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Top 10 Wish List of Billiards Screenplay Adaptations

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billiards fictionIn 1955, author Walter Tevis, at the age of 28, had his billiards short story, “The Big Hustle,” published in the August 5 issue of Collier’s magazine. That tale about the rivalry between Ned Bales and the Hot Springs Babe was never adapted for the silver screen.  However, his short story “The Hustler,” published in Playboy in 1957 and expanded into a novel in 1959, is a pool ball of a different color altogether.  That story became the ground-breaking, billiards-blazing 1961 film The Hustler, recipient of nine Oscar nominations and widely credited with sparking a resurgence in the popularity of pool.  And, of course, Mr. Tevis’ 1984 novel The Color of Money, which two years later Martin Scorsese adapted into the eponymous film, was equally impactful on the industry and lauded by pool and movie fans everywhere.

Though The Hustler and The Color of Money are the most successful screen adaptations of billiards-themed fictional works, they are not the only examples.  Cedric Yamanaka’s short story, “The Lemon Tree Billiards House,” was turned into a short film of the same name in 1996.   The director Francis Ford Copolla worked with author S.E. Hinton to adapt his novel Rumble Fish, which includes a decent amount of billiards, into the 1986 movie. Even Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi short story “The Billiard Ball” has been turned into a Claymation film.

All of this got me thinking: if the two most popular billiards movies are both based on adapted screenplays, and if other fictional works have also provided good source material for films, then perhaps there is a whole treasure trove of untapped novels and stories that can be equally mined for billiards gold. Therefore, I present my Top 10 Wish List for Billiards Screenplay Adaptations.[1]  (Note: for the purpose of this post, I limited my scope to fiction, but there are some amazing memoirs and biographies of the sport’s most colorful characters, that warrant a separate top 10 wish list in the near future.)

  1. “A Billiard Lesson” by A. A. Milne. Though Mr. Milne is best known as the creator of the world’s favorite anthropomorphic teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, he was a prolific writer of plays, poems, and short stories, including “A Billiard Lesson,” first published in the British literary humor magazine Punch in 1911. The short story focuses on a game of English billiards between an alleged billiards expert and Celia, his friend/student, who unwittingly wins the game without understanding at all how to play or how the game is scored.

 

  1. The Cue Ball Mystery (Series) by Cindy Blackburn. South Carolina author Cindy Blackburn does not play pool. But, Jessie Hewitt, the pool shark protagonist of the six books in the Cue Ball Mystery series, certainly does.  The novels – Playing With Poison; Double Shot; Three Odd Balls; Four Play; Five Spot; and Six Easy Pockets – all focus on the intersection of Jessie’s former pool-hustling days, her current days penning romance novels and her struggling love life.

 

  1. One-Pocket Man by Albert Betz. The simple fact that native Philadelphian Albert Betz writes about one-pocket from personal experience earns his debut novel One-Pocket Man a place on my list. Published in 2005, the novel focuses on Danny Bonto, a Chicago mid-level enforcer who is given a new life, identity and job by the Fed in exchange for ratting out his boss. But, in his new hometown of Philadelphia, he runs afoul of the mob while working in a local poolroom, where he also takes a teenager under his wing and teaches him the nuanced game of one-pocket.

 

  1. “The Billiard Table” by James Hall. According to Robert Byrne, author of the anthology Byrne’s Book of Great Pool Stories, James Hall’s “The Billiard Table” from 1829 is likely the first short story with a billiards theme ever published. Though the writing is rather stilted, the story is elegant in its simplicity. Mr. St. Clair, an aristocrat gifted at English billiards, loses a match and a large sum of money to a hustler. Terrified how his wife might react, he races home only to find she is no longer there, which he quickly assumes is a result of the attention he gives to the game and his neglect of her.

 

  1. Do It for the Game by Robert Campbell. Reviewing Robert Campbell’s bio, it’s clear this man loves pool. He owns a pool hall in Bradford, Massachusetts. He published a monthly newspaper, “All About Pool…Everywhere.” He contributed articles to several national billiards publications. He’s been inducted into the New England Pool & Billiards Hall of Fame. And, in 2002, he published Do It for the Game, a novel about Brian Dwyer, a man down-on-his-luck who returns to his hometown and rediscovers his joy for pool and the life lessons of the game. The novel includes the usual cast of colorful hustlers (e.g., Weasel, Snake, Zig Zag), but the storytelling rings true among reviewers who have lived in his shoes.

 

  1. Sticks by Joan Bauer. The sole work on this list aimed at the Young Adult crowd, Sticks is a 2005 novel written by the highly acclaimed, Newberry Honor Medal recipient Joan Bauer. The novel’s protagonist, 13-year-old Mickey Vernon, is preparing to compete is the most important pool tournament of his life. But, to win, he must deal with a more experienced and mean rival, his mother’s rules and reservations, and the reappearance of a pool expert and family friend with a troubling past.

 

  1. Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game by William Kennedy. The middle member of William Kennedy’s much-loved “Albany cycle” trilogy (which includes Legs and Ironweed), Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game centers on Billy Phelan, a small-time, Depression-era pool hustler, poker player, bowler, and bookie. As in the movie Three Card Monte, billiards comprises only a small percent of the dimly-lit, back-alley action, so it’s debatable whether this novel should be eligible for this list. But, as one might expect from a future Pulitzer Prize winner, the writing is so precise and evocative, that it’s hard to argue it’s movie material.

 

  1. “A Game of Billiards” by William Sansom. Talk about creepy. First published in 1952 in a collection of William Sansom’s work called A Touch of the Sun, “A Game of Billiards” is a short story about a narrator who is trapped in a room with a large man who imagines they are locked in a close billiards match. His oversized opponent is intense, meticulous in everything from his cue-chalking to his angles, brags about shots that will “please Mother” and yet is quite menacing whenever the narrator tries to cut short the pretend game.

