Tag Archives: pool movies

Pichitas (billiards documentary)

A beauty of billiards is that it has no singular, global definition.  Played around the world, the game has morphed and been shaped by local customs, cultures and personalities, assuming various rules and strategies and relying on different types of equipment, depending on where it’s played.  The sport encompasses everything from goriziana (Italy) to keglebillard (Denmark), from kaisa (Finland) to sinuca (Brazil), from yotsudama (Japan) to pyramid (Russia). The sport’s celebrities, too, span the globe, forming a transcontinental pantheon of billiards all-stars:  Efren Reyes (Philippines), Earl Strickland (US), Pankaj Advani (India), Thorsten Hohmann (Germany), Ronnie O’Sullivan (United Kingdom), Mika Immonen (Finland), and many more.

Pichitas - billiards documentary

R.A. “Jake” Dyer

One country, however, that receives little mention is Costa Rica. Perhaps, that is a grave oversight.  Certainly, that is the conclusion of R.A. “Jake” Dyer, the preeminent pool author (The Hustler & The Champ; Hustler Days), historian, blogger, and former documentary filmmaker.  Back in 1991 or 1992, Dyer returned to Costa Rica, where had lived for three years shooting pool among “some of the country’s greatest players” to make a movie about Luis “Pichitas” Calderon, the “best hustler, the best pool player in the world.”  Shot on Super-8 film in black-and-white and running about 23 minutes, Pichitas: A Costa Rican Pool Documentary is Dyer’s personal quest to find and film the legendary Pichitas, a billiards player of near mythic status.  The full film is available to watch on Vimeo here.

The documentary features Dyer as director, interviewer, and Spanish translator, intimately talking with the denizens of “Center Pool,” a (now-closed) pool hall in the market district of San Jose that had 50 billiards tables and was reputedly a frequent destination for Pichitas.

Pichitas - billiards documentaryInterspersed between the interviews is footage of this “wonderful cast of characters, some of whom were vaguely disreputable,” with the popular Cumbia tune “Juana La Cubana” by Fito Olivares playing in the background. Dyer also packs into this billiards documentary some sociological history, comparing the role pool halls played in the lives of turn-of-the-century heterosexual American bachelors to the role they play for men in Costa Rica today.  “Most the men are married, but you wouldn’t know it from their behavior.  They are here literally all day…they are not unlike the lifelong bachelors that one time thrived in the US.” [1]

Of course, the great irony of the documentary is that Dyer set out to “look for Pichitas and make a movie about him because he is legendary. That’s what this movie is about, that’s what we’re going to do.” But as the film progresses, Dyer is unable to locate Pichitas.   One starts to wonder if he is like the Yeti of Nepal, el fantasma de Costa Rica.  Even Dyer expresses doubts (or at least frustration), saying, “They’ve told me Pichitas is here, Pichitas is there…I have no idea, I can’t find him anywhere.”

For fans of documentaries like Searching for Sugar Man, there is an expectation that the denouement will result in the big reveal.  But, it never happens, at least not for the audience.  The movie technically ends with Dyer running off camera to pursue a possible sighting.  But, in the epilogue, Dyer returns, triumphantly announcing that he did finally meet Pichitas, though the moment is not captured on film.  As Dyer subsequently explains, “We saw Pichitas.  He was everything we promised.  He was the best hustler, the best pool player in the world. He was a great guy…but we ran out of film, sorry, that’s the breaks…maybe next time.”

“Sorry, that’s the breaks?!”  It is arguably the cruelest of endings, a final vanishing act, a punch line at the audience’s expense.  Or, maybe it’s the perfect capstone to this supernatural quest.  If one goes online today, the only mention of Luis “Calderon” Pichitas is by Dyer. There are no other stories, no images, no artifacts.

In a December 2009 blog post, Dyer wrote that Pichitas was like a “trickster figure,” a legend shared through oral tradition.  He added:

I also recognized in each case messages about the “culture” of the pool room, in that they would communicate lessons about such matters as gambling etiquette, attach value to certain sorts of figures and heap ridicule on others, and define the language common to members of the “tribe”.

