61*
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Movie Reviews of 61*
Movie Review: 61 in 61
Summary: 5 Stars
In the pantheon of baseball movies, this one, 61*, is in my personal top five, and perhaps the top three. Billy Crystal, better known as a comedian or as host of the Academy Awards, took the director's chair for this film, and produced a story that was a grand insight into the personal and professional world of baseball during the era of Mantle and Maris. Produced very shortly after Mark McGwire broke the Maris record, Crystal framed the 1961 story with scenes from the McGwire run.
Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in the 1927 season, and Yankee stadium was still known, a generation later, as the house that Ruth built. In 1961, Ruth's longstanding record seemed secure. Mickey Mantle had inherited the status of 'Yankee favourite' from predecessors Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, but Roger Maris had narrowly beat him in the poll for MVP the previous year, all the more remarkable because Maris was a newcomer from the midwest. The sportwriters were divided in how they reported about the team, but almost all were more focussed upon Mantle until the runs began to stack up. However, the press (and often, it seemed, the fans) were still favouring Mantle, and sometimes booed Maris when he would hit a home run.
Crystal did a good job at showing the kind of personal stresses, both family and professional, that Mantle and Maris had to endure going through what should have been one of the most glorious seasons in baseball history. There was a kind of institutional resistance to anyone breaking Ruth's record, but even more resistance to Maris than to Mantle. This is embodied in the asterisk that followed the number 61 in record books (and the title of this film) - Ruth's season was several games shorter, and it was deemed 'unfair' for Maris to take the record, having not hit the same number of runs in the same number of games. Eventually the asterisk would be removed, but not before Maris' death some time later.
Good little touches like Maris' special eggs (which Mantle began to eat with reluctance, but came around when Maris said he hit home runs after eating them), scrap book collections shown periodically throughout the film, the song 'I love Mickey', and other audio-visual pieces of baseball memorabilia make this a baseball trivia-buff treat. The personal stories of the family lives, increasingly under stress as both players come within striking distance of the record, show details most likely fictional, but certainly understandable.
Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane star as Maris and Mantle, respectively, and both turn in great performances as the athletes. They both look like naturals on the field and in the locker room, and do a good job with the personal angle as well, Pepper playing the low-key Maris and Jane playing the hard-living Mantle. They both bear striking resemblance to the men they portray, Pepper especially so. Other performers include Anthony Michael Hall, Richard Masur, and Christopher McDonald in memorable supporting roles. Donald Moffat as the commissioner Frick is especially good. Jennifer Foley (actually, Jennifer Crystal Foley, Billy Crystal's daughter) turns in a good performance as Pat Maris, the long-suffering and supportive wife, struggling from half a country away to be strong for her husband as he faces the stress of success.
Any baseball fan will love this film. Those who aren't necessarily fans of baseball may find a new-found passion for the game.
The Yankee's retired Maris' number 9 in 1984. Maris' bat is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Perhaps some day, Maris will be, too.
Movie Review: Perhaps The Best Baseball Movie Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
I knew when I read about this movie and saw Billy Crystal's name attached to it that it would be a work of love. And I was not diasppointed.61* takes us back to 1961 and retells the classic home run race between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as they both tried to catch Babe Ruth's then record of 60. The initial part of the story is told from the the Maris family perspective in 1998 as Mark McGwire was chasing Roger on his way to the then record of 70 (smashed by Barry Bonds with 73). If you will recall that historic moment, you will recall the homage that McGwire paid to the Maris family.
61* is not so much a baseball movie (even though I called it that) as it is a movie about rivalry and friendship between two very different men. The movie is not afraid to show them as fallible but it does so with dignity and explains why they may have these foibles. Mantle is shown as being the utlimate Amercian icon. Every kid growing up wanted to be Mickey Mantle. Blond, good looking and playing centerfield for the Yankees - what more could one ask for. But the dark side of Mantle - his womanizing and drinking is not ignored. But we come to understand that Mantle was afraid of dying. No man in his family had ever lived to 40 and we get the feeling that he wanted to enjoy life when he could. Maris is shown as being quite and introverted and moody, but when we see the enormous pressure he is put under, we understand. Maris never asked for the limelight. All he wanted to do is to help his team win.
Mantle and Maris are shown as rivals - there's tension and there is also love. We see that Maris had no greater fan and supporter than Mantle. Mantle admires what his friend is going through and perhaps is relieved that some of the pressure is removed from him - after all - Mantle was expected to hit a home run every time at bat.
