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Burt's Best Movie: The Longest Yard (SPOILERS)

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Of all his hits, and his considerably fewer classics, I think The Longest Yard is the best Burt Reynolds movie.

As he said at the time, "the script didn't have Robert Redford and Paul Newman's fingerprints on it" -- it was brought to him first. Along with James Caan and Nick Nolte, he was about the only actor of his time who could play an NFL player (he'd been a college footballer), and the movie lets him play the first 20 minutes with long hair and a moustache(very cool) before sending him to prison and cutting off the stash and down the hair(he looks pretty brutal, primal -- his comedy chops shine through, but the character is a tough guy.)

The director was Robert Aldrich, who had had the hit The Dirty Dozen and here elaborated on that film's sequence in which convict GIs rout a bunch of regular Army guys in "War Games." Here its "the prisoners versus the guards" on the football field, and in its 70's way , the movie asks us to root for killers, rapists, and crooks as the GOOD GUYS versus sadistic, oppressive establishment guards. Burt was the key to making it work -- he was a NICE convict, a game-throwing self-loathing once-rich NFL superstar who gets thrown into prison with very financially poor men and has to earn everybody's respect.

I had three experiences seeing(or trying to see) The Longest Yard in '74 and '75.

First, I went out to see it on a Saturday night and...to my shock...all the night's showings were sold out. I told my companion...."A BURT REYNOLDS movie is sold out all night?" I sensed he might be a star after all.

Second, a few months later, I saw the film with about 1/3 of a house and I enjoyed it and I was gripped by it -- Eddie Albert's evil power-mad warden is a man you want to hate -- but there was little audience reaction.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Third...about a year later..they showed The Longest Yard for $1 admission at my college's truly gigantic dining commons -- a big building that could hold about twice as much as a movie theater. THAT crowd went nuts for the movie, and during the final 30 minute football game roared and cheered as if we were at a REAL football game -- not to mention laughing at the brutally violent slapstick violence during the game("I think I broke his f'n neck...he thinks he broke his f'n neck.") The college had smartly shown a Three Stooges short before The Longest Yard. It fit.

Anyway, that full house roaring cheering experience of watching The Longest Yard goes down with my Wait Until Dark, Jaws, Psycho and Star Wars "best audience night at the movies" of my young life.

SPOILERS FOR THE LONGEST YARD

Its Burt's best. Even if, photographically, it looks as flat and cheap as a documentary on factory work. And even if -- in accord with 70's downers -- Burt wins the game at the cost of probably having to stay in prison for the rest of his life (unless the warden's frame up can be exposed, which isn't promised.)

Favorite line, exchange, at halftime with good Burt and evil warden Albert talking alone. Albert demands Burt throw the game("You've done it before") or the other convicts will be punished and he'll be kept in prison for good. Burt agrees, then this:

Burt: There's just one thing I'm sorry about.
Warden: What's that?
Burt: That you're not out there on the field with us, busting heads.
Warden: Oh, I'm afraid I'm too old for that.
Burt: Nah. You just never had the guts in the first place.

Audience cheers -- but the evil warden takes that insult as reason to double-cross Burt later..