Unlike film remakes, which occur constantly (Annie, Robocop, and Godzilla are shining examples just from 2014), television remakes are a far less frequent phenomena.[1] There have been a few notable examples over the last decade, such as Hawaii Five-O (1968, 2010), Charlie’s Angels (1976, 2011), and Knight Rider (1982, 2008), but otherwise, it’s a rare practice, as most TV remakes fare dismally compared to their pioneering predecessors.
Certainly, one shining example of this unfortunate trend is The New Odd Couple, which was a remake of the multiple, Emmy-nominated series The Odd Couple that ran from 1970 to 1975. The New Odd Couple ran on ABC from 1982-1983 and lasted just 16 episodes. The characters of Felix Unger, the prissy neat-freak, and Oscar Madison, the fun-loving slob, were reprised with an African-American cast, with Ron Glass replacing Tony Randall as Felix and Desmond Wilson replacing Jack Klugman as Oscar.
Of the 16 episodes, 8 were literally carbon copies of episodes from the original 1970s sitcom. That octet included The New Odd Couple –“The Hustler”(November, 1982) billiards episode, which recycled the script from The Odd Couple – “The Hustler” (February, 1973) billiards episode. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate the newer version of “The Hustler,” or find out more information about it, so I beseech my readers: If you can help me locate this episode, please contact me directly.
It’s ill-fated the series did not find an audience in time, given its starring talent. Ron Glass was coming off eight successful seasons on the Emmy-winning sitcom Barney Miller. Demond Wilson had spent five incredible years playing Lamont, the younger half of the junkyard dealing duo on Sanford & Son. (Billiards enthusiasts take note: there is an enjoyable Sanford & Son episode, “A House is Not a Pool Room,” that is worth watching.) But, after starring in The New Odd Couple, neither Glass nor Wilson had a breakout role again.
Interestingly, there is one other famous television remake that intersects with billiards: The Twilight Zone, a series that multiple producers have attempted to remake, with only limited success. Of course, the original series featured one of the best billiards television episodes of all time – “A Game of Pool.” That 1961 episode was remade in 1989 as “A Game of Pool” (identical except for the completely different and inferior ending) as part of the late-80s revival of the series. The series was then remade again in 2002, only to be cancelled after one season. (This time there was no recycling of the famous billiards episode.)
All of which supports the original observation: tread carefully with television remakes…even with billiards.
[1] I am focusing only on the intra-US market and therefore excluding the common practice of remaking foreign TV shows for the US market (e.g., American Idol, All in the Family) or remaking US shows (e.g., The Golden Girls, Married…With Children) for a foreign market.
The John Doe had suffered blunt force trauma to the face and a stabbing in the neck before being buried alive. The initial clues: a piece of green worsted wool, a copper and zinc alloy in the victim’s wounds, some traces of magnesium and silicon, a tiny shard of glass, and some skin from a coral snake not endemic to the region. All just another day on the job for the Las Vegas criminalists in the recently-aired (December 14, 2014), fifteenth season billiards episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – “Dead Rails,” available to watch here.
Melanie Liburd as Natalie “The Hornet” Barrow
CSI is the second-longest running scripted, non-animated, US, primetime series on the air today. The weekly CBS drama, which features a team of Sin City criminal investigators who rely on forensic science to solve grizzly murders, has even spawned two successful spin-offs, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. The elements of the hour-long show include mysterious clues; elaborate mixes of forensics, science, logic and deduction; a decent soundtrack; a panoply of Las Vegas denizens, from high-rollers to low-lives; frequent plot twists and red herrings; special guest appearances; goofy one-liners; and a remarkable, if not unbelievable, conclusion.
Sharon Osborne as a pool tournament organizer
CSI – “Dead Rails” is no exception. The episode has everything from the aforementioned opening clues to the casting of media personality and reality star Sharon Osbourne as women’s billiard tournament organizer Elise Massey; from the impractically, scantily attired Melanie Liburd as Natalie “The Hornet” Barrow to a serpentine storyline that involves pool hustlers, shadow corporations, the mob, brothels, and a tinge of postmodern feminism. There are some inane leaps in logic, such as recognizing a shard of glass must be related to a billiards trick shot, and the ending is preposterous, even for CSI standards.
No matter. After 758 episodes, which have included everything from cannibalistic cheerleaders, furry fandom, and extreme bowling, to midnight jousting, sadomasochism, and Star Trek fetishism, the CSIfranchise finally devoted an episode to billiards in “Dead Rails.”
Let’s return to the episode’s initial clues. While most viewers may have associated worsted wool with expensive suits, billiards aficionados know that (green) worsted wool is also top choice for super-smooth, super-fast American pool. Magnesium and silicon are the components of talcum powder, which of course, is a staple for players to keep their hands dry. And, copper and zinc combine to make brass, which is used is in the head of some bridge sticks.
The other two clues are a little more esoteric, if not downright implausible. The snakeskin, as we later learn, comes from the grip of a pool cue. That’s not totally far-fetched, as snakes, lizards and even ostriches have been used to make pool grips, though presumably if the grip were “shedding,” it might be time to retire the cue stick.
The famous champagne trick shot.
The shard of glass, which comes from a champagne flute, is the improbable clue that leads investigator Morgan Brody (Elizabeth Harnois) to make the billiards linkage. She exclaims she’s seen trick shot artists make a “champagne shot,” in which the object ball whizzes through a series of carefully planted champagne flutes without touching a single one. Then, when the trick shot artist nails the shot, “they like to take their stick and smash it through the champagne glasses in victory.” OK, I’ll buy this is a documented trick shot. (You can watch real-world master Florian “Venomn” Kohler perform it in this video at 2:21.) But, the idea the artist then sprays glass all over the table? That’s beyond absurd.