The dark side of the story is the totally unnecessary pressure and hatred that Maris endures. He gets hate mail, he has chairs thrown at him, the press gangs up on him. Why? Because he was breaking a record of an Yankee and the public wanted only another Yankee icon - Mantle - to break that record. Maris was not a real Yankee (he was acquired in a trade) and that was what irked and irritated his detractors. Never mind that he had been MVP in 1960. Flash forward to 10 years later and you can get a glimpse of what Henry Aaron went through as he approached the Babe's career home run record. 61* is also an indictment of sports fans and reporters and how we have our priorities totally out of whack, especially when we think about how these days, New Yorkers wish that all they had to care about WAS a home run race.
The DVD's main bonus feature, worth the viewing alone, discusses how the movie was made. It was fascinating to hear of the transformation of old Tiger Stadium in Detroit into Yankee Stadium, and how the movie was cast. In a bit of trivia which ties into the Bonds home run record, Thomas Jane (who plays Mickey Mantle) had never picked up a baseball until he got this part. Billy Crystal sent him to a school to learn some baseball skills. Jane's instructor was Reggie Smith, a distant Bonds' cousin. Isn't it funny how life comes full cycle?
Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane are fully believable as the duo and give excellent performances. 61* will delight baseball and non baseball fans, because the beauty of the movie is the relationship between the two men ad how, in the face of immense odds, friendship can endure.
Movie Review: great movie about the M&M Boys
Summary: 5 Stars
this is a very good movie that Billy Crystal has done. The movie is so rich in detail, it honestly should be considered one of the greatest baseball movies ever made.
Thomas Jane plays and looks like Mickey Mantle
Barry Pepper looks like and plays Roger Maris to a tee
Michael Hall plays the fun loving, free caring White Ford
61* covers the 1961 baseball season, a season for the ages. In 1961, we had 2 teamates, not McGwire and Sosa (steriods and different teams), but Mantle and Maris, from the same team both going after Babe Ruth's HR record of 60 homeruns in 1 season.
Mantle is a Yankee legend, a hero to many and one of the greatest baseball players of his time. You really see the sad part about Mickey, what made him great and what made you really care about him.
His drinking problem, fooling around with girls, not always being their for his kids, and above all, just not taking care of himself as a person.
Mickey's family had a history of dying young with Hodgkins disease, so Mickey took that approach and lived a care-free life, which ultimately, cut his career, and sadly his life short. 61* exposes some of those aspects about Mickey.
Maris is a gamer, who grew up in North Dakota and married his high school sweetheart (like Mickey), only he's a real family man. Roger is a very humble person who wants to take care of his family and just play baseball. In 1961, Maris, who is coming off an MVP season in 1960, suddenly finds himself sharing the spotlight with Mickey, something Roger isn't too comfortable with. He's too humble, shy, and doesn't really understand the media and country's fascination with him. He doesn't have the charisma that Mickey has, and that turns members of the media away from Roger.
The pressure on Roger builds, and the strees of just how important the HR record is really starts to beat down on Roger, at times, he used to smoke over a pack of cigarettes a day. Roger also started losing his hair from the stress of the media, death threats from fans, and from the Ghost of the Babe.
Everyone knows the history of the story, but not many know the struggles, the true background of the 1961 season. Billy Crystal did an amazing job with 61*, in showing you that story.
What is amazingly sad about the ending of 61*, is that Roger never knew that he held the HR record to himself, because MLB at the time still had the asterik* to the HR record, because during the 1961 season, MLB added 8 more games to the season. The double wammy at the end of course is that McGwire broke Maris' record, and yet, McGwire did it under steriods.
When you see the Maris story, what he had to go through, and then you hear about McGwire's steriod use, as a baseball purist, you get angry. True baseball fans however, I believe, still and will always regard Maris' 61 as the true HR record for 1 season.
61* is an amazing baseball story and an amazing personal story. There is one key documentary that gives you a backdrop on the making of 61*, including where the film was shot, why Billy Crystal chose Thomas Jane and Barry Pepper, and above all, why he chose to make this film.
I love movies with heart and soul, and Billy Crystal sure put his heart and soul into 61*, which is why, in the end, it's a winner.
Movie Review: Dear Mr. Crystal...
Summary: 5 Stars
...I just have to tell you and the world how your beautiful, emotional film moved me to tears.
Every ounce of your passion, your knowledge...your love...of baseball, the Yanks, Mickey and the glorious summer of 1961 is up on the screen in your impossibly good movie, "61*".
