That Championship Season (1982 film)
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| That Championship Season (1982) | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover for That Championship Season (1982) |
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| Directed by | Jason Miller |
| Produced by | Menahem Golan Yoram Globus |
| Written by | Jason Miller |
| Starring | Robert Mitchum Martin Sheen Bruce Dern Paul Sorvino Stacy Keach |
| Music by | Bill Conti |
| Cinematography | John Bailey |
| Editing by | Richard Halsey |
| Distributed by | Metro Goldwyn Mayer |
| Release date(s) | 1982 |
| Running time | 110 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
That Championsip Season is Jason Miller's screen version of his 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play of the same name. For a number of years Miller attempted to bring the play to the big screen and, finally in 1982, he succeeded. As both writer and director, Miller utilized headline talent of the time and insisted on filming the exteriors on-location in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the story takes place. His vision had the likes of Robert Mitchum, Martin Sheen, Bruce Dern, Stacy Keach and Paul Sorvino walking down West Side Scranton streets.
Scranton, as other major cities in the 1980s, was suffering from a high degree of downtown urban blight. Miller was raised and educated there and his intent was to showcase the city and its people. The first quarter of the film does just that as the characters and situations unfold. Scranton locations used included Nay Aug Park (featuring a political rally using the townspeople as extras), the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad headquarters, the Martz Trailways terminal, Lackawanna Avenue, the city council chambers and more.
The blunt locker room-style dialogue and mature themes remove the film from what would be considered mainstream. With little marketing and an abbreviated theatre run, it was relegated to television cable outlets for a number of years.
Bruce Dern was nominated for the "Best Actor" prize at the Berlin Film Festival for his role.
Soundtrack by score master Bill Conti (Rocky, The Right Stuff, For Your Eyes Only) was supplanted by the West Scranton High School Band.
In 2004, the film was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment.
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[edit] Synopsis
Set in Scranton, Pennsylvania, it has been 25 years since the 1957 Fillmore High School (fictional) basketball team won the state championship. Every year the coach and four of the victors gather to relive the glory of their shining moment. This year is different. As teenage team members together they could read each others moves on the court without fail. As middle-age men each facing their own different mid-life crisis, with a former coach that still addresses their problems as if they are having a bad game, their loyalty to one another comes under fire. There isn't a single social issue or taboo imaginable that doesn't arise in the course of their evening together testing their friendship like nothing else ever has.
[edit] Featured cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Robert Mitchum | Coach Delaney |
| Martin Sheen | Tom Daley |
| Stacy Keach | James Daley |
| Bruce Dern | Mayor George Sitkowski |
| Paul Sorvino | Phil Romano |
[edit] Trivia
- The theatrical trailer for the film was narrated by Jason Miller.
- In 1999, Miller assisted friend Paul Sorvino direct and again star in (albeit playing a different role) a lower-budget TV version of That Championship Season.
- So minimal is the musical soundtrack in this film, no CD soundtrack was ever produced.
- In one scene, someone shouts an insult at George Sitkowski, to which he replies that it is what would you expect in South Scranton. However, the scene was obviously shot in Scranton's Hill section, which is in East Scranton.
- When the mayor and newspaper editor are discussing the elephant photo in the mayor's office, it is daylight outside, but they're watching a baseball game from New York being played at night -- the game in which Reggie Jackson returned to Yankee Stadium and hit a home run for the Angels.
- The trophy used in the movie was based on an actual state championship trophy won by St. Rose High School of Carbondale, Pa. in the 1950s. Carbondale is another city in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles from Scranton.