Beau Runnigen makes a cameo.
The champagne flute coda notwithstanding, for the most part, the billiards references sprinkled throughout the episode show that the writers developed a familiarity with, if not a respect for, the history of billiards. There is mention of “pre-ban ivory cues,” the game of one-pocket, and the hustling technique of using one’s own cue ball. The episode’s name, “Dead Rails,” is an insider reference to a bumper intentionally deadened by a hustler to give a home-court advantage. Pool is also reverently equated with chess as a “silent game of war.” Much credit is likely due to Beau Runningen, a West Coast pool player, who worked as a technical advisor on “Dead Rails.” (He also makes a non-speaking cameo as the referee for a tournament match.)
Sure, there is the age-old controversy about whether to equate billiards and hustling in the popular imagination. (This is not a trivial issue given last season’s CSI had a US viewership of almost 12 million, according to Nielsen data.) But, the fact is that billiards and hustling do have an intertwined history. (If you need convincing, check out Freddy “The Beard” Bentivegna’s opus, The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers.)
Personally, I would gladly indulge public fantasy about the seedy side of pool if it translated into 12 million people getting more excited about the sport. When The Hustlerwas released in 1961, it was estimated that the billiards industry increased by 1000-200%.[1] Maybe CSI – “Dead Rails” could have a fraction of that impact. After all, Sharon Osborne’s character may be fictional, but her sentiment that “billiards popularity is waning” is very, very real.
For most billiards players, the greatest health concerns stemming from the game are Repetitive Motion Injuries (RMI) in the hand and wrist area, which are caused by the sudden and repetitious application of force (using the cue stick) on the forearms, wrists and hand areas. But, for the players who haunt the post-apocalyptic outback of Hard Knuckle, a 1987 made-for-television Australian movie, the far greater concern is the “Knuckle Table,” on which a botched shot means the severing of the top third of one’s finger.
Within this cinematic dystopia, Lex Marinos directs Steve Bisley (mildly memorable for appearing as Jim Goose in Mad Max) as Harry, a nomad garbed in sand-beaten clothes, with silly pool ball earrings and a pet Chihuahua. Finally sober, he has returned to an unnamed town to reclaim his old motorbike and sidecar from Top Dog, the local pool champion who is oddly unintimidating given his stature and reputation in the watering hole where he resides.
Harry learns quickly that he can no longer simply challenge Top Dog to a billiards match. Rather, he has two options. His first option is find an agent, who will put up the minimum $2000 in stake-horse money only then to take 80% of the winnings. His second option is to challenge his opponent to a game on the Knuckle Table, which has a nondescript black domino perched atop it. Players must pocket their balls (all 17, marked with a mix of letters, symbols and numbers) without toppling the domino. If the domino falls, then the player must forfeit the top-third of his finger to a blood-crusted set of pincers, hinged to one end of the table. (This is why friends often ask one another, “Show me your hands!”) Fortunately, a player can resume playing, albeit with a distinctively smaller digit.
Opting to avoid the Knuckle Table, Harry recruits Eddie, a 13-year-old urchin, who may in fact be kin, to be his agent, but is still unable to play Top Dog until he works his way to the top. Though Harry beats his immediate opponent, Pedals, an acquaintance from better days, he is subsequently mugged, and his penury forces him to take his billiards-playing on the road to earn some money through hustling.
In one of the few enjoyable scenes, but one that is also a blatant rip-off from The Hustler, Harry pulls into some urban shanty, where he pretends to be hammered and make an “impossible” shot, thereby duping the regulars to bet their savings if he can repeat it, which, of course, he does.
But, Harry’s next attempt to hustle falls short when he pulls into a more upscale bar with near-topless go-go dancers and a white pool table bordered by glow lights. There, an opportunity to play is thwarted by the arrival of Top Dog, who has been shadowing Harry ever since his exodus from the pool hall. Top Dog, however, had also unwittingly insulted the bar proprietor, and for a brief moment, the only satisfactory resolution appears to be a de-fingering on the Knuckle Table.
Financial problems notwithstanding, Harry helps rescue Top Dog, an act of kindness which benefits him later in the movie when the two nemeses finally do have their billiards match, ironically on the Knuckle Table. That game, unfortunately, like so many other parts of this inane film, makes little actual sense, as Harry willingly sacrifices a digit to remove the domino from the table, and then purposefully scratches at the end, ceding the game to Top Dog.
Hard Knuckle seems to be aiming for a Mad Max meets The Hustler vibe. Instead, the post-apocalyptic setting never feels very uninviting or threatening. (Hell, Top Dog is heckled by a kid with a pea-shooter.) And, the billiards lack cinematic quality, suspense or realism. As one blogger noted, even the Knuckle Table, so prominently featured on the movie’s artwork, is only used twice in the film, and both times, the losing player seems to resume the game unaffected. Toward the end of the movie, Harry says, “Are we going to play pool or are we going to piss around?” Yeah, Hard Knuckle provides an answer…and it’s not about playing pool.
When asked, “What is your favorite billiards movie or TV episode?,” most the writers, actors and directors I have interviewed respond, understandably, by saying The Hustler or The Color of Money. (I would reply the same way.) But, Oliver Crocker, director of the forthcoming snooker film, Extended Rest, surprised me with his answer: “Pot Black,” the Season 6, December, 1970 episode of the British sitcom Steptoe and Son.