It's obvious you were there for all this stuff...you've made a movie that only you could have made, and how many times can you say that? What filmmaker...ever...would not only have the talent to pull off this story, but also witnessed it as it happened?
Nobody. But you.
This is a film that belonged on the big screen, not the small. The reconstruction of the U.S. back in 1961 feels pitch-perfect; even though I was technically a negative-three years old at the time, it feels 'right.' Even though I missed it, being pre-embryonic and all that, I "got" Mantle's appeal, Maris' torture, the press' pressure.
Your direction varied from the emotionally operatic to the documentary-like, yet fit each scene like a glove. Intertwining scenes from the stands, the field, the broadcast booth and elsewhere exquisitely enhanced the drama without attracting too much attention to itself. I liked it when you just sort of let the events unfold. Yes, I know that a simple groundball-to-short must have involved 30 shots and five days of work, but it seemed as if it was happening "real time."
On the other hand, some of those great overhead or "in the air" shots, usually of some massive home run, conveyed the drama and the excitement in a way only film can.
Your casting was phenomenal. As the other reviewers have mentioned over and over again, Thomas Jane and Barry Pepper were perfect. Perfect beyond belief. But I found the other characters equally fine...Mel Allen, Ralph Houk, Phil Rizzuto were all played by character actors easily recognizable to anyone who has seen more than a dozen movies in their lifetime, yet they evaporated into their character. Your daughter put in a sublime performance herself...sweet enough that I sought her name out at the end of the film, only to find out who she "really" was!
An intelligent, perceptive script combined with some seriously impressive cinematography and again, masterful art direction (in recreating 1961), made for a film package better than the majority of "movie theater" films that came out that year, or any year.
This is a film that every baseball fan will adore, every film fan will love, and every casual fan will thoroughly enjoy. It's a terrific movie. Thank you so much, Mr. Crystal, and I urge you to make more baseball movies...please!
And as a final note: the making-of doc is essential viewing. It made a great film better.
Movie Review: 61..Deserves Sixty-One Stars if Possible.
Summary: 5 Stars
Billy Crystal's labor of love dealing with the season when two Yankee teammates were in the running to break the single season homerun record hits a grand slam. Watch Billy Crystal's interviews of his childhood memories of being a Yankee fan in the 1950's in Ken Burn's great maxi series documentary BASEBALL and you would see why he was perfect to direct this great film. 61 is one of the best baseball movies in recent memory. Barry Pepper is perfectly cast, and has an uncanny resemblance to the much maligned but now-forgiven Roger Maris. Thomas Jane does a fine and credible job of playing legend Mickey Mantle. The movie captures the spirit of the late fifties/early sixties atmosphere when New York was the capital of baseball, the unrelenting press was what made or break you, and the Yankees were the equivalent of the Rat Pack of baseball. This is more than a baseball movie, it is a movie about love, friendship, family, humanity, and the spirit of determination under pressure. This is supposed to be a story of two men, Maris and Mantle. However, unintentionally, Crystal has made this film a loving tribute to Roger Maris. It is redemption for all the abuse he took by the fans and press because he wasn't Babe Ruth, or even the heavily favored Mantle. Barry Pepper's performance has a lot of emptional depth as the beleagured Maris, and should have been nominated for an Emmy for his performance. We are given an inside look at Roger Maris' love for his family and home life despite being on the road as compared to Mantle's abuse on the road. The two men had opposite views of the baseball road life, but somehow forged a friendship and bond when the pressure was on to break Babe Ruth's single season homerun record. Along with this, we are shown the vices that ultimately would be the undoing of each man (cigarettes for Maris, alcohol for Mantle). Crystal's direction is outstanding and the attention to detail is exceptional along with a fine script with some humorous undertones. Great supporting cast includes Micheal Anthony Hall as Hall of Fame Yankee pitcher Whitey Ford, Crystal's daughter Jennifer Foley as Maris' wife, Chris McDonald (HAPPY GILMORE) as Mel Allen, along with Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Rene Taylor, Micheal Nouri (Joe Dimaggio), a surprising guest appearance by actress Patricia Crowley (tv's PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES), and the always reliable character actor and king of supporting roles, Bruce McGill (ANIMAL HOUSE, TIME COP, and everything else..) as Yankee Manager, Ralph Houk. DVD has great extras including behind the scene interviews and on screen commentary by Crystal. A must-have DVD for Yankee and baseball fans alike!!