Tag Archives: pool movies

“The Hustler” – The Brady Bunch

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In The Color of Money, “Fast” Eddie Felson, the original Hustler, says, “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”  Well, for Bobby Brady, youngest son of the famously surnamed TV sextet, it wasn’t money he won with his billiards skills, but 256 packs of chewing gum, a sweet feat that proves one’s never too young to successfully start hustling.  Since this is The Brady Bunch, a series that ran from 1969 to 1974, we can expect a healthy dosage of well-mannered high jinks, inoffensive banter, and squeaky-clean resolutions.  “The Hustler,” one of the last episodes to air in the final season of The Brady Bunch, does not disappoint.

Brady Bunch - The HustlerThis billiards television episode’s set-up is that Harry Matthews, the president of Mike Brady’s architectural firm, gives Mike an (unassembled!) pool table as a thank-you gift.  Bobby, who “always” plays pool at his friend’s house, demonstrates his prowess to his two older brothers, who dismiss his playing as dumb luck.  He later wagers he can beat them in nine-ball, with the loser having to shine the winner’s shoes for a whole month.  Of course, he wins, and soon he is playing all the time and retorting to his siblings, “Who cares about school?  I’m going to be the pool champ of the whole world.”

His constant play ultimately gets him into trouble with his dad, who gently reprimands him for staying up so late practicing when he has school work. But, he is redeemed when he is given a chance to play Mr. Matthews, who has come over for a dinner party.  Mr. Matthews, having beaten everyone else at the party and fancying himself a pool shark, agrees to play Bobby for a pack of chewing gum on every shot.  Bobby promptly thrashes Mr. Matthews, causing one of the other dinner guests to whisper to Mike, “If that was my son, I’d break his arm.”  Fortunately, this does not get Mike fired, but it (unfortunately) does somehow prove that the Brady household is no home for a pool table.  Well, at least Bobby won those 256 packs of chewing gum.

Brady Bunch - The HustlerThough “The Hustler” episode lacks any iconic one-liners such as, “Mom always said don’t play ball in the house” or “Pork chops and apple sauce,” it does have one of the more memorable and billiards television worthy dream sequences (shown below).  Dressed in a tuxedo and wearing a “Champ” sash across his chest, Bobby enters a symphony hall  with a single billiards table on stage to a standing ovation.  Taking his cue and chalk from his sister Cindy and cousin Oliver, he proceeds to make a series of multi-ball trick shots, including the well-known, six-ball “Butterfly” shot, before finishing with a shot made while blindfolded.  (Of course, Mike Lookinland, the actor who played Bobby, did not make these shots, and there is disturbingly no mention of a billiards technical advisor in the credits.)

The dream concludes with dollar bills raining onto Bobby like roses being thrown onstage at an opera, and Bobby repeating the phrase, “I’m rich, I’m rich.”  Now there’s an ironic ending…what’s the real dream here?  The fact that Bobby could make all these trick shots or the fact that someone could, in fact, get “rich” playing pool?

“The Hustler” billiards television episode of The Brady Bunch is available to watch in entirety on Paramount+.

Nine-Ball (2008 billiards short film)

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Nine-ball - billiards short filmThere is a painfully uncomfortable moment in the Swedish billiards short film Nine-Ball in which the main character, David, attempts to show off to his 10-year-old son Markus his “friends” playing nine-ball on the adjacent billiards table.  Markus is clearly reluctant, not because he doesn’t want to play pool or doesn’t want to meet the friends, but because he intuitively knows there is something wrong with the situation.  His fears are verified when the friends dismiss David, saying they would prefer to play by themselves.  The awkwardness then explodes as David confronts them, saying (in Swedish), “ Why do you not want to play with me? I do not know what I am doing wrong.” The response he receives is neither anger nor apology, but a distant and condescending rejoinder that he “should take care of his son instead.”

As you might have guessed, Nine-Ball is not specifically about billiards, though about half the 12 minutes occur in a pool hall.  Rather and never explicitly said, the short film, directed and produced on commission by Nikolina Gillgren in 2008, is about neuropsychiatric disorders, such as ADHD, Asperger’s and Tourette’s Syndrome, and how people who have these disorders, like the lead character David, struggle with social dysfunctional behavior and social exclusion.