 

  1. Billiard Blues by Maxence Fermine. Published in 2004, Billiard Blues, by French author Maxence Fermine, is a collection of three stories that each take place in different cities, several decades apart. The first story occurs in 1930s Chicago and focuses on John Lee Hooker, years before he becomes the world-famous blues musician. Hooker attends a billiards match between Willie Hoppe, perhaps the greatest pool player ever, and Al Capone, the notoriously vicious gangster who ruled over Chicago during the Prohibition Era. Bet you’d want to be a fly on the wall for that game.

 

  1. “The Hungarian Cinch” by Bill Pronzini. The trope of Aliens on Earth is fertile ground for Hollywood, ranging from films about hostile adversaries (e.g., Invasion of the Body Snatchers; They Live) to misunderstood companions (e.g., E.T.; The Iron Giant). Bill Pronzini’s sci-fi short story, “The Hungarian Cinch” (1976), is somewhere in-between, perhaps closer to Neil Blomkamp’s genre-breaking film District 9, in which aliens co-exist with humans in a tightly regulated environment. In the story, the world’s greatest one-pocket player, Fancy Fontana, is set to play Randolph GQ-XIV, an orange-skinned, hairy-legged, extraterrestrial who has never played the game before, for $50,000. The opportunity seems to good to be a true – a rare ‘Hungarian cinch’ (in the hustler’s parlance). But, of course, competing against aliens never quite goes as planned.

So, there you have it.  It’s time to pause on the sequels and punt on the reboots. Hollywood, are you taking notes?  And, just in case, these ten titles didn’t stir your creative juices, I’ve included below covers from some of the other novels that I considered in curating this billiards screenplay wish list, not to mention the other 27 short stories sourced by Robert Byrne.

[1]      This post would not have been possible without reading, and being inspired by, Byrne’s Book of Great Pool Stories (1995). Thank you Mr. Byrne for your research and curation.

Massé

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In an interview with IndieWire, Christian Blauvelt, the Deputy Culture Editor for the BBC, talked about the guilt he felt, when he worked Hollywood.com, giving a zero out of five star review to Paul Schrader’s The Canyons.  He shared, “I feel guilty for hating The Canyons so much because Schrader himself is not only a filmmaking legend but a delightful human being… truly honest and giving.”[1]

MasseAs I finished watching Jay Taylor’s Massé, which is a terrible movie, Mr. Blauvelt’s sentiment resonated with me.  Though I have never met Mr. Taylor, I suspect he’s a good person who, along with his wife Courtney Shumway, the film’s script consultant, put his blood, sweat, and tears (and probably a decent amount of money) into making this film.

I’ve never made a film, so how can I so audaciously tear apart this man’s opus? I don’t for a moment believe I could do better. But, at the same time, I have an obligation to my readers to provide my honest thoughts.  Otherwise, I’m just a rubber-stamper, endorsing any film with baize, balls, and cue, simply because billiards is so starved for attention and mainstream recognition.

Mr. Taylor opted to name his film Massé because, like the famous trick shot in pool, his movie “has some twists and turns so [he] thought the idea of naming after a curve shot in pool appropriate.”[2] Alas, those twists and turns are just some of the many problems with the film. The characters are wooden, the acting is amateur, the scenes don’t effectively tell a story, and the billiards is largely irrelevant.

The story follows Jack Pappas (played by Johnny Alonso, who currently stars in Gotham as Kazz, bass player for the Penguin’s house band at Oswald’s Nightclub), who has had a troubled past.  He’s content to hustle pool for a living, but his life takes a turn when his ex-flame, Sara (Barb Myers) shows up.  His conflicting emotion leads to some anger-rich pool playing, an endlessly long sex scene, a ridiculous fight scene (including a cue ball to the head…take that, bad guy!), and a noir gun-shooting finale with bad special effects.

MasseBack to the billiards.  In an interview segment for Click On This Show, Mr. Alonso revealed that he “shot pool for 50 days…So I got pretty good. I got really good.  These boys (from APA) taught me a lot of stuff…some nights we were on set shooting until 2 in the morning.”

I don’t doubt that Mr. Alonso’s game improved significantly, but it’s a shame his newfound prowess didn’t translate to the screen.  There are two main pool scenes in Massé. Both exist to establish that Jack Pappas is a skilled player, whose go-to hustle involves his close friend Pete (Jonathon Ruckman).  But, the actual pool-playing lacks any excitement.  The shots are basic and the games are uninteresting. Moreover, they don’t advance the characters.  Other than establishing that Johnny is a risk taker, the hustling never goes anywhere. He might as well be throwing darts.

Mr. Taylor said, “Massé runs the gamut of emotions, from happiness to anger, fear to excitement, and lust to sadness.”   Unfortunately, he omitted boredom, perhaps the most prevalent emotion for this reviewer.

Massé premiered at the Charles Theatre in Baltimore on October 15, 2014.  The movie was produced by Bad Ferret Films, which no longer exists.  The billiards scenes were shot at Cobblestones Bar & Grill, which closed in 2017, in York, Pennsylvania.  The movie is available to rent or buy on Amazon.

[1]       “Critics pick the worst movies they’ve ever reviewed,” IndieWire, June 19, 2017.

[2]       “Interview with Director and Filmmaker Jay Taylor,” DC Metro, January 2, 2013.

You, Me & Them – “The Legend of Old McCreadie”

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On May 3, 2013, Judd Trump was shooting against Ronnie O’Sullivan in the semifinals of that year’s World Snooker Championship. Down 4-32 in the frame, Mr. Trump lined up for his shot when a loud farting sound thundered through the Crucible Theatre. Described as a “bit of noise in the crowd,” the sound, which some later ascertained was created by a fart machine, had the audience in guffaws until the referee was able to quiet down the crowd. Mr. Trump may have regained his concentration, but he ultimately lost the match 17-11.

