Directed by Michael Ritchie
Written by Bill Lancaster
1976/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
Engelberg: You’re not supposed to have open liquor in the car. It’s against the law.
Coach Morris Buttermaker: So is murder, Engleberg. Now put that back before you get me in real trouble.
Gee, I love this movie! Along with everything else, I think this may be Walter Matthau’s best performance.
Morris Buttermaker (Matthau) is a beer-guzzling pool maintenance man. In the old days, he was a second-rate minor league baseball player. A local politician sued for the right to add an additional team to the area’s ultra-competitive Little League, one that would allow misfits who were never chosen to play. He hires Buttermaker as coach.
The team is hopeless and Buttermaker is in it strictly for the money. He half-heartedly trains the boys. But something about the condescending attitude of the gung-ho parents and coaches of the other teams gets him interested in helping his hapless charges when the season starts. He bribes Amanda (Tatum O’Neal), whom he taught to throw a mean curve ball when he was dating her mother, to pitch for the team. Eventually she entices the local “bad boy” (Jackie Earle Haley), a cigarette-smoking motor-bike riding twelve-year old with a powerful swing, to join.
The fortunes of the team improve. Will Buttermaker succumb to the winning-is-everything attitude of the other coaches? And how will the Bears perform in their last game?
One need have no interest in baseball to enjoy this movie. One just needs to remember what it was like to be a child. I love it because all the kids have so much personality and the script is hilarious with plenty of heart. And Matthau is absolutely superb. Warmly recommended.
I loved this when I was a kid. I was 12 when it came out.
I think my brother and I talked Mom into taking us to see it a second time a few weeks later. A second time!? That was very rare! The only other movie we saw twice at a theater was The Poseidon Adventure, and that was mostly because my dad loved it.
I also remember, years later, watching Watchmen and thinking “Hey! Rorschach was in The Bad News Bears!”
I’m trying to remember whether I saw it in the theater or later. Anyway, both you and your Mom had excellent taste!
For me, a rare “Bea likes it so I’ll watch it” disappointment, found it unfunny and tedious. WM is all class but the rest, no. Sorry to you (and for me). Most say it’s great so must be my taste is out on this one.
I’m sorry too. Maybe it’s humor that failed to translate well? Different strokes for different folks. I hope you didn’t have to pay money to see it.