So, who was Pichitas? Where is he now? Does he exist?  I don’t know the answers to any of these questions.  I only know my passion for pool just got a little stronger watching the wonderful documentary Pichitas.

 

[1]       Dyer draws on the work of Ned Polsky from his book Hustlers, Beats and Others.

Dharma & Greg – “Do the Hustle”

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In the 1984 made-for-TV movie The Baron and the Kid, Johnny Cash (“The Baron”) teams up with his son (“The Cajun Kid”) to shoot billiards on the road.  The fourth-season, 2001 “Do the Hustle” episode of Dharma & Greg reprises the two-generation, family billiards theme, this time by pairing Dharma (Jenna Elfman) with her blueblood mother-in-law Kitty (Susan Sullivan) and teaching her to hustle. The full episode is here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vi6nEYh68c

It’s an awkward set-up, but Dharma & Greg was always a rather odd sitcom. Airing from 1997 to 2002, the show racked up six Emmy nominations and eight Golden Globe nominations.  It centered on the offbeat marriage between Dharma, the free-spirited, yet sarcastic, yoga instructor, and Greg (Thomas Gibson), the upright, aim-to-please lawyer.  Parents and in-laws feature prominently in the show, providing some of the comic extremes, much the way the Byrnes and Fochers do in Meet the Parents and its sequel.

Like many of the earlier seasons’ episodes, “Do the Hustle” taps into the inherent tension between Dharma and her mother-in-law.  When Dharma’s mockery of Kitty’s plan to take the family to a “tulip festival” falls flat, she offers to make a deal.  The two women shall play a game of eight-ball, and the winner decides whether to go to the festival.  Kitty proceeds to beat Dharma, who had no idea her mother-in-law could shoot “like Minnesota Fats.”

Do the HustleOn the way to the tulip festival, Dharma convinces Kitty to a rematch.  Once in the bar, redolent with the smell of curly fries, Kitty starts to enjoy playing pool and begins to cast off her aristocratic mien.  Dharma, finally having found a connection with her mother-in-law, instructs her in the art of hustling (“let me explain something to you Kit Kat”).  After quickly making some money, Kitty, feeling energized, says, “Hell, with the tulip festival, find me another pigeon.”

But, blinded by her hubris and refusing to call it a night (“Who dares to challenge the Queen of Pool?”), she ends up playing “Sweet Lou” who she doesn’t realize has hustled her.  When she is unable to write him a check (“Guys named Sweet Lou don’t take checks.”), Kitty loses her car as the payback.

Overall, it’s a pretty unmemorable billiards TV episode, though it appears Susan Sullivan had fun making her bank shot and behind-the-back shot.   Still, in a genre that is prone to typecasting women as only playing pool for noble purposes (see my blog post “Battle of the Sexes in Billiards”), it’s at least refreshing to know there are a couple of women whose sole purpose in playing billiards is to “do the hustle.”

Kiss Shot (and Oscar)

As I watched the 86th Academy Awards on Monday, I kept thinking what it must have been like when The Color of Money was nominated for four awards, including Paul Newman winning the Best Actor award, in 1987.  Just imagine seeing those billiards clips shown on the big screen at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and being broadcast to 39 million viewers simultaneously.

Billiards movie

Paul Newman accepts the Best Actor Oscar for “The Color of Money”

But, in general, Oscar has not been kind to billiards movies.  More pointedly, most billiards movies have not come close to Oscar’s standards.   Aside from The Color of Money, the only other obvious exception is The Hustler, which received nine Oscar nominations in 1962, including wins for Art-Set Direction and for Cinematography.

That’s not to say, however, that billiards movies have not starred Oscar nominees and winners, past and future alike.  For example, Forest Whitaker played the hustler Amos in The Color of Money – 20 years before he earned his Oscar for The Last King of Scotland.  And Tom Cruise has racked up three Oscar nominations (Born on the 4th of July, 1989; Jerry Maguire, 1996; and Magnolia, 1999) since playing Vince in The Color of Money. The 2002 film Poolhall Junkies featured two past Oscar winners:  Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter, 1978) and Rod Steiger (In the Heat of the Night, 1968).  The Baltimore Bullet, a should-have-been-better 1980 billiards film, features a trinity of Oscar notables, including past Oscar nominee Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962), past Oscar winner Ronee Blakley (Nashville, 1975), and future Oscar winner James Coburn (Affliction, 1997). The little-known 2007 billiards film Turn the River has an Oscar nominee, Rip Torn (Cross Creek, 2003), in a supporting role.