At the risk of Anglican dismay, I admit in full transparency that I had never heard of the series, which was broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, and again from 1970 to 1974. Steptoe and Son focused on the inter-generational conflicts of a father (Wilfrid Brambell) and son (Harry H. Corbett) who run a rag-and-bone (i.e., junk collection) business on Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd’s Bush, London. The series was remade in the US as Sanford and Son.[1]
Like many Steptoe and Son episodes, “Pot Black” featured only the father Albert and the son Harold. The full episode is available to watch here.
http://youtu.be/d4KV9MYkpjE
“Pot Black” begins with Harold’s one-sided decision to bring an old snooker table into the house so that he can rediscover his skills for the game. Albert, characteristically grumpy, believes there is no room for the table in the house, but he is overruled by his son in one of their umpteenth disagreements, who is convinced the table will fit. Moreover, Harold conceives that having a snooker table in the house will finally enable him to beat his father in a game, as history has repeatedly sided with his father, who effortlessly and routinely trounces him in games whenever they compete.
The table, of course, does not fit, albeit the bull-headed Harold refuses to admit it. A comedic sequence ensues with Harold challenging his father to a match and overruling his protestations. But, the game does not go well. Butting up against walls, and forced to take shots leaning in through windows, Harold continues to miscue, potting the cue ball on every shot. (Fans of Seinfeld will recall a similar claustrophobic pool table shtick with Kramer and Frank Costanza at the end of “The Doll” episode.) Eventually, Harold snaps a cue stick in rage, conceding that his game is hamstrung by the lack of space, and then insisting that they continue their match by bringing the snooker table outside.
As the hours go by, both players struggle to make shots and the score remains about even. Albert’s insistence that he will catch pneumonia and his subsequent plea to end the game at 3AM is overruled. Similarly, a lightning storm, which frightens the father and drenches the table, fails to stop the game, though ample squeegeeing is now required in between shots.
Finally, after a seeming eternity, Harold squeaks out a win. After doing a brief victory jig and proclaiming he has a “natural aptitude for the game,” Harold condescendingly offers to give his father “a few lessons tomorrow and show him exactly where he went wrong.” Albert congratulates his son and humbly acknowledges his own inferiority.
[SPOILER ALERT]But when his son walks off, Albert returns to the table, grimacing, and proceeds to make a series of incredible trick shots, revealing to the audience the snooker skills he intentionally did not share with his son, thereby having the last laugh.
The “Pot Black” episode took its name from the BBC televised series Pot Black, which featured annual snooker tournaments held across the United Kingdom from 1969 to 1986. The series transformed snooker from a minority sport played by a few professionals into one of the most popular sports in the United Kingdom. In fact, an interesting linkage between the Pot Black series and the “Pot Black” episode is Sydney Lee, a snooker player from the 1950s, who was both the technical advisor on the snooker sequences in “Pot Black” and a popular referee on the Pot Black series.
[1] In fact, Sanford and Son had a 1973 billiards episode, “A House is Not a Poolroom,”which loosely borrowed from the Steptoe and Son – “Pot Black” episode in that the residence does not have room for a new billiards table.
It is difficult today to conceive the challenge billiards evangelist and promoter Frank Oliva, and his partner, sportscaster “Whispering” Joe Wilson, faced in launching the billiards game-show Ten-Twenty in 1959.
Billiards columnist George Fels captured the time period well: “There was no The Hustler except in fiction form, where it barely created a ripple. There was no Johnson City or its hustlers’ jamborees, therefore no “Minnesota Fats” in the national eye, nor his fabled rivalry with all-time champion Willie Mosconi. In other words, the two men had absolutely no momentum of any kind going for them to support the pitching of their idea.”[1]
Fortunately, Oliva was a hustler – not the pejorative version that has become the archetype of billiards players in movies, but the unwavering type, who would pursue a goal with bottomless passion and courageous conviction.
In describing his mentor and teacher in an AZ Billiards Forum message thread years ago, Scott Lee (of Pool Knowledge) said, “Frank [Oliva] was an innovator, a master teacher…and an all-around good guy, who loved pool…All he ever wanted was to help pool players find a way to make legitimate money at pool, without having to resort to gambling.”
Oliva recognized that for billiards to achieve public popularity, it must expand beyond the pool parlor scene to the television screen. Bowling provided a great analog and forerunner. In the late 1950s, ten-pin bowling went mainstream, entering millions of homes on Friday nights, thanks to hugely popular televised shows like Jackpot Bowling.
The key was how to translate billiards to the television medium. In 1958, Oliva created a new game, Ten-Twenty, that was a variation of classic 14-1 straight pool. Each match consisted of eight innings of play. Each player could score up to 10 points each per inning. In the eighth inning, if a player scored 10 points, he could continue shooting for an extra 20 points. A perfect match score would be 100 points. Fouls would cost 1 point each. The matches were timed and if it ended before the eighth inning, the scores would be taken from the last fully completed inning. The full rules are available here. Oliva’s brilliance was acknowledging the need for time constraints, and then introducing the concept of timed play to professional pool in a way that could substantially, yet fairly, impact the outcome.
But, creating the game was only the first of many challenges. To pitch it to a broadcasting network, Oliva had to prove there was sufficient interest and financial support. Oliva successfully wrangled 82 different billiards parlors from the Chicago area to pitch in. (Many years later, Oliva elaborated, “Brunswick was main sponsor of the show, along with several distributors, manufacturers, and billiards rooms…Some that I remember were Hanson Billiard Mfg, Sydney Laner Co, and National Billiards…we probably had more sponsors than any show since.”[2])
Finally, there was the issue of player support. Unlike future US billiards game shows (i.e. Ballbreakers), Ten-Twenty was not designed for amateurs; it was intended to attract the top players of the era. The lure of playing on television of course helped, but so did the financial rewards. The best players could win more than $1000 ($8,160 inflated in today’s real dollars), or even $5000 for a perfect game. And, since “each week’s winner would return the following week to do battle with a new qualifying top contender, seldom did anyone hold the championship beyond two weeks.”[3]
Frank Oliva
This model would prove successful in attracting a who’s-who among billiards greats. Some of the players that appeared on the show included Joe Procita, Joe Diehl, Don Tozer, Charlie Cacciapaglia, Mike Eufemia, Cisero Murphy, Nick Oliva, “Little” Joey Canton, Jimmy Caras, Willis Covington, “Cowboy” Jimmy Moore, and Irving “The Deacon” Crane.