Old McCreadieAlmost six months later, another snooker match was repeatedly disturbed, this time by a mixture of ill-timed sneezes, cell phone rings, and the occasional crinkling of a too-new Danny Zuko leather jacket.  Fortunately, this was not another WSC match, but rather the plotline of an amusing television episode of You, Me & Them entitled “The Legend of Old McCreadie.” The full episode is available to watch here.

Even for Brits, You, Me & Them may be hard to remember. Airing on UKTV in 2014, the original comedy series lasted only 12 episodes before it was yanked. The show centers on a married couple, Lauren Grey (Eve Myles) and Ed Walker (Anthony Head), who are madly in love despite their 26-year age difference.  Their families think a quarter-century age gap is irreconcilable, but in fact, the couple do just fine while everyone around them is engulfed in chaos and craziness.

Like many sitcom episodes, “The Legend of Old McCreadie” has several interlocking stories, including one thread in which Ed and his father-in-law Clive (Jeff Rawle) decide to do some family bonding by attending a local snooker match where they can get “drama and excitement, yet peace and quiet.”

Their troubles start when Clive begins violently sneezing as a result of an allergic reaction to the mohair jumper of the woman seated in front of him.  Then, Ed’s leather jacket, which has never been broken in, makes distracting squeaking noises each time he moves.  Thus, to avoid moving, he enlists Clive’s help to scratch his itches, raising eyebrows from those around them.  Adding to the awkwardness, Clive’s wife keeps calling his cellphone to get the alarm codes as she fears someone may be breaking into the house.  The situation only gets worse as Clive attempts to hand signal the alarm code over live television, since he knows his wife can see him on the telly.  Whatever patience the players, referee, and audience members had exhibited up to this point completely disappears and cacophony ensues.

The episode scores points for lampooning the genteel core of snooker. After all, this is a sport in which “the players wear bowties and waistcoats, the referees are dressed formally with white Mickey Mouse gloves, and the crowd is mainly hushed and silent.”[1]

In describing the “intensity of silence” as one of the “characteristics of true snooker,” one writer said:

Some players might actually prefer more of a constant backdrop of noise, but that’s not in the foundations of the sport. Yes, the sport came from an Imperial room of commission officers, but walk into any snooker club now and pretty much the only noise heard is coming from the tables, cues, balls and pockets.  And for the fan, the knowledge of having to stay as quiet as possible adds to their own intensity in that moment.[2]

Amidst this revered soundlessness, is it any wonder that Ed and Clive’s peccadillos are received with such disdain?

In fact, similar offenses have led to snooker audience members getting stern warnings and even outright ejections from the matches.  Such was the case when an audience member got a bit too boisterous at the Ronnie O’Sullivan vs. Mark Selby Masters Final in January 2014.  And, in Mr. O’Sullivan’s match against Gary Wilson in April 2017, a drunk heckler had to be removed due to his disruptive behavior.

Of course, had Ed and Clive come to watch Kyren Wilson compete against Mark Allen in the semi-finals of the 2018 World Snooker Championship, perhaps they would have been a bit more lucky.  As snooker fans may recall, Mr. Wilson was down 32-45 with a difficult lead on the 6-ball, when he was interrupted not once, not twice, but three times by a spectator’s mobile phone. And though the referee was quick to oust the culprit, it was Mr. Wilson who said, “Don’t kick him out, just turn the phone on silence,” which won applause from the audience.

Mr. Wilson went on to beat Mr. Allen 13-6.  You draw your own conclusion.

[1]       “The Complete Guide to Understanding Snooker,” April 13, 2017.

[2]       “It’s There! Can You Keep the Noise Down Please?!,” April 21, 2015.

Hey Kids! Want to Watch Billiards?

Jason Ferguson, the Chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), has argued for the inclusion of billiards at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics because of the sport’s global reach and influence.  According to Mr. Ferguson, snooker is watched by a half billion people worldwide and played in 90 countries. When pool and carom billiards are added, the sport is played competitively in almost every country in the world.[1]

Pat & Mat billiardsI speculate that critical to the sport’s worldwide popularity is the introduction of billiards to children at a very young age through creative and enjoyable television programming. In the past, I’ve blogged about several of such shows, including Pat & Mat (“Billiard”) from the Czech Republic, Shaun the Sheep (“Shaun Goes Potty”) from the UK, and Benrat (“Billiards”) from China.

This time, my globe-hopping, TV-watching peregrinations took me to Scotland, South Korea, and Russia for some billiards-themed programming aimed at the 3- to 8-year-old crowd. It’s hard to imagine how exposure to the sport at such a developing age doesn’t contribute to the ubiquitous phenomenon of competitive billiards.

Nina and the Neurons – Get Sporty: “Snooker”

Nina and the Neurons billiards“How do you play snooker?,” asks one of the two child Experimenters on the “Snooker” episode of Nina and the Neurons, a Scottish television show aimed at helping four to six-year-olds understand basic science.  It’s the type of question that could spark a billiards battle royale. Fortunately, the show’s lead, Nina (Katrina Bryan) is not prone to the braggadocio and showmanship that might accompany a response, but rather enlists her five Neurons (animated characters representing the senses) to answer the question.

In the “Snooker” episode from the 2014 Get Sporty season, the Neuron that answers Nina’s call is Luke, who represents the sense of sight.  Along with the pint-sized Experimenters, Nina and Luke arrange a series of experiments to illustrate various scientific principles of snooker, such as “balls can’t move themselves, so we use a snooker cue” or “balls move in the direction on the opposite side that they’re hit.”  (This particular experiment involves turning the two moppets into giant snooker balls.) Finally, Nina takes the Experimenters to visit professional snooker player Dylan Craig to show how bouncing balls off a rail cushion is another way to move them into pockets. The full 14-minute episode is available to watch here.

Bernard – “Billiards”

Bernard billiardsKnown as Backkom in its native South Korea, the South Korean-Spanish-France computer animated television Bernard series centers on a curious polar bear named Bernard, whose bumbling slapstick antics typically result in the bear being knocked unconscious or being severely injured by the end of an episode. Bernard is also typically accompanied by one or more members of his menagerie of friends, including two penguins, a lizard, a Chihuahua, a do, and a porcupine.