Over email, Gillgren told me that she wanted to make a short film about fear, loneliness, and the discomfort that comes from social exclusion.  She said, “Our society has difficulties accepting people with other views and behavior that what is considered as ‘normal,’ and that a lot of people who suffer from disorders endure discrimination and depression.”

The decision to set this story in a pool hall, and use billiards as the centerpiece of that social difficulty, was inspired by an individual Gillgren met at a summer camp as part of her research. “This guy really loved playing nine-ball.  He played more or less every day all by himself.  I thought it was such a good metaphor of the dilemma, since pool is [typically] such a social game.”  Of course, it didn’t hurt that Gillgren herself was once very much into billiards, as well.

In the tender ending of the film, David opens up to his son that he “does not know what to do for them to like [him].” And while Nine-Ball wisely avoids providing any pithy solutions or uplifting reconciliation, the son’s simple embrace of his father suggests that he will not give up on him.

The billiards short film Nine-Ball is not available for public viewing, so I am very grateful to Nikolina Gillgren for enabling me to have private access.  Since completing Nine-Ball, Gillgren has been working on a documentary about the Swedish Black Metal band, Watain, and their religious adherence to Satanism.  She also just released the documentary Six Days about three women who lives thousands of miles apart, but are united in their struggles within their war-torn countries and their quests for a better life.

Carambola (billiards movie)

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Within the billiards movie genre, one of the best and least-known is Carambola, a 2005 low-budget, highly stylized film that took more than two years to reach the big screen after its premier at the Guadalajara Film Festival, and then, sadly, disappeared almost as quickly.  Directed and written by Kurt Hollander, an accomplished writer and photographer, who unfortunately for us, did not continue to make movies, Carambola is the story of El Vago (Daniel Martinez), an aging three-cushion billiards hustler, who has the chance for reinvention when he wins a billiards hall in a bet.

Carambola - billiards movieThe billiards hall is not only the sole setting of Carambola, but it is also a central character in this tale of reinvention.  Foremost, there is the tension between El Vago’s wish to preserve the “real tradition in this pool hall,” which means keeping the billiards tables intact, and that of his more business-minded ambitious assistant, El Perro (the wonderful Diego Luna), who believes that only old geezers plays billiards, and that to turn the hall into a successful business requires pool tables, discos, and strobe lights.  Even El Vago must concede that “pool is the flavor of the new generation.”

(For those that may already be confused, “pool” is not synonymous with “billiards.”  Pool is akin to pocket billiards, shot with a cue ball and 15 balls on a six-pocket table between seven and nine feet long.  In Carambola, “billiards” refers to three-cushion billiards, also called carombole, which is generally played on a pocketless five-by-ten foot table with just three balls.  The object is to score points by caroming the cue ball off both object balls, but making sure the cue ball hits the rail cushion at least three times before hitting the second object ball.   Fortunately, if you were watching the movie, you would not be confused, as the rules of three-cushion billiards are explained by El Vago in the opening scene as part of an instructional video he’s shooting to earn some extra cash.  Not only does he explain the objective, but he gives pointers such as, “knives longer than five inches and guns carried in one’s belt…interfere with a clean shot,” or “gold chains, shiny rings, and flashy tattoos on one’s hands disrupt concentration.”)

El Vago ultimately acquiesces to the vision of El Perro, thereby ushering in dramatic and costly changes that pack the pool hall with young supple bodies, but leave the elders disgusted and El Vago with a permanent ulcer that is exacerbated when all the “little shits…put their feet on [his] tables.” In great and uncomfortable juxtaposition, El Vago even kills the music in one early scene to stage a billiards demonstration by El Campeon, aka “The Champ,” who shows off some wonderfully gorgeous masse and rail shots to a rather apathetic and benumbed audience.

Carambola - billiards movieTrouble mounts as quickly as the bills.  El Perro is determined to take control of the billiards hall, or at least rob El Vago blind while doing lines of cocaine in the bathroom.  The sexy La Pájara (Laura Hildalgo) is a constant distraction, particularly once El Vago peeps her straddling his table to make a pornographic video with a cue stick. El Mexicano (Jesús Ochoa), a businessman with a bad temper who sells “cues made from rare woods with exotic and erotic images,” always appears to be one step away from reclaiming the bar he lost or using his “death cue” on the the kneecaps of anyone ogling his daughter, La Pájara.  And none of this bodes well for a billiards tournament El Vago is trying to organize to raise funds to keep the billiards hall solvent.