Armed with a masterful game design, a battalion of sponsors, and a commitment from many of the country’s leading pool-players, Oliva was able to convince WBKB, an ABC affiliate in Chicago, to air Ten-Twenty, starting in 1959. The 30-minute show ran was picked up in many cities, though it never achieved national syndication. Oliva played the role of show producer, referee and player recruiter. His partner, “Whispering” Joe Wilson, who was the Howard Cosell of sports-casting in the 1950s and 1960s, provided the sotto voce play-by-play.
Most of the Ten-Twenty episodes are no longer available (and sadly may no longer exist), but fortunately the entire match between “Cowboy” Jimmy Moore and Irving “The Deacon” Crane is available on YouTube split across five separate clips. You can watch them here.
For those not up on their billiards history, Moore and Crane were two of the world’s best. Moore, a straight-pool master, who was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America’s Hall of Fame in 1994, won the United States National Pocket Billiards Championship in 1958. (He was also a technical advisor on billiards-related scenes in television and film, including My Living Doll and The Family Jewels.) Crane, another straight-pool master, won numerous championships, including six World Crown billiards titles in his career. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978.
This particular episode not only showcased their incredible skill (a jubilant Wilson remarks at one point, “[That was] one of the greatest shots I’ve ever seen.”), buy also showed how even the greatest can make simple mistakes (check out the rare miss by Crane in Part 4 at 2:33). It also serves as an interesting time capsule, with its public service announcement from top leading man Jeff Chandler about mental illness, which he describes as “America’s number one health problem,” as well as its advertisement for ABC’s new show about the supernatural, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond.
Sadly, Ten-Twenty was short-lived, lasting maybe 13 weeks in total.[4] There are scant details available about why the show did not experience the same trajectory of success that occurred in bowling game shows like Jackpot Bowling and Make That Spare. It would require two more years before billiards truly burst into the public imagination with the release of The Hustler in 1961.
Nor was our real hustler, Frank Oliva, deterred for long. His passion for billiards led him to found and organize in the Oliva Women’s Pool League, the country’s most enduring, women’s billiard league. And, his determination to get billiards its deserved national audience also led him back to television in 1967, when he partnered once again with Wilson to launch the game show Minnesota Fats Hustles the Pros.
Exploding eight balls. Multi-ball trick shots. Cats pitching cue balls. Girl-on-girl pool brawls. A young woman shooting billiards in a revealing bunny outfit. Yep, figured by now I had your attention.
Welcome to the imagination of Hiro Mashima, the creator and illustrator of Fairy Tail, a Japanese manga series that was subsequently adapted into an anime series beginning in 2009. The billiards snippets referenced above are from the episode “Moulin Rouge” (“Mūran Rūju”), released on October 11, 2014, toward the end of the series’ fifth season. The full episode is available to watch here.
Both in its original manga (Japanese comic book) and subsequent anime (Japanese animated art form) format, Fairy Tail is aimed at the shōnen demographic, which is a broad male audience, though the target age range is probably 12-18 years old. As such, the anime features strong male characters, attractive young women with gravity-defying proportions, tight-knit teams, and plenty of high-action battle sequences.
https://youtu.be/m3nQvPr-Tz4
Fairy Tail follows the adventures of the excessively curvaceous 17-year-old wizard, Lucy Heartfilia,[1] after she joins the Fairy Tail wizards’ guild and partners with Natsu Dragneel, who is searching for his missing foster father. Over time, the team expands to many wizards, including Erza Scarlet, an equally sexy, buxom wizard who is widely considered to be the most powerful female member of the guild.
The “Moulin Rouge” episode begins with two of the Fairy Tail Guild wizards, Gray Fullbuster and Juvia Lockser, returning from a job with a new pool table, courtesy of an appreciative client. Gray, showing off not only his chiseled physique but also his otherworldly pool prowess, proceeds to make a series of incredible shots, wowing his fellow wizards and causing Juvia to ask aloud whether he will “poke [her] with his cue stick next.”
Natsu, less familiar with the subtleties of pool, also picks up a cue stick, but confusing the game with baseball, starts smacking pool balls around the hall, causing considerable havoc and wizardly mischief. The hullabaloo wakes reigning ass-kicker and S-class swordsman Erza Scarlet, who recounts the tale of her first introduction to billiards.
The episode then flashes back to Erza some time ago walking into a pool hall. The hall’s gaggle of male patrons, unaware that Erza is a wizard, jape that pool may be “difficult for a woman.” Confronted with such derision, Erza makes a questionable costume change (though not questionable to the series’ pubescent viewers) into a revealing bunny costume that even Hugh Hefner might endorse. Then, picking up the cue stick and channeling her wizardly pool-playing power, she – literally – breaks the pool balls.
The pool hall schlubs, unsure whether to ogle in her presence or duck for cover, start screaming willy-nilly only when they glance her Fairy Tail guild tattoo. Coincidentally, there is another female wizard that has been recently claiming membership to the guild and stealing from the local proprietors.