In the three-and-a-half minute “Billiards” episode, which aired sometime between 2006 and 2012, Bernard competes in a game of 9-ball against his lizard pal Zack.  Bernard has a strong break and some modicum of talent, but he’s no match for his lacertilian opponent.  Once it is Zack’s turn, the lizard brings his A-game, making a behind-the-back masse shot followed by a jump shot the length of the long rail and then a second masse shot.

Realizing Zack is about to run the table, Bernard sabotages his game, frightening him into missing a shot and then blocking the path of the 1-ball with his ursine girth. This causes the frustrated lizard to quit. But, the moment Bernard attempts to savor his victory, he slips on a discarded ball, banging his head on the side table, and falling unconscious. The full episode is available to watch here.

Kikioriki – “The Game Must Go On”

Kikioriki is a Russian animated television series that consists of more than 200 episodes, each 6 minutes and 30 seconds, aimed at children 3- to 8-years old. The series premiered in 2004. Four years later, the English-language rights were acquired and it began airing on The CW under the name GoGoRiki. Created as part of Russia’s cultural-education “World Without Violence” project, the series features stylized round animals, known as Smeshariki, that engage with one another around complex themes

KikiOriki billiardsIn “The Game Must Go On,” which aired in 2009 as part of the second GoGoRiki season, Dokko, a golden moose who is an eccentric scientist, and Carlin, a dark blue crow, play a friendly game of billiards that gets a wee bit too serious.

Oh, there is so much to like about this episode! For starters, the characters are playing Russian pyramid, a version of billiards that requires opponents to sink 15 numbered white balls. Then, there is the priceless dialogue, such as Dokko’s professorial yet condescending opener: “Billiards is a game where everything counts, both physical and geometrical laws, an eagle sharp eye, a hand steady as a boulder, and ice cold nerves. If you lack even one of those things, you’ll never amount to a much of a player.”

As the match progresses, Dokko has a pitch-perfect comment for everything, whether it’s how to make a shot (“The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Give it a little bit of spin, and release the hounds.”), or why his missed shot was an anomaly (“Even I mess up now and again.  Since it happened now, it won’t happen again.”)

But, Dokko vastly under-estimates Carlin, who starts to make his shots.  The score begins to tighten, and each player refuses the other’s mercy offer to end the game.  As the match progresses, torrential rain pours from the sky (“This isn’t billiards. It’s water polo played with a couple of sticks.”), but neither headstrong opponent will call it quits. Eventually, frustration and exhaustion set in, and the players break their sticks, and rip the table apart to use the rails as makeshift cues.  Only when lightning strikes, electrocuting both players, does the game reach its denouement with the players calling it a draw. The full episode is available to watch here.

Well, that’s enough traveling for one today. Fortunately, the pre-tween, billiard scene is sufficiently thriving that I can return to the topic in a future blog post to review shows such as Pleasant Goat (“The Focus in Billiards”), Danny and Daddy (“Billiards or Worms?”) or BinkieTV (“Learn Colors with Billiard Balls”).  Until then, may our kids learn life’s lessons, one billiard ball at a time.

[1]       “Billiards sports queue up for Tokyo 2020 Olympic inclusion,” Inside the Games, January 23, 2015

Heartbreak

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Approximately 45 miles northwest of Orlando sits The Villages in Sumter County, Central Florida. The fast-growing city, a favorite among retirees, is home to the Old Mill Playhouse, which first opened its movie doors in 2004. And, on March 17, if you were among the 125,000 citizens of The Villages, or anyone lucky enough to be in the vicinity, you had the exclusive opportunity to go to the Playhouse and attend the world premiere of Heartbreak, the newest billiards movie to hit the silver screen.  Alas, the rest of us hapless ones — including myself — will need to wait until at least this summer to have a chance to see this film.

HeartbreakThe movie premiered with little fanfare.  There is a compelling trailer available here, and there is a summary available on IMDB from the film’s producer, Randy M. Dyer.  Heartbreak is “based on the life of a one-time award-winning professional billiard champion down on his luck who encounters a young Korean woman seeking to become the billiard champion to save her son’s life.  What ensues is an emotional and dramatic journey leading to a climactic event that will change their lives forever.”

Unable to learn much online, and frustrated by my own inability to make the trek from New York to Florida to see the premiere, I struck gold on Twitter when I successfully connected with, and subsequently interviewed, the movie’s two leading actors, Brett Rice and Jane Park Smith, and the Executive Producer (and former billiards pro and Pro Billiards Coach) “Coach” Wayne Catledge.

As it turns out, the seeds of Heartbreak have been germinating inside Mr. Catledge’s head for 10-12 years when he was first coaching female billiards players in Asia.  Observing the training regiments of billiards athletes like Kim Ga-young and Eunji Erica Park, Mr. Catledge considering producing a documentary about their approach to billiards and their work ethic.  Soon, that idea morphed into making a full-length movie.

Like many passion projects, Heartbreak had numerous starts and stops.  The script was the biggest challenge. “There were so many scripts that did not fit…that did not respect the industry. They were too focused on the “dark side [of billiards]…I wanted to prove billiards is an upstanding sport and not just [show] the underbelly…I was looking for hope and inspiration like in The Sound of Music,” said Mr. Catledge.

Heartbreak

Jane Park Smith as Mina Lee

According to Jane Park Smith, who plays the lead character Mina Lee, “billiards is such a vital part of the movie. Heartbreak shows billiards in a dynamic, redemptive, light.”  This required the perfect casting of actors, according to Mr. Catledge. And, given the amount of billiards in the movie, the actors needed to seem like real players.  (In fact, the actors perform every shot in the movie, except two.)

