- US
- 107min
- B/W
THE true story of Jim Thorpe (Lancaster), the Native American sports star who rose from an Oklahoma reservation to win two gold medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. However, Thorpe’s pentathlon and decathlon medals are stripped from him after it is discovered he has earned money playing minor league baseball and his life begins to unravel.
His marriage to his college sweetheart ends and he is forgotten by everyone except Glenn “Pop” Warner (Charles Bickford), his coach at Carlisle College. Thorpe had sold the film rights of his life to MGM for $1,500 and he also appeared in King Kong as a dancer during a spell as a Hollywood extra. The rugged Lancaster had been a gymnast and circus acrobat before entering the movies and appeared in the baseball movie Field of Dreams. Lancaster’s son, Bill, wrote the screenplay for the baseball movie The Bad News Bears, starring Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neil.
Times reader Maurice Ryan, from Spain, says: “I watched Man Of Bronze a long time ago. It’s how I still remember the great Jim Thorpe, the real greatest athlete ever.”
49 - The Big Blue (1988) Diving
Between what you know and what you wish, lies the secret of the Big Blue
Director: Luc Besson
Cast: Rosanna Arquette, Jean-Marc Barr, Jean Reno, Paul Shenar, Sergio Castellitto, Jean Bouise
- France/US/Italy
- 119min
- Colour
LUC BESSON reached a mainstream cinema audience with Léon and The Fifth Element, but it was this passionate 1988 movie about free-diving that first made his name outside his native country of France. Jacques Mayol (Barr) and Enzo Molinari (Reno, whom Besson also cast in Léon) were childhood friends who grew up on the Mediterranean.
Molinari becomes the free-diving world champion but it is Mayol, whose father drowned in a diving accident, who is transfixed by the beauty and the power of the sea. While undergoing scientific tests in Peru, which show that he is more like a dolphin in physical state than a human being, Mayol captures the heart of Johana Baker (Arquette), who follows him to an international diving competition in Italy where he is reunited with his old friend. Mayol and Molinari dive deeper and deeper, risking their lives in pursuit of victory. The true star of this film is the sea itself and the gorgeous cinematography, as well as Eric Serra’s mesmerising score, which won a César award. Besson also won the best director award from the National Academy of France.
48 - Kingpin (1996) Tenpin bowling
You wouldn’t want to meet these pinheads in an alley
Director: Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel, Bill Murray, Chris Elliott, William Jordan
- US
- 113 mins
- Colour
AN EARLY effort from the Farrelly brothers (There’s Something About Mary, Stuck On You) this comedy about the seedy side of tenpin bowling is as crude, crass and funny as you would expect. Roy Munson (Harrelson) was the most promising bowler of his generation until he lost his hand in a hustling game gone wrong. Now he is a depressed alcoholic with a hook for a hand and a bleak future until he meets Ishmael Boorg (Quaid), a Quaker who sneaks away from his farm to go bowling without his family’s knowledge and is, of course, immensely talented.
Munson takes him under his wing and they set off to try to beat Ernie McCracken (Murray), Munson’s long-time rival, on the professional circuit. The best line comes from Murray, trying to put his rival off: “If he strikes, he’s the 1979 Odor-Eaters Champion. He’s got one foot in the frying pan and one in the pressure cooker. Believe me, as a bowler, I know that right about now, your bladder feels like an overstuffed vacuum cleaner bag.”
Moment to cringe: when Roy tries to “milk” a bull.
47 - The Color Of Money (1986) Pool
The hustler isn’t what he used to be, but he has the next best thing: a kid who is
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Helen Shaver, John Turturro, Bill Cobbs
THE Academy Awards judges can be capricious, often bestowing their favour on someone because they had been unfortunate not to win in the past, rather than for their latest offering. So it seemed with the 1987 Oscars, when Paul Newman picked up his first Best Actor award for The Colour of Money after seven unrewarded nominations, including for The Hustler, this film’s prequel, in 1961. The Color of Money’s director, Martin Scorsese, has been similarly spurned, with no little gold man to show after six nominations. But unlike his earlier efforts, such as Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, this film loses its focus and is ultimately a bit unfulfilling.
The film follows a similar plot to Kingpin (No 48). The ageing champ, Fast Eddie Felson (Newman), no longer has it but he finds a promising youngster, Vincent (Cruise), to take on his mantle. While Cruise was one of the bright young talents of Hollywood at the time, his character is little more than a vehicle for Newman’s character to get back out there and remake his name.
A road movie with balls, literally, which concentrates far more on the sport than the earlier film, the pair travel round the pool halls of the United States attempting to recapture the buzz of successful hustling for Felson while Cruise battles against his own greed and cockiness. Cruise apparently did his own trick shots for the film, although Scorsese wouldn’t allow him the time to perfect a shot in which he had to leap the cue ball over two other balls. That shot was played in the film by a professional player, Michael Sigel.
46 - When Saturday Comes (1996) Football
To Jimmy life was just a game . . . until the game became his life
Director: Maria Giese
Cast: Sean Bean, Emily Lloyd, Pete Postlethwaite, Craig Kelly, John McEnery, Ann Bell
- UK
- 98 mins
- Colour
IT’S not just a football magazine, When Saturday Comes is also a gritty mid-1990s kitchen-sink drama. The year before The Full Monty brought male stripping to Sheffield, the same city was the scene for this Sean Bean football film. Bean plays Jimmy Muir, a hard-drinking brewery worker who loves football but lacks the discipline to make the best of his talents. Spotted by the manager of non-League Hallam FC while playing for his pub side, Muir is signed up, performs brilliantly and then, would you believe it, gets a trial at Sheffield United. But can he stay off the booze long enough to impress?