Amidst this offbeat soap opera, there is, as I suggested in the beginning, a battle not only to define the future of the billiards hall, but to re-examine the very purpose of billiards, for every character has his own dogmatic definition.  For “Gums,” billiards is all about “style, flair…winning is not so important.”  For El Judas, billiards is a distraction: “who gives a fuck about billiards…if you want to do something in this world, you got to play with bigger balls.” For La Medusa, “billiards is a mirror of the heavens…when someone stands in front of table and shoots, they’re playing on three levels: universe, earth and inner world.”  El Chiquilin is less philosophical in his world view of billiards: It is a “game of kings… unfortunately it’s been adopted by a group of lowlifes, murderers, rapists, prostitutes and pimps.” And all of this contrasts with the beliefs of El Vago, who not only is set on teaching his audience to play the game through his video, but also on cementing his conviction that “any second rate player can make a shot, but to miss believably, only the best.”

Carambola - billiards movieIt’s that philosophy that ultimately cues the audience that maybe the down-and-out El Vago, with the ghastly ulcer and pitiful business sense, is, in fact, “missing believably.”  I won’t spoil the movie, but let’s just say, to use another El Vago quote, “to win, you have to know how to lose.”

Carambola is widely available to rent or buy on DVD or instant video.  It should not be confused with the similarly named Mexican billiards movie Operacion Carambola (1968), the Italian billiards movie Carambola (1974) or that film’s sequel, Carambola, Filotto…Tutti en Boco (1975).

“Cue Ball Cat” – Tom and Jerry

Today, October 28, is International Animation Day, an event observed in more than 50 countries across every continent to celebrate animation.  What better way to honor this special day than to blog about the Tom and Jerry billiards short film “Cue Ball Cat,” released in November 1950 by MGM Studios.

Tom & Jerry - Cue Ball CatIn this particular one-reel, seven-minute cartoon, shown in its entirety below, Tom is in an after-hours pool hall, practicing his bank shots, and taking some feline liberties to ensure the balls go in the pocket.   He soon discovers that Jerry is sleeping in one of the pockets.  Since a pool hall is no place for a mouse, Tom proceeds to torment Jerry with a variety of shots that leave him spinning, reeling, running, chalked, and even imprinted (temporarily, of course) with an 8-ball on the backside.  Jerry, never one to back down from the big kitty, fights back, batting billiards balls into Tom’s eyes, shooting the bridge like an arrow into Tom’s mouth, sending Tom crashing into a drink machine, fooling Tom into swallowing seven balls, and in general, adhering to the violent formula of sight gags and ensuing mayhem that made Tom and Jerry one of the most successful cartoons ever, including winning seven Academy Awards.

http://youtu.be/eEJycmLk80I

As one reviewer noted in the blog The Acme Factory, “The best Tom and Jerry cartoons are the ones that really stay away from any kind of story and just feature the cat and mouse beating the tar out of each other…Such is the case with “Cue Ball Cat”…Both Tom and Jerry take their knocks in this one, an equally painful competition which is always nice to see.”

“Cue Ball Cat” would not be the last time these two nemeses scuffled in a pool hall.  Fifteen years later, in the 1965 cartoon “Of Feline Bondage,” Tom and Jerry again briefly engaged in a billiards brawl, though that episode exits the pool hall once Jerry’s fairy godmother intervenes.

Interestingly, the pool table has been the setting for farcical violent animation through the history of billiards short animated films.  In the 1915 stop-animation short film Pool Sharks, W.C Fields and his billiards rival get into a fight over a woman that leads to balls flying and goldfish bowls breaking.   At the other end of the timeline, in 2004, Stan Prokopenko created A Game of Pool, a 3D-animated short film about a rack of billiard balls that split into two teams – solids and stripes – and proceed to “battle” by knocking one another into pockets, with the last ball standing facing off against the 8-ball.

Guess it proves that just because one’s not on the gridiron, on the racetrack, or in the ring, it doesn’t mean the sport can’t be bellicose.  Just look at billiards, after all.