The decision to cast Brett Rice in the lead role as Harry Platt was an easy one. Mr. Rice, who has been playing pool for 50 years, elaborated, “I am a better pool player than I am an actor… My grandfather was a shark. We played one-pocket growing up. He taught me the game when I was 10 and told me if I ever beat him, I’d get a shot of bourbon.  Five years later, I finally took that shot.  I played all the time. I used to play in the Army. I even paid for my apartment through pool.”

For the casting of Mina Lee, Mr. Catledge knew Ms. Smith would be perfect, albeit she had never played pool.  “She was cast because of her martial arts and her long expanded fingers would make a great pool bridge. I knew I could train her.”

According to Ms. Smith, that instinct was well-founded: “I didn’t know how to hold a cue stick…I was a blank canvas.  [The training was intense.] If we weren’t shooting or resting, Coach had me do drills, bridges, stroke lining….All pool all the time, so much so that the first week, I would wake up in middle of night having dreams about making shots.  It turned out better than I could have imagined.”

Heartbreak

Ewa “The Striking Viking” Laurance

Adding to the authenticity of Heartbreak are cameos by some of the sports best-known female players. Ewa “The Striking Viking” Laurance has a key role because she is, according to Mr. Carledge, “a great ambassador of the game. [I] always loved her presence, how she handled herself.  She was all in.”  Dawn Hopkins and Shanelle Loraine also appear briefly.

As I’ve not yet seen the movie, I cannot yet comment on whether this trio achieved its goals and delivered a billiards movie that, at its core, is about “hope,” “redemption,” and “unity.”  However, even without yet seeing Heartbreak, I can attest to the passion for pool that is the connecting fiber of the film, as it pervaded each person’s interview response.  Nowhere is that passion more on display than in Mr. Carledge’s comments to attendees at the world premier:

Pool is a colorful world of dauntless personalities puzzling through an enthralling kaleidoscope of patterns.  You will face unpredictable facets of the game and wrestle with bold, nervy souls testing you in the crucible of solitude.  In such wrenching pressure where it is only you, without help from a teammate, can the greatest champions arise.  You and only you can achieve victory.  That is such a blessing for the elite, for victory seldom comes without much failure.

 Everyone has a unique story to tell and I truly love listening to the many colorful variances in the universals.  The grips, the stances, the strokes, the patterns, the breaks, the safeties, the preparation, the mantras, the drills, the diets, the cue, the cloth, the table, the rack, the bridge, the chalk, the powder, the gloves, the taper, the design, the joint, the shaft, the butt, the tip, the tip shape, the rails, the pockets, the balls, the slate, the diamonds, the lights, the air, etc. etc. etc., all lend tremendous variances in playing conditions before you ever face your opponent!  The odds are always stacked…

 And we haven’t even talked about gamesmanship or sharking.  What a colorful sport and treacherous discipline!

My Three Sons – “Charley, the Pigeon”

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“Girls?,” says Steven Douglas, flabbergasted that his son Robbie lost the $50, which was intended to buy a set of golf clubs, to two female pool hustlers.  It’s a bit hard to imagine for the famous father of three sons in the “Charley, the Pigeon” episode of My Three Sons.

Charley, the PigeonBefore digging into Mr. Douglas’ disbelief, a little refresher for those not familiar with the long-running sitcom.  My Three Sons first aired on ABC in 1960, and then moved to CBS from 1965 to 1970. The wholesome comedy starred Fred MacMurray as widower and aeronautical engineer Steven Douglas who must raise his three sons, Robbie, Chip and Ernie. He is initially helped by the boys’ grandfather, but by the sixth season, which includes “Charley, the Pigeon,” the character has been replaced by Charley (William Demarest), the boys’ great uncle.

In this billiards episode from January 1966, Robbie (Don Grady) gets fleeced by two high school girls who feign ignorance of the game. Asking Robbie to explain it, he replies, “It’s a game of geometric angles, it’s a matter of velocity and angle of carom,” to which one coyly relays to the other, “I told you we could never understand it.”  After questioning the use of the cue ball and then suggesting, “The white ball with the lavender stripes is so much cuter…couldn’t we use that one?,” the girls shark Robbie for his $50.

Fortunately, uncle Charley used to shoot stick when he was younger, so he impersonates a tycoon named Tex and goes down to the pool hall to give the girls a dose of their own medicine. Playing for $1 per ball, Charley promptly calls the 3 on the break, banks the 4, then does a nice masse shot that he “learned from Mr. Masse.”  He caps off the game with a shot in which he uses the crease of his ten-gallon hat to serve as a bridge and pocket the ball.  Beaten and dismayed, the girls fork over the $50 to Charlie, who gives it to Robbie to make things right once more. The full episode is available to watch here.

https://youtu.be/cvRs2hWos9g

Now, back to Mr. Douglas’ exclamation of disbelief: “Girls?”  At its core, it’s the standard sexism one was accustomed to on television, even in our most wholesome shows. The idea that a woman could play pool was simply too much to believe.

It shouldn’t have been a total head-scratcher. Enough women were shooting billiards in the 1960s that the first national women’s billiards tournament occurred just one year later in 1967.  (Dorothy Wise won it that year, and the next five years, and ultimately became the first woman elected in the Billiards Congress of America Hall of Fame.)

Lori Shampo

Lori Shampo

But, a female pool hustler? Well, such a woman was considerably more uncommon (or just undiscussed) at that time.  In my research, I found scant evidence of women pool hustlers until Lori Shampo started sharking people in the 1970s.  (There were other famous pool playing women, such as Jean Balukas, but most experts seem to agree that while Ms. Balukas may have been the better player, Ms. Shampo was the true hustler.  As Freddie “The Beard” Bentivegna described her, “[She was the] highest rolling female pool player – probably the best for cash…. Lori was the best big-money playing woman of all time. She could play for $5,000 a set or $1,000 a game of 9-ball on the bar table….She shot good, best high, woofed good, and was fearless with a big heart…For the money and the intimidation, Lori Shampo was a female Cornbread Red, only much better-looking.[1])

Therefore, as predictable and pedestrian as the “Charley, the Pigeon” episode seems today, it was a bit groundbreaking to portray women pool hustlers in 1966.

