Giving Them What They Want :: A 20 Vid-Cap Look at George Roy Hill's Slap Shot (1977)

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"The fans are standing up to them! The security guards are standing up to them! The peanut vendors are standing up to them! And by golly, if I could get down there, I'd be standing up to them!"

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Mirroring the financially strapped city it calls home, a minor-league hockey team faces foreclosure and liquidation at the end of the current season. Knowing this is his last chance, the veteran coach (Newman) concocts a hair-brained scheme to increase ticket sales by urging his players to goon it up and bust some heads, penalty-box be damned, to save the team, his job and, hopefully, his marriage.

Like North Dallas Forty and Bull Durham that followed in its wake, Slap Shot is about a fifty-fifty split between the lives and antics of the underdog Charlestown Chiefs in the locker room and on the ice -- most notably those lords of slot cars, foil and chaos known as the Hanson brothers, and the pursuit of some nookie off of it; be it the act itself or the relationship troubles it causes.) 

Now, I don't think anybody would argue that Slap Shot isn't the greatest hockey movie ever made since I'm hard pressed to even name five other hockey movies at all (without including the sequels this spawned). But I also proudly belong to a very vocal minority who proclaim Slap Shot to be the greatest sports movie of all time, period; with The Bad News Bears finishing second and Eight Men Out a distant third. 

Hell, this even qualifies as my favorite Paul Newman flick, too; here, teaming up with his old buddy, George Roy Hill again (The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). I mean nobody, but NOBODY, else could pull of those leather pants and plaid leisure suits. And though people usually only associate him with dramatic or hard-boiled roles, Newman always shined when he flexed his funny-bone and he should have done it more, judging by the strong evidence found here. So head on down to old War Memorial Stadium, folks, plenty of premium seats still available, and give Slap Shot a whirl if you haven't had the pleasure -- or consider this some encouragement to revisit it again. C'mon. Drop the puck, already!!!

Other Points of Interest:

The newspaper ads for Slap Shot at the Morgue.
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Slap Shot (1977) Kings Road Entertainment :: Pan Arts Productions :: Universal Pictures / P: Stephen J. Friedman, Robert J. Wunsch / AP: Robert Crawford Jr. / D: George Roy Hill / W: Nancy Dowd / C: Vic Kemper / E: Dede Allen / M: Elmer Bernstein / S: Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean, Strother Martin, Jennifer Warren, Lindsay Crouse, The Hanson Brothers

Trailer Park :: Don't Say it. Hisssssss it...

That's quite the provocative piece of artwork for what boils down to an old-fashioned tale of science gone amok. The mad-genius and vision of Dr. Stoner (Strother Martin) and his diabolical experiments of de-evolution -- or tampering in God's domain, if you will, and getting homo-sapiens back in touch with their reptilian roots, is a man out of time in 1974, and rightfully belongs with his Eisenhower era colleagues Deemer, Blake and Branding.

Yeah, I know, that title is kind of retarded, but don't let it deter you from catching this fine fractured flick. People often ask me what's the most disturbing thing I've ever seen on screen, and that used to be contestable between a lot of nominees until I put together what I saw and heard in Ssssss and the debate came to a crashing halt.


The gist of Stoner's crack-pot experiments is to turn his unsuspecting lab assistant (-- played by a pre-Starbuck, Dirk Bendedict) into human/cobra hybrid. Now, in most films, these metamorphosis scenes are usually quite painful. Here, the sinister transformation is slow, protracted, and extremely painful to the Nth degree. And when Stoner's daughter (Heather Menzies) begins to suspect that her father is up to something with her new boyfriend, and while tracking down a few leads, she stumbles upon the old man's first and failed attempt.


And here is where my skin starts to crawl. Sold off to some freak show, Stoner's previous lab assistant has been reduced to something akin to Jon Bonham. At the very beginning of the film, we hear something pathetically wailing and caterwauling as Stoner strikes a deal with sideshow owner, something not quite human. And when we finally get a look at the thing, we can see it in his eyes, something very human, trapped, forever, an impudent lump, with no ability or means to communicate aside from that insidious mewling, pleading for help. Help that will never, ever come.

And that, folks, that realization, with auditory assist, is the most disturbing thing I've ever encountered on screen.


Taking up these ear-curdling cries is Benedict, as each painful stage peels off more of his humanity like the skin he's currently shedding. And though the heroine is on the right track to possibly abort the final stages, it's already too late, and the film continues its somber and morbid tone until the bitter end.


Sssssss (1973) Zanuck/Brown Productions :: Universal Pictures / EP: Richard D. Zanuck, David Brown / P: Dan Striepeke / AP: Robert Butner / D: Bernard L. Kowalski / W: Hal Dresner / C: Gerald Perry Finnerman / E: Robert Watts / M: Patrick Williams / S: Strother Martin, Dirk Benedict, Heather Menzies, Richard B. Shull, Reb Brown