United get an undeserved boost in the film: despite being a first division side during the 1995-96 season, when the film is set, they get to play Arsenal and Leeds United in league matches. Well, it was directed by an American.
45 - Remember The Titans (2000) American football
History is written by the winners
Director: Boaz Yakin
Cast: Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Wood Harris, Ryan Hurst, Donald Faison, Craig Kirkwood
- US
- 113 mins
- Colour
COLOUR prejudice has no place in American football these days, with white and black players being accepted as equal in all positions, even quarterback. But this touching film takes us back to the early 1970s and Virginia, where the resented integration of black and white children at school is most keenly felt on the school football team.
Coach Boone (Washington) is brought in as head coach over his white predecessor (Patton) but is told that he will be fired if the Titans lose a single game all season. Washington, the only actor of note in the film, is a hard master but fair — “I may be a mean cuss. But I’m the same mean cuss with everybody out there on that football field. I don’t give a damn about how sensitive these kids are, especially the black kids. You ain’t doin’ these kids a favour by patronising them. You crippling them.” Gradually he builds a multiracial team of brothers, who fight their way to the state championship. Less schmaltzy than you would expect from a Disney film.
44 - Le Mans (1971) Motor racing
Steve McQueen takes you for a drive in the country. The country is France. The drive is at 200mph
Director: Lee H Katzin
Cast: Steve McQueen, Siegfried Rauch, Elga Andersen, Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Fred Haltiner, Luc Merenda
- US
- 106 mins
- Colour
OFTEN considered the greatest — and certainly the most realistic — motor-racing movie made, Le Mans captures the thrills and spills of the famous French 24-hour race. Based on events during the 1970 race, Steve McQueen plays an American driver returning to competition a year after an accident has left him badly injured. As he prepares to take on his biggest rival in the race, he is also starting a romance with the wife of a driver who died in the same accident that nearly killed him.
Le Mans is thin on plot but makes up for it with real insight into the world of motor racing and acts as a time capsule for one of the most exciting eras in the sport. McQueen did most of his own driving for the movie, often at speeds exceeding 200mph, and one of the drivers lost a leg when they filmed a stunt and he crashed his car. The driver was David Piper, who received a special thanks “for his sacrifice” in the end credits. Michel Legrand’s original score was nominated for a Golden Globe.
Chris Lawrence, from Huntingdon, says: “Le Mans — great racing footage, having the sense not to complicate life with a plot — who needs more?”
43 - Rocky III (1982) Boxing
A fighter. A lover. A legend. The greatest challenge
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith, Mr T
- US
- 99 mins
- Colour
TWO Rocky films make The Times’s Top 50, and there are no prizes for guessing which one does best, but the third film in the series, which was arguably more entertaining than the first, also had its fans. How could a film starring Hulk Hogan, the Muppets and Mr T not win fans? Having beaten Apollo Creed, Rocky is taking it easy with fights against nobodies. “The worst thing that can happen to any fighter is to get civilised,” his trainer says.
But then Clubber Lang (Mr T) beats him — and, what’s more, coins his famous phrase “I pity the fool” — shattering Rocky’s reputation. Creed surprisingly is the only man to believe that Rocky still has it and eggs him on for an attempt to reclaim his dignity and his title. Some might argue that having done that, Stallone should not have risked losing it all again with two very lame additional sequels. Nominated for an Oscar for best original song in Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor.
42 - Body And Soul (1947) Boxing
The story of a guy that women go for
Director: Robert Rossen
Cast: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere, William Conrad, Joseph Pevney
- US
- 104 mins
- B/W
- 1 Oscar
THE 1940s produced three great boxing movies but only one makes our list. Here Comes Mr Jordan was nominated for seven Oscars, winning two, but was overlooked, as was Errol Flynn in Gentleman Jim. Instead, our readers picked this 1947 film about young Charley Davis (Garfield), his rise from the New York amateur ranks and his battles with not only opponents and unethical promoters but also his recently widowed mother, who doesn’t want him to fight. Does he choose to throw his final big fight to earn money or does the adulation matter more? The realistic look of the fight scenes was helped by James Wong Howe, the cinematographer, being pushed round the ring on rollerskates. The film won the Oscar for film editing and was nominated in two other categories, including Garfield, who died five years later at 39, for Best Actor.
41 - Major League (1989) Baseball
When these three oddballs try to play hardball, the result is totally screwball
Director: David S Ward
Cast: Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen, Margaret Whitton, James Gammon, Rene Russo
- US
- 107 mins
- Colour
A SURPRISING entry in our chart, but enough of you must either be or have once been 15-year-old boys to vote this feel-good 1989 flick on to the threshold of the top 40. In a sort of baseball version of Brewster’s Millions or The Producers, Rachel Phelps, a former exotic dancer whose wealthy husband didn’t survive much past saying “I do”, takes control of his club, the Cleveland Indians, and begins to run it into the ground.
She hates the stadium, the fans and the climate in Milwaukee and wants to move the club to Florida, but she can only do that if attendance slumps. So, she decides to build the worst ragtag bunch of no-hopers in baseball, including Sheen as Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn, who earns his moniker for the inaccuracy of his pitching rather than his hell-raising. You can probably guess where the plot is heading, but predictability is not always a barrier to popularity. As well as Sheen, Russo and Wesley Snipes saw their careers take off after this. Sheen was actually not a bad pitcher in real life and had been offered a baseball scholarship at the University of Kansas.