So, the next time you watch “Pool Sharks Git Bit” (The Steve Harvey Show) or “Archie is Cursed” (All in the Family) or “Double of Nothing” (Red Shoe Diaries) or “Martin in the Corner Pocket” (Martin) or Turn the River or Virgin Pockets or Kiss Shot or a host of other shows with female hustlers, chalk your cue, ignore the cute lavender-striped ball, and tip your hat to the My Three Sons episode “Charley, the Pigeon.”

[1]       Bentigvena, Freddie “The Beard.” The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers. 2013.

How Are Billiards Tables Made?

Billiards has come a long way since King Louis XI of France introduced the first table in 1470 exclusively for use by the noble class.  Back then, the handles of maces were used to push balls made of wood, clay, or ivory into a single center hole. Fast forward, in the US alone, there are now more than 20 million players. Though in decline, the billiards tables market is a $200 million industry, with individual tables easily ranging from $500 to $15,000. And the revenue generated from the 340,000 coin-operated tables is close to $1.5 billion.[1]

Billiards tables can have varying dimensions and be considerably customized (e.g., choice of wood, color, cloth, etc); nonetheless, they follow a similar manufacturing process that, when done well, should last several decades. Not surprisingly, several educational reality television shows have attempted to address the question, “How are billiards tables made?”

The oldest of the three shows is How It’s Made, a documentary television series that premiered in early 2001 on the Discovery Channel in Canada and on Discovery’s Science Channel in the US. The low-budget, lo-res series relied on an off-screen narrator who described matter-of-factly in 5-7 minute segments how common items, ranging from guitars to bubble gum, are manufactured, while also injecting some tidbits of history.

The Season 6 episode “Ropes, billiard tables, sailboards, cymbals” from 2006 doesn’t help its cause by getting its history wrong in the first minute, incorrectly saying that “billiards [is] also known as pool” and that the game has “been around nearly 500 years.” The episode then proceeds to walk the viewer through the building process, from the initial table frame getting shaped to the rubber strips getting added to the rails to the workers pre-assembling the pieces and stamping them sequentially to ensure the table can be re-assembled later. Additional attention is given to the hot-gluing of the mother-of-pearl sights and the “real heavy lifting” of the three pieces of slate, each weighing up to 330 pounds, which comprise the table surface. The full episode is available to watch here, starting at 7:02.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsK1ncVsv44

Disappointingly, Discovery Communications repeated the How It’s Made formula 16 years later with the launch of their series Incredible Inventions, which first aired in March 2017 on their American Heroes Channel. Spread across 30-minute episodes, this documentary reality series aims to “explore the history and science behind different inventions.”

In the Season 2 episode “The Bow, Ferrofluid, The Billiard Table” from September 2017, the narrator, Matt Baker, delves into the table’s history, referencing its evolution from outdoor croquet and the role Neville Chamberlain played in popularizing the sport.

Then, focusing on Thurston, the oldest (1799) snooker table manufacturer in the world, Mr. Baker details how the company makes its tables: selecting the timber, cutting the wood, planing the wood to the appropriate thickness, drilling holes to enable assembly, creating the legs, leveling the table, spraying the wood, fitting the cushions with billiards cloth, adding the pocket leathers and nets, adding the table cloth, marking the cloth to regulation measurements and ironing it, and finally fitting the cushions.

Aside from highlighting the weight of the table slate, and the craftsmanship of the cloth fitters, the episode feels like a retread of its predecessor, maybe minimally better. The full episode is available to rent/buy and watch on Vudu, starting at 14:20.

In fact, one starts to wonder how this episode got made when Discovery Communications had already upped their game 18 months earlier with the “Pool Tables, Gas Fired Boilers and Shopping Carts” episode from Machines: How They Work, produced and aired by their subsidiary network The Science Channel. By far the most innovative of this how-to trio, this ten-part series combines photo-real CGI with real factory footage to show the hidden workings of appliances, objects, and machines.

Airing in March 2016, the “Pool Tables…” episode distinguishes itself by specifically tackling coin-operated tables, in which “500 parts work in unison” to enable a table to “rack up a half million games” in its 30-year lifetime.

Dissecting a table from Valley-Dynamo, the inventor of the 70-year-old coin-op table, the episode highlights the assembly of the dead rail, the mechanics of the coin recognition slot, and the interior “spider web of runways” that transport the balls.  The episode also tackles the classic question, “Why does the cue ball return but not the other balls?”  I anticipated the answer was attributable to the ball’s size, which is also accurate, but on this featured table it is because the cue’s white layer conceals a ball of iron that gets magnetized, pulling the cue out of the regular chute and channeling it back into play. The full episode is available to watch here, starting at 00:46.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFZHACzo98c

If you’re seeking to understand how billiards tables are manufactured, these three shows should be sufficient.  And, if you’re curiosity wanders more toward the creation of billiards cues or balls, don’t worry. There are plenty of films (The Cuemaker), TV episodes (How It’s Made – “Air filters, billiard cues, ice sculptures, suits”) and video vignettes (Impossible Engineering – “How are billiards balls made?”) to keep you sated.

[1]         Recent data is hard to find. Most of the cited data is 3-5 years old: “…20 million players” (NGSA Sports Participation – Single Sport, 2013); “…a $200 million industry” (Global Billiards Table Market Professional Survey Report, 2017); “…revenue from coin-operated tables” (Statista, 2010; NHBR, 2010)

Magic Kaito 1412 – “Hustler vs Magician”

More than 30 years ago, Gosho Aoyama wrote and illustrated a Japanese manga series entitled Magic Kaito. The story was about a teenager, Kaito Kuroba, who learns that his father was The Kaito Kid, a famous international criminal who was mysteriously murdered over a jewel theft. Vowing to avenge his father, the adolescent becomes a master illusionist and assumes the identity of the Kaito Kid.