Virgin Pockets

In 1997, the nominees for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture were Speed 2: Cruise Control, Fire Down Below, Batman & Robin, The Postman, and Anaconda.  (The Postman won the award.)  But, let me tell you, compared to the straight-to-video billiards movie Virgin Pockets, which came out that same year, these other lemons are downright Oscar-worthy.

Virgin PocketsVirgin Pockets is the inane story of pool professional Lizzie Monroe, who years ago removed herself from the tournament circuit because of the pressure and control of sponsors, and turned to hustling pool locally.  In a dive bar, she meets Jordan “J.J.” Jamison, a young, scantily-clad, dyed-blond, pool hustler, who first flaunts her talent by challenging the locals to games of pool. [Reviewer’s note:   Jordan’s physique may be real, but the money she was betting was most certainly not. It was labeled “toy money.”]

One by one, the lambs line up to play Jordan, only to get mesmerized by her cleavage and miss their shots.  Eventually, Lizzie plays Jordan and schools her in the game of pool.  After, Jordan attempts to befriend her, but is told by Lizzie she has “virgin pockets,” meaning she “has no idea how to play.  Straight pool is pool.  When you play 9-ball, that’s not a game.”  [Reviewer’s note:  they were playing 8-ball, not 9-ball.]

But, ultimately Lizzie is convinced they could make quite a hustling team (like Billie Jo Robbins and Nick Casey in The Baltimore Bullet). So, she takes on Jordan as a protégé and educates her in the art of hustling.  [Reviewer’s note:  for women, the art of hustling apparently includes repeated blowing on cue tips, stroking cue shafts, hiking up skirts to reveal lace garters, and of course, conspicuously removing money from inside one’s bra.]

As Lizzie says, “the best players in the world aren’t found on ESPN.  They’re found in pool halls, in the worst parts of town. If you really know how to play this game, that’s where the real money is.”  [Reviewer’s note:  all the “hustling” takes place in the one town of Erie, Pennsylvania, with its population of 100,000, and not exactly the ghetto of America.]

Virgin PocketsSoon, they’re racking up big dollars, playing the real sharks in “games that no one talks about.” [Reviewer’s note: the most they ever win appears to be $500.] Sometimes, they even hustle on coin-operated tables (!!).  But, their lucrative lifestyle falls apart when Jordan abandons her mentor to compete in the Erie Brewing Company 9-Ball International.

Ripping off of The Color of Money, Lizzie makes the decision to return to the tournament world, where she hopes to get Jordan’s best game.  I dare not spoil the ending, but in the final teacher-student showdown, it was “never about the money, always about the game.”

Virgin Pockets was produced on a shoestring budget of about $3000, so expectations shouldn’t start too high.  And, in fact, the story might have been bearable if other aspects of Virgin Pockets were entertaining. But, the acting is abysmal, the camera shakes constantly, and then there is the ungodly pool.  I never thought I would say this about a billiards movie, but there is way too much pool in this movie.  Every other scene consists of our leggy ladies making the same 5-6 shots (including one three-rail shot, which is unfortunately overused), while the incessant music plays in the foreground.  It was like watching a bad music video…on repeat.

One minute into the movie, Lizzie asks the question, “Why am I here?”  Trust me, if you sit down to watch Virgin Pockets, you’re going to be asking yourself that same question.

Virgin Pockets is available to order on DVD on Amazon.  The full movie is also available to watch online on YouTube.

Virgin Pockets

Community – “Physical Education”

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After having recently suffered through some pretty terrible billiards TV episodes, including “Pool Hall Blues” (Quantum Leap) and “Cheese, Cues, and Blood” (Married with Children), I promise you my excitement about billiards TV has not only been restored, but is now bubbling over, thanks to watching “Physical Education,” from the first season of Community on NBC.

Perhaps, I had been living under a rock, but I had never watched Community, prior to the “Physical Education” episode.  Based on a sample size of one, it’s genius. For the uninitiated, the series, which begins its fifth season in January, is about an idiosyncratic group of individuals of varying ages and backgrounds, who attend and comprise a study group at the fictitious Greendale Community College.