Outraged by the notion of a bandit masquerading as a guild member, Erza opts to shed the bunny for a hot waitress outfit and goes next door to the sweets shop to confront the green-haired, scantily-clad, uber-bodacious impersonator known as Mulan Rouge.[2] Unfazed by Erza’s cease-and-desist threats, Mulan naturally fights back by stealing Mulan’s panties (?!) and leaving the scene. Additional fighting ensues, including Erza punching Mulans’ head through the pool hall wall and deflecting Mulan’s bullets with her sword, while simultaneously pocketing billiards balls. Ultimately, Erza extracts a confession from Mulan that her real name is Bisca Mulan, a destitute immigrant who feigns a Fairy Tale guild affiliation in order to make ends meet and feed her sick friend (and mouse) Sonny, which hides in her cleavage.
Fortunately, Erza takes pity on Mulan and extends an invitation for her to join the Fairy Tail guild if she’ll renounce her lawless ways. That’s when the flashback ends and we see Bisca, now with long green hair and perhaps even skimpier outfits, reunited with Erza and reminiscing about their first encounter, which leads to them once more playing pool.
As the popularity of anime increases, it will be interesting to see how it intersects with billiards. Until recently, the only “game” in town was Death Billiards, a 26-minute psycho-fantastic film from Madhouse Studios that released in March 2013. Then, one week after A-1 Pictures and Satelight aired the “Moulin Rouge” episode of Fairy Tail, A-1 Pictures aired a billiards episode of Magic Kaito 1412 entitled “Hustler vs Magician.” And on Halloween this year, Madhouse Studios set the Twitterverse aflame with the announcement that Death Billiards would become the basis for a new televised anime series called Death Parade in 2015.
[1] Lucy’s presumed measurements are a 37-inch bust, 23-inch waist, and 36-inch hips. In comparison, Barbie’s measurements are probably a 36-inch bust, 18-inch waist, and 33-inch hips.
[2] Mulan Rouge is not only a variation of the Baz Luhrmann Moulin Rouge musical with Nicole Kidman, but also the spiritual birthplace of the modern form of the can-can, a seductive dance originally introduced by courtesans.
After experiencing a significant dry spell, billiards movies and television series are poised to make a resounding comeback, starting in 2015. Just last week, the Twitterverse lit up like a glowstick with the announcement that the anime short film Death Billiards would be released in 2015 as a TV anime series entitled Death Parade. David Barroso has been working feverishly to bring his billiards crime drama 8-Ball to the film festival circuit in 2015. Documentarian Angel Levine is aiming to bring her seven-year film opus, Raising the Hustler, to Sundance in 2015. And, across the ocean, director Oliver Crocker is hoping his new snooker film, Extended Rest, will hit screens in 2015.
Best of all, for billiards cinephiles, it might be an extended honeymoon. In 2016, pool movie-lovers should brace themselves for the fingers-crossed release of Ride the 9, a hardcore billiards film from director/producer Blake West and actor/executive producer Jordan Marder. Many may remember first hearing about Ride the 9 back in 2011, when the film’s two-minute teaser, complete with killer soundtrack, gritty New Orleans set locations, and jaw-dropping trick shots courtesy of Florian “Venom” Kohler, first made the YouTube rounds.
Billiards fans were salivating everywhere, posting comments that were some variation of the following: “OMG, I would watch this in a heartbeat.” For the next two years, aficionados regularly monitored the film’s preproduction. But, starting July 2013, the film’s principals became relatively radio-silent, and it looked like Ride the 9 could become “the great film that never was.”
Well, thank the pool gods, Mr. West and Mr. Marder are back, with a passion, commitment, improved story, and better financing to help Ride the 9 crash-land onto the silver screen. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. West and Mr. Marder a few weeks ago, and am now 10 times more jazzed for the film’s eventual release.
For starters, these guys – especially Mr. Marder – have pool in the blood. Proving the suggestive power of the medium of film, Mr. Marder was first introduced to pool around the age of 14 by watching The Color of Money and The Hustler, which then led him to spend the next decade lurking in Bronx pool halls, where he “challenged every guy in 9-ball…and lost constantly.” Eventually, he got “sucked into pool” and experienced enough “sketchy situations” to have the resolve not to make Ride the 9 about the underbelly of billiards, but rather about the sport’s heroics.
According to Mr. West, the exact origin for Ride the 9 was a pool game five years ago in New Orleans at Le Bon Temps Roule. (Author’s Note: this is the same Magazine Street watering hole where I honed my pool game for many years. Thumbs up.) “I had just safetied Jordan, when he did an incredible masse shot to sink the 8 ball. Seeing he was such a good player, we decided we needed to do a pool movie,” explained Mr. West.
The basic story of Ride the 9 is that Ethan (Jordan Marder), a pool hustling prodigy who mysteriously disappeared a decade ago, suddenly shows up in New Orleans seeking redemption, only to find an insidious sociopath hell bent on revenge. The title refers to the lingo used in 9-ball when a player goes for the high-risk, high-reward shot of caroming a ball into the 9-ball for a win, rather than trying to run the balls in low-to-high sequential order. Thus, “riding the nine” can be associated with desperation. Or, as Mr. Marder explains, “Riding the nine is about taking chances…learning to go for it without being reckless. That’s the lesson of the film.”
But, the reason behind my titillation is less the story, and more the intersection of three core elements at the heart of great billiards movies: the billiards-playing, the locale, and the music.
Mr. Marder assured me that audiences will see as much pool-playing in Ride the 9 as they saw in The Color of Money. (In other words, a helluva lot pool!) Though the film is “not about pool, pool is integral to the story…it’s the glue.” That’s one of the reasons he reached out early to Florian Kohler. The innovative trick shot legend was happy to help by doubling as Ethan for some key shots. Though Mr. Kohler won’t have a big role in the film, he will be involved in the final tournament sequence, and hopefully will serve as a technical advisor, as well. Other pool players will also make cameos, though none are yet booked, as the film will be “a nod to people who know pool,” according to Mr. West. Added Mr. Marder, “I don’t want any pool player to say that’s not right. We want real authenticity.”