Magic Kaito 1412The story was turned into the 24-episode anime series Magic Kaito 1412 that aired from October 4, 2014 to March 28, 2015. In “Hustler vs Magician,” the third episode of the series, Kaito learns that his close family friend Jii, who owns the Blue Parrot Billiards Club, once lost the diamond and emerald-encrusted Legendary Cue (stick) to a local mob boss when he was beaten by the boss’ pool shark, Tsuujirou Hasura in a rigged match.  Now the same boss is threatening to close down the billiards club.

Though Kaito cannot shoot pool, he vows to win back the cue. Sneaking into the boss’ club, the American, he challenges Hasura to multiple matches of 9-ball for $10,000 per game. Losing them all, he wagers the Blue Parrot for the Legendary Cue.  At that point, he assumes the billiards stance of his late father and performs a spectacular trick shot, with multiple jumps, which wins him the cue stick.  It is only later revealed that the shot was an illusion. Hidden wires tautly stretched across the table allowed the cue to travel an otherwise impossible orbit that knocked in all his balls in one shot. The full episode is available to watch here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJZo6-MF0Is

Magic Kaito 1412 is the third anime series I’ve discovered with a billiards episode. Unfortunately, it’s the worst of the lot.  Lacking the metaphysical, WTF-ness of Death Billiards or the hyper-sexualized imagination of the “Moulin Rouge” episode of Fairy Tale, the “Hustler vs Magician” episode banally trudges along from its questionable setup to its nonsensical ending. Moreover, the episode feels overly familiar, recycling billiards tropes on its path to an obvious conclusion.

Let’s start with the troubled friend who is poised to lose his bar to the local mob boss. This same idea was the premise of the 1972 film Wandering Ginza Butterfly, which also resolved itself with a match between the main character and a yakuza henchman. Similarly, in the Italian film Il tocco – la sfida the lead character makes the decision to compete in a 5-pin tournament to save his friend’s pool hall. (In that example, the lead unwisely beats the local gangster’s hired pool shark, thereby sealing his friend’s fate.)

Magic Kaito 1412Then, there is the character of Hasura, an honorable pool shark, who is torn between his love of the game and his role as an employee of a ruthless gangster.  This situation is similar to that in the 1991 movie Legend of the Dragon, in which world snooker champion Jimmy “The Whirlwind” White plays the conflicted hustler.

Another trope is the child billiards prodigy underestimated by adults. Less common in movies, this idea formed the backbone of both “The Hustler” episode of The Brady Bunch, when Bobby Brady makes a killing in wagered bubble gum, and the “Minnesota Vicki” episode of Small Wonder, in which 10-year-old Vicki hustles her father’s boss out of the ownership of his company.

On a positive note, “Hustler vs Magician” introduce two ideas that I hadn’t yet encountered.  The first is a prized cue stick with its own moniker.  Sure, Uncle Phil wreaks havoc on his opponent when he unsheathes his cue stick Lucille in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode “Banks Shot.” But, otherwise, most billiards movie cue sticks remain nameless and are of relatively little value.

The second idea is the use of illusions to win a game.  Of course, billiards movies are replete with trick shots, and some are so fantastic that they appear to be magical. So, perhaps it’s a fine line separating magic and world-class pool-playing.  After all, is it any wonder that world billiards legend Efren Reyes goes by the nickname “The Magician”?

What’s My Line?

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Salvador Dalí. Walt Disney. Eleanor Roosevelt. Lucille Ball. Alfred Hitchcock. Walt Frazier. Althea Gibson. Dizzy Gillespie. Aretha Franklin. Groucho Marx. Jesse Owens. Vidal Sassoon. Barbara Walters. Orson Welles. Gore Vidal. Sean Connery. Along with hundreds of others, these celebrities all had one thing in common.  Care to guess?

What's My LineThey all appeared on the famous panel game show What’s My Line?  And to this pantheon of household names, we can also add two renowned billiards players, Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats, who appeared on the show September 2, 1962 and January 17, 1965, respectively.

What’s My Line? aired in the United States on CBS initially from 1950 to 1967, making it the longest running U.S. primetime network game show. Moderated by John Daly, the game required four “celebrity” panelists to question a contestant in order to determine his or her occupation, with panelists occasionally having to identify a celebrity “mystery guest” by name. Though there were a number of panelists during the 17-year run, a majority of the episodes had a panel that included columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, actress Arlene Francis, and Random House Publishing founder Bennett Cerf.

Willie “Mr. Pocket Billiards” Mosconi, of course, was (and still is) considered one of the greatest pool players in history. He won the World Straight Pool Championship an unmatched 15 times, and he set the straight pool world record in 1954 for pocketing 526 consecutive balls in an exhibition match.

In the What’s My Line? episode featuring Mr. Mosconi as the mystery guest, the billiards legends signs in as Mr. X to avoid recognition. The panel tasked with identifying his profession (“world pocket-billiard champion”) consists of Ms. Francis, Ms. Kilgallen, Mr. Cerf, as well as the flamboyant composer and pianist Liberace. 

Knowing only that Mr. X is salaried, deals in a service, and hails from New Jersey, the panel establishes that Mr. X is an indoor entertainer for a profit-making organization who has appeared on television, but otherwise fails miserably to guess his vocation.  When the host ultimately reveals that Mr. X is Willie Mosconi, the panel erupts into a chorus of ohs, ahs, and “Yes, indeed.” He then closes his appearance by discussing his role as technical advisor on The Hustler, and then giving the audience a lexical lesson on the origin of the term “pool.” 

What's My LineThe episode featuring Minnesota Fats is also available to watch on YouTube here.  New York Fats, aka Rudolf Wanderone, was a pool player and hustler who assumed the name Minnesota Fats in 1961 after the release of The Hustler, starring Jackie Gleason as the fictional character Minnesota Fats. Though he appropriated the moniker and was only a decent player, Minnesota Fats quickly became one of the world’s most famous billiards players, appearing in movies (The Player), starring on game shows (Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats), authoring books (The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies), and headlining video games (Minnesota Fats – Sega Genius).