Community - Physical Education - Billiards TV“Physical Education,” which aired in March 2010, has two very loosely related, and equally hilarious, storylines. For this blog, the relevant storyline begins with Jeff Winger (played by Joel McHale), the narcissistic, self-anointed leader of the study group, dressed in leather jacket, skinny black jeans, and black boots, in an attempt to look cool for his first day of “The Art of Pool,” a billiards class taught through the Physical Education Department.

When he gets to class, he becomes first incredulous, and then disgusted, that he has to wear a uniform – specifically, (short) shorts – since this is a P.E. class.  Taunted by Coach Bogner (played by Blake Clark) for “dressing like a model instead of an athlete, sipping martinis and smoking instead of keeping your game on the table,” Jeff replies, “Nobody plays pool like that.  This class is the desecration of America’s coolest sport.”

The real belly-laughs come when Jeff has his epiphanic ‘moment of self-love’ and returns to class, in tight shorts and boots, to challenge the coach in a game of pool.  Dismissing the notion that he should be at Urban Outfitters, he retorts, “First, I have to hand someone their tightly swaddled polyester ass in pool…now do you want to talk about clothes like a girl or do you want use tapered stick to hit balls around a cushioned table like a man?”

Community - Billiards TVCue the music for the final showdown.  And not just any music, but in an awesomely absurd homage to The Color of Money, the music is Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” with Joel doing an over-the-top impersonation of Tom Cruise in his iconic scene when he unveils his Balabushka. Like Cruise’s Vincent Lauria, Joel slices, dices, and mock-rifle fires with his cue stick (as well as makes a few pretty nice shots).

To further prove the point the he is not just a shallow clothes-whore, Joel then goes three steps farther into crazyland, first removing his shorts and shirt, and then ultimately, his tighty-whities, to make the winning shot, bare-assed, perched on one leg, giving the audience of onlookers and oglers a bit too much to remember.  The scene ends with the Coach proudly accepting defeat, kissing Jeff, and telling him, “from now on, you play pool however you choose, you magnificent son of a bitch.”

Community - Billiards TVIn closing, this episode achieved several things at once.  First, it blazed up the Twittersphere with references to ‘shirtless Joel McHale.’  Second, it helped ensure Community’s second season, as most critics believed “Physical Education” was one of the show’s best.  But, third and most important, it made pool instantly accessible…while still proclaiming it the “coolest sport in America.”

The “Physical Education” episode is available on Hulu Plus or Amazon Instant Video.  For additional commentary on this episode, check out:

The Billiard Room (billiards short film)

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Peter Weir - Billiards Short Film

Director Peter Weir

When I first learned that Peter Weir, the great Australian director behind such indelible movies as Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Truman Show (1998), had directed a billiards short film early in his career, I was giddy.  After all, Weir was a six-time Oscar nominee.  Granted, I had never seen any of Weir’s films prior to Galipoli (1981), but we’re talking about a highly credible and accomplished director.

Oh, man, was I disappointed.

It turns out The Billiard Room was no ordinary short film.  The seven-minute billiards short film (shown below), commissioned by the Australian Commonwealth Unit in 1972, was part of a longer 47-minute “teaching aid” film created that year for the Commonwealth as it started to invest in “message films” to speak to an evolving and increasingly complex Australian society.  The Billiard Room was also part of a larger “adult learning” series Weir filmed, including Boat Building (a man pursues his dream of building a boat); The Computer Centre (An older staff member struggles with the introduction of new technology);  Field Day (an agricultural field day provides an opportunity to share ideas); and The Country Couldn’t Do Without You.

Perhaps to mitigate confusion or reduce liability, the movie begins with the following prologue: “This film should not be screened by itself as a documentary. It does not provide direct information on the process of adult learning. It is a teaching aid which provides a basis for discussion.”

The billiards short film then focuses on a student at a pool hall who is considering dropping out of the university.  Suddenly, he receives an impromptu lesson in the game of snooker from some scraggly fellow.  Apparently, this lesson was designed as a teaching aid to promote group discussion on the problems of the adult learning process in management – staff relations.

I have no idea how this film is a teaching aid on adult learning processes.  The only thing that is clear is it’s certainly not a teaching aid on snooker.  Not when the guy is doling out advice, such as “You need a good cue. Straight.” Or, “in this game, you don’t move the ball.”  And, “the further away, the harder the play.”  Finally, my favorite piece of lunacy: “The thing to remember is always hit the cue ball dead center. Every time.”

