I have to congratulate the data scientists at Amazon.  Somehow, amidst the 17,461 movies and nearly 2,000 TV shows on Prime^[1], their algorithms were able to sift past the Ostern, Bollywood Horror, and Bruceploitation sub-genre films and recommend to me Big Trouble at Barney’s, a heretofore unheard of entrant in my favorite sub-genre, billiards movies and TV shows.

This television series debuted on Amazon Prime in November 2018 with three episodes.  Produced by New Zealand Son Films, which has no immediately clear Kiwi connection, Big Trouble at Barney’s, like the name suggests, focuses on the big trouble two estranged siblings, Jake (Ken Breese) and Caroline (Megan Nager), incur when they inherit their father’s failing pool hall Barney’s.

That trouble only gets worse when Jake and Jessica (Zoe Sidney), an escort with financial struggles, concoct a plan to run an exclusive “dating” service out of Barney’s.  Essentially, ten guys pay to come to the bar and meet ten women, all whom are professional escorts. My favorites are the Swallow Twins. (No, really.) After a quick round of comical speed-dating, they pair as partners, playing pool and then, hopefully, going home for some action.  Barney’s gets the bar tab, and a percent of anything the women earn post-pool.

It’s a promising concept, good for on occasional laugh (“Three words to describe you: ‘pretty, attractive, and I’ve also heard beautiful.’”). But, the first-time actors are so amateur that it’s hard to enjoy, never mind impossible to believe. Fortunately, Jake and Caroline’s dialogue is a little more imaginative and is buoyed by the actors’ comedic chops.

The roly-poly Ken Breese brings an endearing innocence to his otherwise cornball and scuzzy plans, such as having Naked Poetry night at Barney’s.  To one unsuspecting woman, he says, “Our research has shown that if you perform your poetry without the confines of your clothing than the audiences will be bigger and we can charge more.”

And Megan Nager, who could be Kat Dennings’ doppelgänger, brings the sass, as well as delivers the best line of the first three episodes.  To her slug boss that is firing her for not being a team player when she is mourning her father’s death, she says, “Listen you skinny dick fuck. I was ‘all in’ for 3 years, so you’re severance package better be epic…I want a severance plan emailed to me or I’m going to go all in [with a competitor] balls deep.”

Unfortunately, no number of one-line zingers and obscure sexual vulgarisms (“wet dog in a tub”? oh my…) can distract me from the inescapable and inexcusable fact that there is very little billiards played at Barney’s and thus featured in this show.  The occasional shots are true groaners, with an audience of onlookers applauding the most rudimentary of shots.  It’s the equivalent of cheering for a golf putt three inches from hole. And that perhaps is the biggest trouble at Barney’s.

[1]       The number of movies is as of January 20, 2019 (source: Streaming Observer). The number of TV shows is as of March, 2016 (source: Barclays, quoted in Variety).

It is easy to overlook the “Goodbye Johnny” billiards episode of the NBC anthology series Alcoa Theatre. Almost 60 years old, the series was not particularly notable or groundbreaking, save for the Mickey Rooney episode “Eddie,” which picked up handful of Emmy wins and nominations.  And, “Goodbye Johnny” has a pretty unimaginative plot in which a man, Johnny Keegan, tries to hustle a local mobster in a game of pool in order to win enough money to support his sick wife.  (Spoiler alert: the hustle backfires.) You can watch the full episode here.

But, don’t let those banalities dissuade you. “Goodbye Johnny” is, in fact, one of the best billiards television episodes ever, which is pretty amazing given it’s also one of the first known episodes, having aired in February, 1959, during the series’ second season.  (As a reminder, that’s still more than two years before The Hustler shined a spotlight on the art of hustling and led to a nationwide revival of billiards.) Below are my 7 reasons (in no particular order) why “Goodbye Johnny” ranks as a top billiards television episode.

1. The billiards. All too often, billiards episodes resort to showing a series of trick shots as a proxy for skilled playing. But, as any real player knows, such shots never appear in actual games. “Goodbye Johnny” gets the pool right. A series of montages highlights the well-executed banks, rail shots, breaks, and subtle spin shots. The camera focuses on the lead – which is what really matters – rather than standard, TV-friendly multi-ball shots that suffocate the genre.
2. Pop’s praise of Keegan. In the first billiards sequence, Johnny Keegan is practicing his game, preparing for his future hustle. It’s a marathon practice session that catches the eye of the proprietor, Pop.  At the end, Pop comes over and fawns over Keegan’s game: “Beautiful shooting. Beautiful. I never seen such shot-making. Banks, combinations, longs, shorts, cuts, breaks. You own every shot in the book. Beautiful.” It’s a beautiful rhapsody, indeed.
3. “Bird dog”. In my years of watching billiards movies, I’ve heard a lot of hustler lingo, but “bird dog,” as in “I’ll bird dog for you, boy, but I want 25%,” is a first…and I love it! The dictionary defines it as “to watch closely,” but it has a more urban meaning, “to locate special items or people,” such as marks for Keegan’s hustle. Someone page Will Shortz: this word is New York Times crossword-ready.
4. Tony Busso’s manicure. The first time we meet mobster Busso, he is…getting his nails trimmed. This is big boss Busso? In fact, many real mafiosos were known for their impeccable attire and grooming (cf., John Gotti Jr. and hitman had nails done after murder). As with the billiards, the emphasis on the manicure speaks to the subtle tone and imagery of the episode.
5. Opening the cue case. Having recently re-watched Raider of the Lost Ark, Keegan’s initial unveiling and opening of his cue case reminded me of Belloq’s opening of the ark. We don’t see the cue, but know something magical resides within the case, and that once opened, there is no turning back.
6. Discarding the cue case. Once Busso learns that he’s “the fish” who has been hustled, we know Keegan’s days are numbered. We don’t need to see him get beaten or killed, which would be inconsistent with the show’s nuanced tone. Instead, a couple of Busso’s gorillas put Keegan into a car and toss his cue case into the street, symbolically heralding his violent demise.
7. Uncle Ben. Take a good look at Keegan. That’s Uncle Ben Parker!  Actually, it’s actor Cliff Robertson, 43 years before his famous role as Spider-Man’s uncle (R.I.P.), as well as 10 years before his Oscar-winning Best Actor performance in Charly.