In this Season 16 episode of What’s My Line?, mystery guest Mr. Fats enters by signing in as Rudolf Wanderone. His profession, which the panelists must guess in 10 or less turns, is “professional pocket billiards player.” The panel, which includes Ms. Francis, Ms. Kilgallen, Mr. Cerf, as well as author and comedian Alan King, are not blindfolded, as they often are with celebrities who are visually recognizable to the general public. Though the panel determines he is an indoor performer who uses “props,” moves around a good deal, requires skill and dexterity, is an expert/champion in sports, and has been seen on television, they fail to guess his identity.

What's My LineWhen the host Mr. Daly finally reveals his identity, eliciting applauses, head shakes, and an “Oh Yes!” from Ms. Francis, Mr. Daly goes on to reinforce the myth that Mr. Fats “came to great fame” because he was portrayed by Jackie Gleason in The Hustler, which, of course, was entirely inaccurate. Mr. Daly goes on to cite other parts of Mr. Fats’ resume, including that he was also Vice President at billiard table manufacturer Rozel Industries in Lincolnwood, Illinois.[1] Ironically, the fast-talking Mr. Fats has little opportunity to speak in the episode, often over-ruled by Mr. Daly, but he does have a classic in-character retort to Mr. Cerf’s ignorant question about the famous poker novel later adapted into a movie:

Mr. Cerf: Are you in The Cincinnati Kid? Are you one of the characters?

Mr. Fats: I am one of the characters whenever pool is concerned.

For Mr. Mosconi, What’s My Line? was but one of three game show appearances he made.  He also showed up on To Tell the Truth in 1958 and I’ve Got a Secret in 1962. As noted above, Mr. Fats adored the limelight and parlayed his celebrity into a starring role on Minnesota Fats Hustles the Pros in 1967 and then on Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats from 1968 to 1971.

[1]       Rozel, formed in 1963, sold pool tables and accessories under the name Minnesota Fats Billiard & Leisure Centers. In 1980, the five Minnesota Fats stores were converted to Video King outlets. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1985.

 

Dirty Pool

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A common movie trope is the pairing of two adversaries who suddenly find shared ground against a larger enemy.  Thor and Loki uniting against the Dark Elves (Thor: The Dark World).  Rocky and Apollo partnering to defeat Clubber Lang (Rocky III).  Professor X and Magneto setting aside their differences to combat William Stryker (X2: X-Men). Maverick and Iceman channeling their testosterone to fight the Russians (Top Gun).

Dirty PoolThe list goes on and on. But one entry unlikely to be on your radar are the two pool players who star in the entertaining two-minute animated film Dirty Pool. Created in 2016 by Canadian animator Brent Forrest, the film was a finalist at the 2016 Los Angeles Cinefest and was a winner at the 2016 MindField Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Set in a pool hall with a cool jazz background track, Dirty Pool pits two men against one another in a game of pool. The film begins with all the standard pre-game rituals of billiards, including cue assembly, chalking, and racking.  One of the men exudes confidence, the other is nervous Nellie.  When one opponent sinks the 8-ball on the break, a minor tussle occurs, setting off a Rube Goldbergian set of escalating events. Bulbs break, cue sticks clatter, a fire extinguisher goes off, and a lone 8-ball hurls across the pool hall breaking the beer steins of a trio of (much) larger men. And, thus, a new shared enemy is born. The film, which Mr. Forrest worked for a year after hours and on weekends, is available to watch here.

I only learned about the film two months ago when Mr. Forrest contacted me about it.  He kindly responded to my questions via email.  Excerpts of that exchange follow.

Why did you create Dirty Pool?

When I was very young and people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was always a Disney Animator.  In my last year of high school, I got an internship at a small studio in Toronto. In time, I started assisting with shots and gradually learned the ins and outs of production and watched as the studio shifted from 2D to 3D.  Instead of going to college I stayed there for six years.

In the years since then I have been working “in animation” but mostly doing special effects, compositing, rigging, modelling, editing, basically everything but character work.  I still want to animate, but my demo reel doesn’t have much character animation on it, and no one is going to hire an animator without a strong reel.  So, I decided to make my own film – focusing strictly on animation.  That’s why I used the free Malcolm rig – this wasn’t about rigging or modelling or being a “generalist” (I hate that term), this was all about animation.  It’s a passion project, but with a set goal.

You said it’s largely based on a true story.  Can you elaborate?

​We spent so much time at the pool hall next door, the boss eventually bought a table for the studio.  We had our own team on the league, and the relationship between the two players is how I saw my own relationship to my old mentors.​  This was an idea that was born in the early days of my career, playing pool with other animators from that studio.

Why is the film dedicated to the Charlotte Room?

The Charlotte Room is the pool hall where we used to play.  It [closed in 2015], another casualty of the unending condo development in Toronto.  I tried to recreate the environment from photos and memory.

You indicated you improved the ending. What changes to the ending did you make?

Dirty Pool​Originally, the ball just went flying then we cut to the pint glasses being knocked over. My wife suggested I add a series of escalating events with the ball crashing around. Since it didn’t require any more character animation I set up a series of effects shots – a little bit of everything, shattering glass, soft-body dynamics, sparks, fluids, flashing red lights.  It took about three weeks to add.

Why do you describe Dirty Pool as a “timeless tale of good vs not so good”?

I see a lot of animated films described as ‘deep ​testament’ to this that or the other.  Mine is just a cartoon.  A pratfall, gag upon gag.  I wanted to take the piss out of the more serious short animated films. Mine wasn’t about the “duality of man” or the “perseverance of the human spirit,” it was just about fun.

What is your personal experience with pool?

​Always make sure everyone is watching when you attempt that huge cross table bank shot.  No one will care if you don’t make it but everyone will remember if you do.  Oh, and have a little dance prepared for when you sink it.

To learn more about Mr. Forrest or to contact him directly, visit his website.