It’s not just actors.  Six-time Oscar-nominated director Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society; The Truman Show; etc) started his film career making shorts, including The Billiard Room in 1972.  And the prolific, legendary director Martin Scorsese, who was the genius behind The Color of Money, followed that film with eight Oscar nominations, including a 2007 Best Director win for The Departed.

Kiss Shot billiards movieYet, for true Oscar ubiquity, all of these celebrities live in the shadow of Whoopi Goldberg, an omnipresent Oscar persona if there ever was one.  Ms. Goldberg was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for The Color Purple (1985).  She won the Supporting Actress award for her role in Ghost (1990).  Of course, she hosted the Academy Award ceremony four times (1994, 1996, 1999, and 2002). She even introduced the 75th tribute to The Wizard of Oz in this past Monday’s awards ceremony, while flaunting her red ruby slippers.

This is why it’s fascinating to then consider that Ms. Goldberg also starred in the 1989, made-for-television billiards flop Kiss Shot.  She is the perfect proof that (a) starring in a billiards movie doesn’t permanently taint one’s Oscar reputation; and (b) mixing that Oscar mojo with a piss-poor movie doesn’t exactly make for cinematic greatness.  (Just ask Robert DeNiro, right?)

Kiss Shot billiards movieKiss Shot stars Ms. Goldberg as Sarah Collins, a witty, warm-hearted, single parent who is trying to keep a roof over the head, and the braces on the mouth, of her 13-year-old daughter.  When she loses her job at Dunsley Electronics, she must figure out how to raise $3000 in four months or the bank will take her house and put her on the street.  Unable to raise the money through personal connections, she decides to raise the money through pool (9-ball, specifically).  In making this decision, Sarah Collins joins a long list of female protagonists in billiards movies who hustle for noble intentions, unlike their male counterparts, who hustle largely out of greed and ego.  (See my earlier post “Battle of the Sexes in Billiards Movies” for more on this theory.)

Initially, she is staked by her friend Billy, manager of Mr. B’s Billiards.  (Interestingly, Billy is played by Teddy Wilson, who one year later appeared in Quantum Leap in the horrible billiards episode “Pool Hall Blues.”)   So she may raise money faster, Billy pairs her with professional stakehorse Max Fleischer (Hill Street Blues Golden Globe winner Dennis Franz).

This plan seems to work well initially, as she moves from one stereotypical pool hall to the next, first playing the “hard hats, beer and beef jerky crowd,” then a country-and-western crowd, then a group of bikers (who might have been extras from either The Warriors or a Village People video), then some punk rockers, and finally, the black patrons of a jazz bar. But, the plan ultimately unravels when she meets billiards playboy Kevin Merrick.  (Interestingly, Kevin is played by Dorian Harewood, who not only shot pool on the short-lived billiards game show Ballbreakers, but also played the role of Eightball in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.)

Kiss ShotAt this point, turn on the late-80s synthesizers and pour on the Velveeta, for Kiss Shot becomes annoyingly hokey, more concerned with an emerging love triangle than the billiards triangle.  Fast forward.  Eventually, Sarah loses her hard-won earnings, forcing her to enter the Golden Gate Open 9-Ball Championship with the winner-takes-all $10,000 prize.  We’re treated to a lot of pool playing during these scenes, but the kiss shots with the 9-ball sitting on the lip of the pocket get old quickly.  Though Ms. Goldberg is not shown making most her shots, there were two incredible exceptions – a masse shot and a jump shot – that suggested her coach had elicited some real billiards talent from her.  (Credit goes to BCA Master Instructor Jerry Briesath, who was the movie’s technical advisor.)

The ending is so predictable…that director Jerry London chose not even to show it.  One minute, she’s battling Kevin in the final 9-ball match, and the next minute, she’s showering the bank with rolls of money as she reclaims the loan on her house.