Unfortunately, Johnny’s exit was just the first good-bye. Fourteen months after “Goodbye Johnny” aired it was good-bye Aloca Theatre, as the series was eclipsed by Aloca Presents: One Step Beyond, and then by Aloca Premiere, which ran until July 1963.

Follow the money.  First, there is the $100,000 bet between Mr. Lucky and the gambling thug Nick Popolous.  Then, confident Mr. Lucky will throw him the game, Nick convinces the high-roller Mark Langdon to also bet $100,000 on Mr. Lucky.  Knowing Mr. Lucky will have to lose $100,000, his good friend Andamo creates a hedge, convincing J.B., another high-roller, to bet him $100,000 against Mr. Lucky.  This series of bets, summing to more than $2.5 million in today’s dollars, forms the plot of the 1959 Mr. Lucky episode “That Stands for Pool.” 

If you blinked in 1959, you may have missed the short-lived CBS television series Mr. Lucky. Created by Blake Edwards, who had much more success with The Pink Panther series, Peter Gunn, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Mr. Lucky ran for just one season. The show starred John Vivyan as Mr. Lucky, an honest professional gambler, who operated a legal, floating casino aboard the ship Fortuna. He is assisted by his close friend Andamo (Ross Martin). Each episode focused on Mr. Lucky playing host to various millionaires, playboys, rogues, and roughnecks, typically engaging in some kind of betting activity.

In the episode “That Stands for Pool,” available to watch here, Mr. Lucky is forced to accept the aforementioned $100,000 bet, having been assured, in the typical hooligan vernacular, that if he chooses to win, welch, or decline the wager, he will lose his life. As subsequent sidebets and hedges are lain, the episode builds to the culminating match of straight pool, which initially is for 100 points, but becomes a 500-point game to avoid any lucky streaks.

The match itself, like the overall episode, is pretty unremarkable, marked by an absurd number of unrealistic thrown shots and standard trick shots. The match’s onlookers also seem to have an over appreciation for even the most basic shots.  And, Mr. Lucky’s inability to stay awake to finish a 500-point game is unbelievable, even for cheap laughs. (After all, it was only 5 years before the airing of this episode when billiards legend Willie Mosconi ran 526 balls in straight pool in just one turn.)

The circle of bets, however, is mildly interesting, as it got me thinking about betting and the legality of gambling in billiards. While ample celluloid has been dedicated to hustling in pool, less has been devoted to betting.  The irony, of course, is that the very word “pool” has its origins in betting. Whereas today a “poolroom” means a place where pool is played, in the 19^th century a poolroom was a betting parlor (for horse racing, no less.  The pool tables were added so patrons had something to do between races.).

Even after having done some research, the legality of gambling on billiards seems a bit murky to me, and can depend heavily on state law, but the best I can discern is:

1. Lucky’s initial bet with Nick would be legal in most places because it’s legal to bet on yourself in a game of skill when you’re playing the game. (Of course, threatening to kill someone is not exactly legal.)^[1]
2. Nick’s initial bet with Mark Langdon would be illegal, at least in some places, because Nick is betting with someone not playing the game on the outcome of the game.
3. Andamo’s bet with J.B. would be illegal, pretty much everywhere, because neither person is playing the game.

Ultimately, a bunch of people are threatened, some guns are waved, some goons do some chasing, a face is right-hooked (Mr. Lucky’s, no less by his inamorata Maggie) and yet somehow, all debts are settled, followed by Mark Langdon’s parting words of warning, “don’t you ever try to pull another fast one on me…if Lucky didn’t win that game, you’d both be dead.”

All this makes for a rather happy Mr. Lucky.  Unfortunately, Mr. Lucky was not as fortunate. After just 34 episodes, the series was cancelled. According to Mr. Vivyan, “[the series] had good ratings, but Jack Benny’s production company had another show it wanted for our time slot. It wasn’t much of a contest, and CBS dropped us.”^[2]

[1]      Fun #billiardsmovies fact: Stanley Adams, who plays Nick Popolous, later played Sure-Shot Wilson, another chain smoking pool hustler, in “The Hustler” episode of The Odd Couple from 1973.

[2]      Interview given by John Vivyan to Vernon Scott at United Press International in 1960. (Source: Television Obscurities.)