What?????

I assure you that I’m a raving fan of the land Down Under, but between The Billiard Room and Hard Kunckle, the subject of a future blog post, Australia has not been kind to the billiards movie genre.

For an in-depth review of Peter Weir’s filmography, check out Sense of Cinema – Peter Weir.

14 Days – The Great Pool Experiment

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Joshua Hornbeck had been playing pool for 20 years.  He grew up in a family that celebrated – and lived – off the sport. “I got all three of my brothers who play pool. My dad.  My dad’s dad. It was a big thing in our family.  You know it’s big when you don’t even know what pool is, but you got an eight-foot pool table in the dining room…that’s how dad made our lunch money.” But, after two decades of playing pool, Joshua still hit balls too hard, used too much spin, and lacked certain ball control skills. His playing was decent, but nothing that could enable him to win his father’s pool memorial tournament and a prize upwards of $6800.

14 Days Great Pool ExperimentThat is, until Joshua was selected to participate on Tor Lowry’s billiards web series, 14 Days – The Great Pool Experiment. For two straight weeks, eight hours a day, Tor, a managing member of Zero-X Billiards and the creator of the “Secrets of Pool” instructional video series, worked diligently with Joshua on his pool game at his home in Owl City, Pennsylvania, while the cameras rolled and recorded everything.  During those 112 total hours, Joshua’s game was surgically diagnosed and he was then given a prescription of improvements, ranging from stroke drills (“1200 times in 2 days”) and center-ball positioning to half-table pattern play and kicking and breaking.

For all this instruction, Joshua did not pay Tor a cent.  That is not to say, however, that Joshua did not undertake a serious financial commitment.  As Joshua shared, his family “lives paycheck to paycheck,” so taking two weeks off from work was an enormous burden.  His wife, Lisa, added, “He’s taken a lot of time off from work, but I’m supporting him.  We saved for it. It’s an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And I’m just behind him all the way.”

The improvement, documented over the course of an 80-minute web episode (shown above), is extraordinary.  Joshua shares at the end that he “felt like he had hit the lottery.”  And, with true “pay it forward” spirit (one of the tenets of 14 Days – The Great Pool Experiment), Joshua is now training local youth by teaching them the same transformative billiards techniques Tor taught him.

Joshua is not an anomaly.  There have been other participants in Las Vegas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Texas.  A number of their stories are viewable on YouTube.  Many more will be posted soon. Their stories and skill levels vary widely, though the people Tor accepts all share the same DNA of being passionate, driven, and motivated.   They range from league players to young children, from widows to wounded warriors (including an Iraqi War veteran who lost his arm and plays with a strap).

If this is all starting to sound like an episode of the reality show Restaurant: Impossible or Extreme Weight Loss, that’s not a coincidence.  In fact, Tor says those kinds of shows were the inspiration for 14 Days – The Great Pool Experiment.   Tor, who played pool for a living in the 1990s (and had received professional training from pool legends such as Dallas West, Hal Mix, and Jerry Briesath), had been watching these kind of reality shows and started to wonder if someone could significantly improve their pool game in just 14 days.  “It was an experiment.  I didn’t know if I could do it or not,” said Tor.  That was the genesis of 14 Days. 

Since March of this year, more than 1000 people have applied to participate on 14 Days – The Great Pool Experiment.  Tor’s goal is to teach up to five people a month (sometimes several people on the same table, as was the case in Indiana) through June of 2014. Tor confided the travel and pace can be difficult, especially since he does all the teaching as well as the editing and production work.   And the work is certainly not all altruistic.  As Tor shared, “Every time I put out an episode, I get more interest in my videos and DVDs.  It drives sales.  I break even.”

But, watching the show and talking at length with Tor, it’s apparent that 14 Days is not about getting rich, even if the show ultimately lands a separate sponsor.  The show’s mission is to “make the game of pool easy for everyone.”  Even broader, Tor wants to spread his love of the game. “I want to broaden the appeal of pool…Pool isn’t really dying as a sport, in fact, it’s more popular than ever. Pool simply has changed.  It’s a different audience.  It’s not all about the seedy side.  With 14 Days – The Great Pool Experiment, I hope to demonstrate how a unified pool community is necessary.”