Dennis Franz delivers a great line in the movie when he tells Sarah not to pull back in a match: “You got this guy in the toilet, and then you let him crawl out.”  The same almost happened with Ms. Goldberg in Kiss Shot.  This movie could have put her career in the toilet. Fortunately for all of us, she crawled out.

Kiss Shot is widely available to rent or buy online.

All in the Family – “Archie is Cursed”

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On September 20, 1973, the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match occurred between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King.  The next day’s headlines summarized what an estimated 90 million people had watched first-hand on television.  “Mrs. King Defeats Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 Amid a Circus Atmosphere,” wrote The New York Times.  “Ms. King Puts Mr. Riggs in his Place,” said The Washington Post.  “Libber Billie Bombs Lobber Bobby,” chided the Springfield Union.

Archie is CursedBut amidst this chorus, one familiar voice had a very different perspective on the match.  “Tennis? That’s not even a man’s sport,” gripes Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) on the All in the Family episode “Archie is Cursed.”  It’s a version of a familiar rant from everyone’s favorite sitcom bigot. In this case, Archie’s point is that “women are not important in sports” and they certainly should “not be messing around with men’s sports because a man can beat a woman any old time.” Quizzed about the women who won gold medals at the Olympics, Archie rejoins, “I see those dames on TV.  They look like a bunch of lumpy men.”

In response to this blather, Archie’s liberal next-door neighbor Irene (Betty Garrett) confronts him, asking what sports he plays.  When Archie mentions pool, Irene jumps at the opening:

Irene:  “Do you think you could beat a woman?”

Archie: “With one eye closed, one hand tied behind my back, and a bad case of the flu.”

Irene: “OK, I challenge you.”

Archie: “You’re crazy, Irene.  A gentlemen don’t play pool with no woman.”

Irene: “I got $10 that says I can beat you.”

Archie:  “You’re on!”

Archie’s confidence (“I got a pigeon I’m going to pluck for 10 bucks”), however, is quickly shaken as he learns Irene has played a lot of pool, and won her own “carrying case with a private pool cue” from the Hudson Billiard Academy. Confronted with the likely humiliation of losing to Irene, Archie feigns a bad back and blames Irene’s husband for cursing him with it. But, his ruse falls apart when his neighbor threatens to broadcast that Archie is a coward who is “afraid to play a woman” in pool.

Archie is CursedIn the only billiards actually shown in the episode, Archie attempts to brush up his game, but is humorously unable to make the most basic strokes.  In the end, after Irene’s husband tricks Archie into revealing his back is fine,  Archie plays Irene in pool (though the game is not shown) and of course loses.  As added insult, Archie’s dingbat wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) tries to cheer him up, saying she’s glad his back is better, as she heard Irene “straightened him out.”

Comedy aside, “Archie is Cursed” is powerful television watching in the way it tackles women’s liberation and female athletics, topics that were controversial when the episode aired in December 1973, just three months after the “Battle of the Sexes” and only 18 months after the passage of Title IX, which outlawed discrimination in sports based on gender.  Interestingly, it would take another eight years before the Billiards Congress of America elected its first woman, Dorothy Wise, into its Hall of Fame.

The complete “Archie is Cursed” episode of All in the Family is available to watch on YouTube below.

https://youtu.be/TLOAyRzfxQ8

 

Red Shoe Diaries – “Double or Nothing”

Pool Nude Postcard

Pool postcard circa 1900

Billiards and sex have long been linked in the imagination.  In part, this stems from the game’s origins and the fact that while it’s always been predominantly male, it was nonetheless a sport accessible to, and played, by women, including historical notables such as Marie Antoinette and Elizabeth I.  But, as Erin Reilly notes in her essay, “All Bust and No Balls: Gender, Language, and Pool,” tastes shifted over time and by 1900, “men may have been more interested in women’s enjoyable company [at the pool table] than in their playing skills.” The presence of women in poolrooms “was largely viewed by men as an opportunity for flirting.”[1]

Regardless, the intertwining of billiards and sex extends beyond the interpersonal.  The evidence is everywhere, from the art world, where between 1900-1930, it was common to see prints and postcards of naked women at the pool table, to the argot, with its sexual puns and linguistic double-entendres (e.g., “shaft,” “rack,” “stroke”, “pocket pool,” etc.).  As Reilly notes, a 2001 Men’s Health article was called, “How to Handle Your Balls” and included a section entitled, “Hey, Nice Rack.”