As the idea for the film was birthed in New Orleans, Mr. Marder and Mr. West have decided to film the rest of the movie in the Crescent City, too (and even have named one of their characters Big Easy). This makes it only the second billiards movie in the last 35 years, behind The Baltimore Bullet, a terribly made billiards movie with a high profile cast, to use New Orleans as a primary venue. According to Mr. West, the “story was born there. New Orleans has the gritty feeling we’re going for. Its soul is from New Orleans.” (Ironically, though, the bulk of the pool sequences were shot at Buffalo Billiards in Metairie, the suburban, antiseptic neighbor to New Orleans.)
And then there is the music. Mr. Marder has said that using great music is critical for the movie. If the use of “Young Men Dead” by the Black Angels, a psychedelic rock band from Austin, in the teaser is any indication, then we should expect a film propelled by an explosive soundtrack.
Still, 2016 is a long way away, and the duo are candid that while they have generated some significant equity to produce a film with a $1-2million budget, and not some “super indy film,” there are still a lot of things that have to go right. As Mr. Marder shared, “our dream scenario is to be in pre-production in early 2015, shooting late spring and early summer, then the joy of post-production, [in order for the]movie to be distributed in mid-2016.”
That’s our dream as well.
To stay engaged in the progress of Ride the 9, you can go to the film’s website or follow Jordan Marder (@jordansmarder) and Blake West (@blakewest) on Twitter.
What is it about a pool hall that seems to instigate unbridled paroxysms of rage, extended periods of bedlam, and brutal bouts of barbarity, at least in the imaginations of filmmakers, screenwriters and producers?
Scene from Gangster High (2006)
In their defense, the linkage is not totally unfounded. In a five-year study done by the Research Institute on Addictions at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the researchers found that “bar characteristics that are related to the occurrence of violence included: smokiness, noise, temperature, dirt, darkness, crowding, poor ventilation, the presence of competitive games (e.g., darts, pool), bouncers, and more male than female employees.”[1] On the other hand, a more recent study from 2012 revealed that among the “hot spots” for barroom aggression, the pool-playing area accounted for just 4% of the incidents of violence, as opposed to on or near the dance floor (31%), at the bar (16%), or at tables (13%).[2]
Yes, there’s a scintilla of veracity underlying the pool hall free-for-all, but it’s hardly significant enough to warrant all the attention it generates on the silver screen. Nonetheless, movies abound with pool hall pandemonium. Perhaps, it’s the butcherly utility embodied in a cue stick, 59 inches of tapered wood, that can be used to whack, jab, puncture, impale, skewer, bonk or bludgeon. Or, maybe it’s the spherical perfection of a billiards ball, hardened with a phenolic resin, that invite the amateur pugilist to wield it for all sorts of sanguinary purposes.
In any event, if there’s a pool table in a movie (especially one that is otherwise not about billiards), it’s likely going to be ground zero for some kind of mayhem and melee. Thus, I present the TOP 10 BILLIARDS BRAWLS of all time. Let the countdown begin:
10. Out for Justice. In this 1991 thriller, Steven Seagal plays a Brooklyn cop hell-bent on revenge after his best friend is murdered. Part of tracking down the killer involves frequenting a pool hall where the local patrons are not forthcoming with essential information. This prompts Seagal to unleash the whup-ass, starting with a towel-wrapped cue ball, followed by some (cue) stick fighting and a pool table judo takedown.
9. Velvet Smooth. The blaxploitation era of the 1970s produced many landmark films and iconic characters, including Superfly, Coffy, and Shaft. But, Velvet Smooth (played by Johnnie Hill) would not even crack the top 100. This 1976 low-budget dud has some of the worst choreographed fighting to appear in Technicolor. And while the billiards scene is so (unintentionally) bad, it earns a place on my list as one of the few movies to feature a woman meting out a cue stick drubbing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiADJJKG3zY
8. Ninja Holocaust. This little-known, questionably-named, 1985 Hong Kong martial arts spectacle is likely light on plot, dialogue and other film-making indispensables. Still, the brawl that occurs around a snooker table is notable not only for the rapid-fire dispensing of the combatants, but also for the innovative use of a snooker ball as a temporary gag that is ultimately swallowed (?!) right before the ingestor is impaled on the taxidermied horns of some unfortunate ungulate.
7. Dead Presidents. The Hughes Brothers’ 1995 follow-up to their inaugural landmark film Menace II Society didn’t win favor with critics, but the pool hall scene, backed by James Brown’s “The Payback,” has all the visceral wallop of its predecessor. Anthony (Larenz Tate) and Cowboy (Terrence Howard) play a disquieting game of 8-ball that ends with Anthony becomes uncorked and beats Cowboy bloody with a cue stick all over the floor.
6. Force: Five. This 1981 action flick stars Chuck Norris BFF Richard Norton as a martial artist leading a team of martial artists on a rescue mission to save a senator’s daughter. After defeating an opponent in 8-ball, Norton quickly goes Australian-nutso when it appears his opponent will welch on a bet. Like Johnny Boy in Mean Streets, Norton uses the pool table as his playground for round kicking opponents and even makes smart use of a billiards rack to disarm an attacking cue-sticker. How Norton could shoot stick with that throwing star dangling from his neck I’ll never know.
