You all know about his movie career, so let me talk some baseball. I just re-watched The Natural last month. It’s one of my favorite films, and everyone knows that because I’ve never been without my NY Knights jacket every day, every fall and winter for decades. I’m on my second one.
Anyway, when I watched the film recently I was again impressed by Redford’s graceful, effortless skills with a bat and glove. He was 47 years old when he made that film, was still slim, still took a great cut, and moved well in the outfield.
Effortless.
That how he seemed to do everything.
He really was The Natural.
I saw it as a kid and always remember Robert Redford’s scenes with Katherine Ross in ‘Butch Cassidy’ as being, in my young mind, super sexy. She was gorgeous and they seemed to have chemistry. I was staring at her, but I imagine more than young woman in the audience for that film over the years has wet their knickers looking at Redford, and at Paul Newman for that matter. .
Mike Nichols told a great story about Redford, who badly wanted the role of Benjamin in The Graduate. According to Nichols, he told Redford he wasn’t right for the role because nobody would buy him as a loser. Redford replied “I don’t understand.” To which Nichols said, “Lemme put it another way: have you ever struck out with a girl?” A genuinely puzzled Redford looked at Nichols and asked, “What do you mean?”
Only Redford could say that and not come off as a pompous asshole.
I was re-watching a clip from that film. He is PERFECT in that film and that scene where he knocked the ball out and it hit the lights. That is one of the greatest scenes in cinema. There will never be another figure of cinema like Robert Redford. A true giant. A man that men idolized and wanted to be. A man that women wanted to be with. He always gave it 100% in his film performances no matter how bad the film is. Plus, if it wasn’t for him. I don’t think we would have some of the greatest films of American independent cinema around. Thank you Sundance. Say hi to Butch Cassidy for us.
While reading about Redford, I saw that June Wilkinson passed recently. Some of the first and finest mammaries I ever saw. Surely you’ve got tons of her in the archives
Re The Natural, I did not realize until about 10 minutes ago that Redford really was a natural in that role. I was listening to the radio news and, discussing his life and career, they mentioned that he actually attended college on a baseball scholarship. He flunked out academically, so the scholarship and the baseball did not continue. But presumably he had skills that he could access when he acted in the film.
I love that movie. In high school, I had braces and the orthodontist told my parents no sports. I was very talented in most sports. Years later I got into bowling and led leagues in average and have had over a dozen perfect games.
I have used the phrase “I could have been the best that ever lived” many times. Oh well…
When I was in high school, we had the President’s Physical Fitness testing. In the softball throw event, I threw my first one and all the coach and his helpers could do was watch it soar over their heads. The coach smiled – he liked my abilities – and said “Paul, you have to throw another one” My second throw was 320 feet. Coach said the next day that I had missed the national record by 5 feet. He wouldn’t let me throw another one.
When I was 50, my kids and I went to a fair where there was a radar gun measuring pitches. They had a chalk board with age categories and I was in the 50+ group. The highest was 58mph. My first throw was 80. The kid looked at the gun and me and said something had to be wrong. I had to throw another one which registered 81. I hadn’t pitched in decades, but I took over the chalkboard. I had seen The Natural and just said the same phrase to myself.
Last time I saw him on screen was in Dark Winds in March.
it’s an easy google or ChatGPT to compare the book to the movie… for one the ending in completely different
Bernard Malamud is one of my favorite authors (although he doesn’t know a lot about baseball). The book is, more or less, about how people never really escape their past, and about how history seems cyclical. The final baseball scene mirrors the first, where the old pro is humiliated by the up-and-comer, with Roy Hobbs traveling the full circle from one role to the other.
In addition to his failure at bat, Roy is revealed to be corrupt.
Bernard Malamud saw the film and said it was not his book, but he liked it and was happy for the recognition it gave him. If they had made a movie that followed the book, it might have been a better film in the eyes of intellectuals, but few people would ever have gone to see it and fewer still would have liked it.
I like the movie just the way it is, sentimental and redemptive
Agree that the movie was near perfect. A strict adaptation would have sold far fewer tickets and I probably would not have remember it…. Now on to Shoeless Joe vs Field of Dreams!
Yeah, Malamud is a good writer, but he can also be a real downer. They made a faithful movie of The Tenants, it was deeply meh.
As I recall, The Fixer, with Alan Bates, was a pretty good movie, but I saw it 50+ years ago so “I got nothin'”
To your point, yeah, Malamud was not a bundle of laughs. He did kind of wallow in suffering, injustice and misery of all kinds. To tell the truth, I have’t read his later works. When I left the academic world, I kind of set aside my interest in serious writing, so I haven’t read much fiction other than entertaining, pulpy stuff (the Fletch books, the Harry Bosch books – stuff like that) since 1972, except when a movie gets me digging deeper into the story. I’m still struggling with that Nick Tosches book about the Dante manuscript. (Pretty dense, and slow to get to the story. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, too much foreshadowing, not enough actual shadowing.) I should read Malamud’s “Dubin’s Lives,” which is for literature fanboys like me, and is supposed to go easier on the hand-wringing. I haven’t read “God’s Grace” either, but I have no interest in that one.
A different opinion here…