Blue VelvetMore than a few billiards movies have attempted to make this connection explicit (e.g., Kisses & Caroms; Virgin Pockets) with gratuitous sex scenes and scantily-clad women hustlers. Unfortunately, it’s films like Blue Velvet and The Accused that have cemented this linkage cinematically, albeit by using billiards venues as the locale for depraved individuals and despicable acts of sexual violence.

Red Shoe DiariesIt’s no wonder then that an erotic cable series like Red Shoe Diaries, which aired on Showtime from 1992-1997, would include a billiards episode.  As folks may remember, Red Shoe Diaries had a plot-lite formula that mingled stories of sexual awakening with nudity, soft lens cinematography and mood music.

“Double or Nothing,” from the first season of Red Shoe Diaries, stars the super-sultry Paula Barbieri (former Playboy model and ex-girlfriend of O.J. Simpson) as a woman who is forced to survive by relying on her pool-playing skills.  Having lived under the thumb and shadow of men for a long time, she must now fend for herself.

Red Shoe Diaries - Double or NothingHer newfound independence is challenged when she meets a handsome fellow pool hustler.  Realizing they can earn more money playing as a team, the two pair up, both on and, of course, off the table.  There are some pool-shot montages and a handful of upskirt photos on the billiards table, but since this is Red Shoe Diaries, the real (softcore) action is in the parking lots, the bedroom, and in the episode’s climax, on the actual pool table.

“Double or Nothing” is available to watch on Amazon Instant Video.  The entire first season will be released as a DVD in June of this year.


[1]       Published in Sexual Sports Rhetoric: Historical and Media Contexts of Violence, edited by Linda K. Fuller, 2010.

Top 10 Baddies of Billiards Movies

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After writing my previous post about “my friend Harvey” from The Honeymooners episode “The Bensonhurst Bomber,” I started thinking further about the role intimidation plays in billiards.

Thorsten "The Hitman" Hohmann

Thorsten “The Hitman” Hohmann

Certainly, a number of prominent players today have assumed nicknames that are intended to psych out their opponent to some degree.  Consider:  Thorsten “The Hitman” Hohmann, Tony “Silent Assassin” Robles, Evgeny “Assassin” Stalev, Allison “Duchess of Doom” Fisher, Florian “Venom” Kohler, and of course, Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee, who would “eat people alive” when she got to the table.

But, in billiards movies and television, intimidation and fearmongering extends well beyond violent monikers.  On and off the table, the villains of billiards pop culture are known to do everything from bullyragging and browbeating to terrorizing and murdering.  It is in their honor then that I announce the TOP 10 BILLIARDS BADDIES OF ALL TIME (and sorry, but my friend Harvey did not make the cut).  Let the countdown begin:

Billiard Baddies10.  Third Eye Ryu.  In the 1972 pinky violence film Wandering Ginza Butterfly, the recently-paroled Nami must use her billiards skills to prevent the local yakuza from taking over a bar.  The fate of the bar lies in a game of three-cushion billiards that Nami must play against the yakuza’s junkie henchman, Third Eye Ryu.  Behind mirrored glasses, the stone-faced pool shark is a formidable opponent who exudes cold evil.

Billiard Baddies9.  Frosty (Richard Roundtree). The song “The Baron” is not the only memorable remainder of the 1984 made-for-TV movie The Baron and the Kid.  To that list, we should also add the formidable, impeccably dressed in white, Southern hustler Frosty, who doesn’t like to lose in pool. He proves particularly adept at intimidation when he removes his jacket, showing a holstered gun, and when he corrals his opponents with his posse of rednecks. Roundtree always was a “bad mother…”  I’ll shut my mouth.

Billiard Baddies8.  Caller (Neville Stevenson). If looks could kill, then Caller, the pierced, dreadlocked, bare-chested eight-ball opponent from the 2001 New Zealand film Stickmen, would be like walking genocide. Fortunately, his opponent Wayne is too blitzed out of his mind to notice and handily runs the table “drunken master” style on Caller before he can make a shot.