5. The Krays. In the 1960s, Ronald and Reggie Kray were twin crime lords of London. The story of these underworld kingpins was brought to life in this 1990 biopic, starring real-life twins Gary and Martin Kemp. Known for ruthless acts of violence and intimidation, the Krays turned a snooker hall blood-red with their cutlasses in the graphically memorable “Say Thank You” scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhHWIiSOds
4. Mean Streets. Martin Scorsese’s iconic 1973 masterpiece about the daily violence of living on the streets of Little Italy should be mandatory viewing, ‘nuff said. That said, the ruckus that ensues when Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro) insults the pool hall proprietor is cinematic, hand-held, perfection, with a single camera darting among the pool tables as they become props in a feral, claustrophobic fight sequence that includes Johnny Boy hopping mad onto a table, waving off his attackers with kicks and cue stick. The full scene, choreographed over the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman,” is available to watch below.
3. Rush Hour. In 1998, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan starred as a pair of ill-matched cops, and in the process, launched a film series that collectively grossed about $850 million. In the original installment, Jackie Chan, a stranger to American culture and argot, begins a pool hall conversation with four poorly-chosen words, “What’s up, my nigga?,” thereby igniting a billiards ruction, complete with all the signature Jackie Chan acrobatics audiences love. Hopping over and under tables, parrying with cue sticks, clubbing with cue balls, this scene has it all.
2.Gangster High(original title: Pongryeok-sseokeul). Clocking in at more than seven minutes, the pool hall massacre in this 2006 South Korean film pivots from the hyperkinetic, with cue sticks clashing and feet flying, to the near balletic, with one man avenging his fallen comrade through a gruesome series of pool stick maneuvers. Heightening both the beauty and the tension is the switch to black-and-white, while Mahalia Jackson’s gospel spiritual, “Trouble of the World,” plays over the scene.
1. Carlito’s Way. “It’s magic time. After you see this shot, you’re going to give up your religious beliefs,” says Carlito (Al Pacino) in Brian De Palma’s award-winning 1993 crime drama. Pretending to set up one of his “famous trick shots,” Carlito uses the mirrored sunglasses of his opponent to see the gunman behind him, while he rockets a billiard ball, perched atop a cue chalk, into his opponent’s face. Now that’s a pool hall fight scene and getaway to remember!
So, there’s my Top 10 list of Billiards Brawls. Of course, there are a number of great pool halls skirmishes that didn’t make the list, but are nonetheless worthy of honorable mention, including Hard to Kill (1990), Boondock Saints (1999), Black Dynamite (2009), Trainspotting (1996), Code of Silence (1985), Die Bad (2000, South Korea), and Road House (1989). See a scene that should have made the cut? Let me know what movie would be on your Top 10. Otherwise, stay safe. You never know what might happen to you in a pool hall.
When asked how she ever learned to shoot pool so well, Rhoda Miller, the lifelike android played by the ever-sexy Julie Newmar, responds, “By computing the circumference of the spheres and the angles of trajectory plus the coordinates of the points of impact.” It’s a reasonable answer from a prototype robot built by the U.S. Air Force. It also establishes that Rhoda (aka AF 709) not only has the ability to learn new skills, but also that she will be able to play billiards nearly flawlessly (or, at least, until commanded to do otherwise by her caretaker, Dr. Bob McDonald, played by Bob Cummings).
The exchange described above is from the January, 1965, “Pool Shark”episode of the American science fiction sitcom My Living Doll, which aired for only 26 episodes on CBS. In the episode, Rhoda is recruited to hustle a wealthy pool shark in order to erase a debt indirectly owed by Dr. McDonald. Though Rhoda has never played pool, her ability to perfectly apply geometry and physics to the game enables her to shoot without error.
This is established by making a series of obligatory, but nonetheless eye-popping, trick shots, including the classic six ball “butterfly pool shot;” the famous two balls in the same pocket masse shot from The Hustler; a “railroad shot” (using the cue sticks as a railroad track); and a “paper bag shot,” in which the ball is hit with just enough momentum to enter a paper bag, flip it over, and exit the other side into the pocket. The full episode is available to watch on YouTube.
My Living Doll is hardly the only show to reduce billiards supremacy to physics and geometry, though it may have been the first. A quarter century later, the 1990 “Pool Hall Blues”episode of Quantum Leap enabled Dr. Sam Beckett to play masterful pool by relying on Al’s super-computer, which revealed the necessary angle for hitting every shot. Similarly, in the 1999 “Pool” episode of The Pretender, the prodigy Jarod becomes an ace billiards player through his “familiarity [with] the architectural theory of dynamic symmetry, as well as Descartes’ theory of coordinate geometry.”
What was, and remains, truly original about the “Pool Shark” episode of My Living Doll is embodying the geometry and physics aptitude inside a robot. Though it was pure science fiction in 1965, today, the notion of creating a robot that excels at pool, much the same way that IBM’s Deep Blue has become the definitive grandmaster of chess, has captured the imagination of scientists and inventors around the globe.
For starters, there is Deep Green, an industrial robot created by engineers at Queens University. The robot is “equipped with a cue and hung over a standard coin-op table. A digital camera reads the scene below and the robot’s computer brain compares it to 30 pre-stored images of an empty table, using the differences to decide where, and what color, the balls are. From there, the robot can nominate a ball and pocket and slide into action.”[1]
Then the robotic wizards of Willow Garage taught a Personal Robot 2 (PR2) to shoot pool. Created in response to a hackathon, the engineers spent one week teaching their robot hot to identify the pool table, locate a shot, and make it. They built it using their open source hardware platform and the ROS open source software library, which allowed them to adapt the existing FastFiz billiards software.[2]
Finally, there is the Munchen Robot, created by scientists from the Technische Universität München in Germany. This dual-armed robot relies on a “camera mounted above the table and advanced physics engines to assess and detect the best way to approach a game of pool and execute the perfect [shot].”[3]
Though these robots all shoot an impressive game, none are indefectible, making them a futuristic far cry from the can’t-miss android Rhoda Miller. In fact, it is only when Dr. McDonald “forces” Rhoda to adjust her shot by two degrees, does she inevitably miss. Julie Newmar clearly appears to have had fun making some of the trick shots, but her slapstick sense of humor really shines when she misses and must “act angry,” resulting in myriad forms of cue stick destruction.
