former billiards hall was used for the scene in which Eddie is hustled by Amos?

Cultural Impact and References

  1. What comedic actor made a parody of The Color of Money called The Hustler of Money in which Vince is now an amazingly talented bowler?Color of Money
  2. What NBC comedy television show featured a spoof of the “Werewolves of London” scene, with both characters stripping out of their clothes?
  3. What first-person video shooter game got its name from a scene in The Color of Money?
  4. According to movie historians Ray Didinger and Glen Macnow, what movie was a cross between The Color of Money and Dumb and Dumber?
  5. In the movie Poolhall Junkies, Mars Callahan’s character, Johnny Doyle, wears a black shirt with white lettering that is intentionally a reference to the shirt Vince wears in The Color of Money.  What does Doyle’s shirt say?

Movie Minutia

  1. What video game does Vincent play and describe as tougher than 9-ball?
  2. At what toy store does Vincent work?
  3. What is the license plate of Eddie’s Cadillac?
  4. What is Vincent’s last name?
  5. How much did The Color of Money gross domestically?

 NOW THE ANSWERS

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The Hustler of Money

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If you haven’t yet watched Ben Stiller’s 1987 trailer, The Hustler of Money, a parody of Martin Scorsese’s 1986 film The Color of Money, stop whatever you’re doing, watch the video below, and spend the next 5 minutes doubled-over in gut-busting laughter.  It’s that good.

Starring Ben Stiller (as Tom Cruise playing “Wince”) and Frasier’s John Mahoney (as Paul Newman playing “Fast” Eddie Felson), the trailer is for a film in which Tom Cruise plays a cocky but immensely talented bowler, who struts around the bowling lanes in a black “WINCE” t-shirt (itself, a mockery of the “VINCE” t-shirt Cruise wears in the film) with his slicked-black hair and perpetual ear-to-ear grimace, as he palms bowling balls and throws strikes with two balls simultaneously.  As Tom Cruise did in the original film, Wince challenges anyone to a game, including a group of octogenarians on walkers, when he is not otherwise slobbering all over his girlfriend.  Eric Clapton’s “It’s in the Way That You Use It,” a song written for and memorably used in the opening scene of the original The Color of Money, plays in the background.

Eddie, after failing to peddle Newman’s Own salad dressing to the bowling hall’s bartender (played by Ben Stiller’s real-life mother Anne Meara) takes an interest in Wince after seeing the “kid nail a 7-10 split.”  He agrees to teach Wince how to hustle in bowling, prompting a very funny spoof of the original dialogue about having the “flake down cold, but can he turn it on and off.”

With Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” playing in the background (the song famously used in The Color of Money’s “Doom” hustling scene), we watch Wince maneuver through a series of struts, dribbles, juggles, and throws, as he hustles local bowling patrons, including a young boy, mothered by Julie Hagerty (from Airplane).  Meanwhile, Eddie attempts to regain his bowling mojo, but breaks down after losing his bowling shoes, putting on an over-the-top display of sadness, blatantly designed to con the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences into giving Newman an award.  The trailer ends by lampooning the final scene of The Color of Money, but in this case, it’s with Eddie throwing a bowling ball and then screaming “My back!” (rather than “I’m back!”).

Ben Stiller made The Hustler of Money when he was just 22.  At the time, he was working on Broadway.  Having worked with John Mahoney on a satirical mockumentary, he followed it up with The Hustler of Money parody, which was picked up by Saturday Night Live and aired later that year.  Interestingly, SNL offered Stiller a job as a writer and actor two years later, but he quit after appearing on only four episodes.

While The Hustler of Money was the first time Stiller portrayed Cruise, it was not the last.  He portrayed Cruise on The Ben Stiller Show as part of a “Dress Casual” skit.  Then, for the 2000 MTV Video Awards, Stiller and Cruise joined forces in one of the best parodies of all time (shown below), with Stiller playing Tom Crooze, the stunt double for Tom Cruise, in Mission: Impossible.  In 2008, they teamed up in the Stiller-directed comedy Tropic Thunder.  And, they are allegedly working together on the development of The Hardy Men, an updated version of “The Hardy Boys,” suggesting more great laughs could be coming soon.