Big Break (snooker game show)

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Almost exactly 11 years ago, the final episode of Big Break, a British game show that paired ordinary contestants with professional snooker players to win cash and prizes, aired on BBC1.  It was not the first billiards game show (an honor that belongs to Ten-Twenty, which aired in the 1950s).  Nor was it the first billiards game show to feature “celebrity” pool players (check out Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats from 1967).  And it was certainly not the last game show to incorporate billiards (the short-lived Ballbreakers aired in 2005). But, by any measure, it was the most popular billiards game show, with 222 episodes, plus 8 Christmas Specials and 8 Trick Shot Specials, airing between April 1991 and October 2002.

Big Break - billiards game showThe format of the show is well-detailed on Wikipedia, but I’ll summarize the main points, starting with the hosts.  Off-color comedian Jim Davidson was paired with former snooker player John Virgo, who served as the “straight man” for Davidson’s barrage of banter, mockery, and impersonations. (In later years, Davidson became the subject of much controversy for his offensive jokes about ethnic minorities, homosexuals, disabled people, and rape victims.  Some speculate, not surprisingly, that Big Break was ultimately canceled because of Davidson’s reputation.)

Each 30-minute episode paired three contestants with three professional snooker players.  Though in the US, billiards players sadly do not achieve celebrity status, such was not case across the ocean in the United Kingdom. Starting in the late 1960s, with the BBC’s decision to broadcast tournaments, snooker became increasingly popular, and by the mid-1980s, the sport was at its apex, when 18 million TV viewers watched the World Snooker Championship in 1985. This back-story explains why a game show with snooker players could become so popular.  In fact, many of the current and former stars of the sport at the time, including Dennis Taylor, Jimmy White, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, and Allison Fisher, appeared on Big Break.   The episode below from 1993 features snooker stars Peter Ebdon, Ken Doherty and Terry Griffiths.

The first round of play was called Red Hot.  In this round, contestants would amass 10-second increments of time by answering questions correctly.  The snooker players then had to “pot” as many balls as possible in that rewarded time (maximum 40 seconds).

The contestant paired with the player who potted the fewest balls then had a chance to win a consolation prize (including a Big Break board game) in the mini-game Virgo’s Trick Shot. In this game, Virgo would make a trick shot, and then ask the contestant to make it.  If s/he were successful (and often the hosts would “help” get the balls in), the contestant won the prizes.

The two remaining contestants then competed in the next round of play called Pocket Money.  In this round, each snooker player had to play by traditional snooker rules for 90 seconds with the snooker balls being worth amounts of money.  When the player missed, the contestant would need to correctly answer a question for play to resume.  Whichever contestant won the most money moved on to the final round, Make or Break?

In the final round, contestants were given 90 seconds to answer five general knowledge questions. Each correct answer allowed the snooker player to remove one red ball from the table. After the questions were answered, the remaining time was given to the snooker player to clear the snooker table with the benefit of having had a certain number of the red balls removed.

It’s interesting to quickly compare the wild success of Big Break to the wild failure of its American step-cousin Ballbreakers, which aired in 2005 on the Game Show Network and lasted just one year.  On one hand, each was a product of its time and origin.  Though Big Break missed the snooker heyday era by at least five years, it still was birthed by a country that loved the sport and the professionals who played it.  In comparison, the US TV networks have never looked favorably at billiards, and as a result, the US players, with the exception of Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee are basically unknown to the larger American TV-watching audience.  In this sense, Big Break started in the penthouse; Ballbreakers launched from the basement.

But the other interesting point of comparison is that Big Break left the billiards to the professionals.  And they were exciting to watch, especially under the 30- to 90-second time pressure of the different rounds. Ballbreakers made the terrible decision to let the contestants play the pool.  This may sound very populist and cool, but it made for awful viewing.

All of this begs the question…could Big Break be remade in parts of Asia, where billiards players are already recognized as celebrities?  Could it be remade today as an American game show and a way to increase the popularity of billiards in the United States?