Though the short-lived series was cancelled when it didn’t deliver the desired ratings, the show did yield Newmar her second Golden Globe nomination. Moreover and more important, with the abandonment of My Living Doll, Newmar was freed to assume the iconic role of Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman, in the 1966 Batman TV series, forever imprinting and arousing the minds of adolescents everywhere.
When Poolhall Junkies premiered in 2002, I remember thinking, “Damn! That’s an incredible roster of talent for a billiards movie.” The film starred two former Oscar winners – Rod Steiger (In the Heat of the Night) and Christopher Walken (The Deeer Hunter), as well the incredible Oscar-nominated Chazz Palminteri (Bullets Over Broadway). My excitement was understandably a wee more muted about the casting of Ricky Schroder.
But, if one really wants to experience the who’s-who, one-two wallop of billiards movie casting, then the film to start with is There Are No Thieves in this Village (original title: En este pueblo no hay ladrones), a 1965 Mexican movie about how an impoverished community responds when three billiards balls are stolen from a local saloon.
Created in response to the Mexican STPC film union’s “First Experimental Film Contest,” a competition designed to rejuvenate the struggling Mexican film industry, There Are No Thieves in this Village was the directorial debut (and second prize winner) of Alberto Isaac. The movie is available to watch in its entirety here, but note it is in Spanish and without subtitles.
Shot in black-and-white with minimal budget in only three weeks in Mexico City and Cuautla, the film features a pantheon of modern-day Mexican art and culture intelligentsia. For starters, the movie is based on the identically-named short story written by the hitherto unknown, future Nobel Prize in Literature winning author Gabriel García Márquez, who subsequently had 30 movies made from his stories and novels, including Love in the Time of Cholera. Marquez also appears in There Are No Thieves in this Village, making it the first of only two cinematic appearances in his career.
Also appearing in the film as a local priest is the Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, who the New York Times referred to in his obituary as “a leader of avant-garde surrealism in his youth and a dominant international movie director half a century later.” Six of his films are listed in Sight & Sound’s 2012 critic’s poll of the 250 films of all time, and three of his films (Tristana; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; and That Obscure Object of Desire) have been nominated for Oscars.
Others in the movie include: film director Arturo Ripstein, who won the prestigious National Prize for Arts and Sciences; artist and iconoclast José Luis Cuevas; esteemed author Juan Rulfo; Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington; cartoonists Ernesto García Cabral and Abel Quezada; and critic and journalist Carlos Monsivaís. All of these future cultural leaders were part of a tight circle of friends kept by director Issac and writer (and future film critic) García Riera.
It is debatable whether There Are No Thieves in this Village is truly a “billiards movie,” as the only billiards in the film occurs in the opening sequence of three-cushion billiards. (For more on this billiards variant, check out the 2005 film Carambola.) In this sense, it is more akin to the 1991 Swedish film A Paradise Without Billiards, which depicts an immigrant’s life in a community that does not play billiards.
In There Are No Thieves in this Village, it is the absence of the balls, resulting from an act of larceny committed by the dim-witted troublemaker Damaso, that causes a community to unravel. Initially, the local denizens find themselves rudderless and without activity. That idleness turns to racist aggression when the community identifies a black man as the culprit of the crime. Damaso, showing no regret or concern for his actions, sits back like a passive spectator, as the black man is first beaten and later sent to sea for his crimes. In fact Damaso, who only took the billiards balls when his felonious efforts turned up no other booty, subsequently even toys with the idea of forming a gang and stealing additional balls as a money-making scheme. It is only when his pregnant wife can no longer contain her guilt by affiliation that Damaso reluctantly attempts to return the billiards balls.1
Watching the movie today, I’d say There Are No Thieves in this Village represents a watershed moment in Mexican film casting (and certainly in billiards movie casting), though the actual film is just of passing interest. I think this one reviewer said it best:
“Every time that I see this movie the result is the same, what were the conditions of the epoch to see such an incredible cast of characters. I haven’t seen another movie with so many artists, at least as important as the artists that appear in this movie… If someone is interested in Mexican culture at that time this film is absolutely a must.”
Thus, as an end to this post, and as a final postscript, let us say R.I.P. to Gabriel García Márquez, who passed away earlier this year in April.
1 My summary may be slightly inaccurate given both the movie and the short story were in Spanish.
Certainly, one shining example of this unfortunate trend is The New Odd Couple, which was a remake of the multiple, Emmy-nominated series The Odd Couple that ran from 1970 to 1975. The New Odd Couple ran on ABC from 1982-1983 and lasted just 16 episodes. The characters of Felix Unger, the prissy neat-freak, and Oscar Madison, the fun-loving slob, were reprised with an African-American cast, with Ron Glass replacing Tony Randall as Felix and Desmond Wilson replacing Jack Klugman as Oscar.
Interestingly, there is one other famous television remake that intersects with billiards: The Twilight Zone, a series that multiple producers have attempted to remake, with only limited success. Of course, the original series featured one of the best billiards television episodes of all time – “A Game of Pool.” That 1961 episode was remade in 1989 as “A Game of Pool” (identical except for the completely different and inferior ending) as part of the late-80s revival of the series. The series was then remade again in 2002, only to be cancelled after one season. (This time there was no recycling of the famous billiards episode.)