 

Billiard Baddies7.  Eddie Davies (J.W. Smith).  “Pool Hall Blues – September 4, 1954,” from the second season of Quantum Leap, is an insulting chapter of billiards television history.  But, as far as reprobates go, Eddie Davies, the local loan shark, is high on the list.  His scare tactics include sleazing all over the pool hall proprietor’s daughter, beating up an old man, and – far worse – directing his goon to snap in half the prized cue stick of Charlie “Black Magic” Walters.

Billiard Baddies6.  8-Ball (Jeff Hagees).  OK, I admit it, this villain has nothing to do with movies, but Marvel Comics’ misfit is too perfect not to include in this list.  From his profile: “8-Ball wielded a pool cue specially designed to magnify any force applied to it to more than a thousand-fold and transmit that force at anything it struck. He also carried a variety of pool balls for throwing, some designed to act as grenades. He traveled aboard a giant hovering pool ball.”

Billiard Baddies5.  Joe (Chazz Palminteri).  Though Joe doesn’t actually play pool in the 2002 film Poolhall Junkies, he is every bit hustler-gangster-thug, starting with the fact he ruins Johnny’s dream of playing pro billiards by throwing out the invitation.  But, that’s tiddlywinks compared to his later nefarious acts, including breaking Johnny’s finger, beating up Johnny’s brother, and trying to destroy Johnny’s reputation.  Bad-ass quote:  “Take that you motherless motherfu**ers.”

Billiard Baddies4.  Natasha (Rebecca Downs).  In the 1998 “Pool Sharks” episode of Monsters, we’re first introduced to Natasha as just another buxom, black-clad, pale-skinned vamp with a flirtatious mien and a tendency to be forward with men by sucking their bleeding finger wounds.  (And if you’ve seen From Dusk Till Dawn, you’re correctly thinking, “This can’t be good.”) Sure enough, in time, Natasha bears her fangs and the friendly game of 50-point straight pool turns into a death match.

Billiard Baddies3. “Cue Ball” Carl Bridges (Ving Rhames).  Ving Rhames trades in the “pliers and blowtorch” that made him famous in Pulp Fiction for a pimped out wardrobe, 8-ball cane, stogie and an appetite for chicken feet in the 2005 movie Shooting Gallery.  The plot may be ludicrous, but local gangster Cue Ball Carl not only manages a city-wide street team of pool hustlers, but also dabbles in guns, drug-running and violence.

Billiard Baddies2.  Joey (Kurt Hanover).  So sinister he’s almost cartoonish, Joey is the lying, cheating, back-stabbing, thieving, scoundrel of the 2012 film 9-Ball.   Responsible for the care of his niece Gail since her father died, Joey exploits her billiards talents to make money for himself.   When that starts to unravel, he threatens her to stop watching instructional pool videos (!!), and in time, steals from her and brutally beats her.  Oh, and if that weren’t enough he – [SPOILER ALERT!] –  also killed his brother (i.e. Gail’s father) in a fit of jealousy.

Billiard Baddies1.  Bert Gordon (George C. Scott).  Clearly, there are rogues on this list who have personally committed more heinous acts, but I still give the Billiards Brute top spot to Bert Gordon, the unscrupulous, vicious, milk-drinking, mastermind of the 1961 movie The Hustler.  Gordon never pulls the trigger, but he pulls all the strings, manipulating “Fast” Eddie, destroying his character and confidence (“Eddie, you’re a born loser”), and ultimately, causing his girlfriend Sarah to kill herself, even if it were Eddie and Bert who “really stuck the knife in her.”

So, there’s my list.  Was it unfair of me to omit Baisez, the macho billiards-playing vampire from The Understudy: Graveyard Shift 2?  Or, what about Topdog, the goon from Hard Knuckle who runs the pool hall where game losers must chop off their own fingers.  These were all tough choices.  Let me know the choices you would have made and share your comments.

The Honeymooners – “The Bensonhurst Bomber”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

******

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

The Odd Couple – “The Hustler”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Chasing Wincardona

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Billy Incardona - Chasing Wincardona

William “9-Ball Billy” Incardona

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

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

http://youtu.be/eQwAB0kKrNs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bad Boy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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