You can find episodes of Big Break, including the Christmas Specials (with celebrities) on YouTube. Other relevant blogs on Big Break worth reading:

Fratelli Breaks (billiards short film)

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Uttering a sentiment that could melt the phenolic resin off a billiard ball, Alex Scigliano explained to me the impetus for his 2007 short film Fratelli Breaks. “We made this film because we want to make the greatest pool movie ever made some day.”

Fratelli BreaksScigliano, along with his older brother Marcus, co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred in this 17-minute movie, while he was a student in Boston University’s College of Communication.  Shot over 18 days in Boston and parts of New Jersey, the superbly filmed movie ultimately won the Best Film Award at the Sumner Redstone Film Festival and the Best Cinematography Award at the Boston International Film Festival.

The gritty story, which has no dialogue for the first 3 minutes, focuses on Carmine and Guy Bianco, two brothers (played by the Sciglianos) who play each other for $10,000 in nine-ball billiards on the anniversary of their father’s murder.  Jumping in time between the brothers at their current age and the brothers at a much younger age learning the hustler’s trade from their father, it’s a story that feels a bit crammed in the space of 17 minutes, but could make for a fantastic full-length film.  More on that later.

Interestingly, the origin of the story is based on truth.  According to Scigliano, “When my mother went back to school to get her Master’s degree, she could no longer shepherd us to church and left the responsibilities to my father. Little did we know of his disdain for organized religion.  Instead of taking us to church for two years, my father took us to a pool hall and taught us how to dead stroke. The ‘Cue Balls for Christ Ministry’ he called it. He taught us how to hustle. He taught us about life.”

That background is relevant for two reasons.  The first is for the film’s authenticity.  Half the film is shot in the Bunker, a Boston bar with a single pool table.  The place is populated by guys with names like Jimmy Feathers, Mike the Arm, Nicky Sausage and Joey Bananas.  And while those monikers aren’t real, “the Paisanos in the Bunker…they’re not actors,” Scigliano shared. “They’re real people and they really don’t fuck around.” The decision to shoot in black-and-white (a technique that equally benefited the billiards movie Chalk) also adds to the close-quartered realism.

The second reason is for the billiards cinematography (starting around 09:35). Scigliano told me that when he and his brother saw The Color of Money, “it changed our lives.”  That’s no surprise when you watch the pool-playing.  Similar to Martin Scorsese, Scigliano uses a lot of different filming techniques to capture the energy and beauty of billiards.  The brothers are also damn fine players, so it doesn’t hurt to watch Alex make a five ball run in one continuous camera shot.  And, again emulating their muse Scorsese, the pool-playing is anchored by some hard-rock, blues-pounding music from local Boston musicians Ernie and the Automatics, and James Montgomery and Johnny A.

In addition to winning some awards and being “the most fun he’s ever had,” Fratelli Breaks also caused Scigliano to “lose 20 pounds, almost fail out of school, and lose [his] job as a bartender,” according to a 2008 interview in The Phoenix .  On the brighter side, it introduced the brothers to a commercial producer in New York City that landed them some gigs a few years later.  And finally, it remains “the template of for the feature film we want to make.”  More on that now.

Scigliano tells me that he is currently re-writing a feature-length adaptation of Fratelli Breaks.  What will make the movie different than other billiards movies (and, more broadly, other sports movies) is the goal. “Sports movies usually focus on an outward goal of winning that is tied to an internal conflict – redemption.  Ours is different.  Winning is killing.  It’s not simply a sports movie.  It’s a true revenge film, where the goal is murder.”

In the full-length, the brothers will aim to avenge their father’s murder by finding his killer, O’Boy, and hustling him out of everything he has.  Scigliano adds, “It will be set in the ‘60s, during the zeitgeist of the pool renaissance that followed the release of The Hustler. The tournament the boys must find and beat O’Boy at is based off the legendary Johnson City Hustler’s Jamboree in Little Egypt, Illinois.  R.A. Dyer’s literature is a major influence…All the classic hustlers – Wimpy Lasseter, Jersey Red, Knoxville Bear, Cowboy Jimmy Moore, Boston Shorty, Tuscaloosa Squirrel, even the real life Minnesota Fats Rudolf Wanderone – will be present.”

So, watch Fratelli Breaks, and get a taste of what is hopefully to come in the future. In the interim, keep up with the Scigliano Brothers by checking out their YouTube page.