RNMorton Gets my Game Ball for the best football movie of all time along with The Best of Times. Always out there lurking just outside my list of ten favorite movies of all time. Burt, run out of pro ball for fixing games, goes loco on his bitchy girl friend and her exoticar and gets sent up the river for some hard time. His state prison guards boast the best football team in the state, and the warden (exquisitely played by Eddie Albert) would like Burt to give his championship team a nice warm up game. Burt puts together a better team of inmates than anyone expects and the fun begins. One of Burt's best performances, helped along by Albert, Michael Conrad and some former NFL stars, including Ray Nitschke, Joe Kapp and Sonny Sixkiller. His-tor-eee

ccthemovieman-1 Overall, a brainless-but-lots of fun flick and very fast-moving one, typically sleazy (er, "gritty," as critics preferred to call them) movie of its decade.In the 1970s, who better than make a thug into a lovable, good guy we all want to root for than Burt Reynolds? Box-office-wise, Burt was the hottest thing going in the '70s and playing a lawbreaker seemed to be tailor-made for him, from "Smokey And The Bandit" on down the line.The shock in this movie was seeing nice-guy Eddie Albert play the mean warden, but he pulled it off convincingly. Most of the characters in this movie are over-the-top, but that was the idea.This movie manipulates all of us to root for the prisoners in the big football games against the prison guards. In essence, that's the story in this film: a big football game played between prison inmates and the guards. Along the way, Burt gives us his normal glib-but-entertaining wisecracks and personality and we get some wild characters to go with him, such as the very likable "Caretaker" (James Hampton).Burt is macho enough, as the quarterback here, for the guys to respect him, and still be a ladies' favorite. I can't say the same for Richard Kiel, but "Jaws" (as became later in a James Bond movie), was always fun to watch. Some real-life pro goons, like Green Bay's Ray Nitchke, join the cast for some gridiron realism.In the end, its a clichéd, but fun two hours of escapism.

ramsfan One of the biggest (if not THE biggest) box office stars of the 70's, Burt Reynolds, was well cast in 1974's "The Longest Yard". A former college football player at Florida State University, Reynolds plays Paul Crewe, a former pro quarterback who has disgraced himself by throwing games. He lands himself in prison after slapping his girlfriend around, stealing her car and assaulting two cops. The prison, Citrus State, has a semi-pro football team comprised of the institution's guards and is run by the power hungry warden Rudolph Hazen (Eddie Albert). At Hazen's behest and to make his prison term as peaceful as possible, Crewe agrees to assemble a team of fellow cons to give the guards a scrimmage. This of course sets up the final third of the film."The Longest Yard" is entertaining through and through; there is not one sequence in the movie which drags on. The interplay between Reynolds and his collection of convicts is a riot. Fine support is given by character actors Michael Conrad, Harry Caesar, Richard Kiel and Robert Tessier as cons. Real life NFL stars Ray Nitschke and Joe Kapp, representing the guardsmen, lend authenticity to the live football action. Ed Lauter (Capt. Wilhelm Knauer), the leader and quarterback of the guards, provides an excellent counter to Reynolds character.If there is a disturbing element to the film, it is the knowledge that one watches this movie rooting for the convicts- the worst society has to offer. This is effectively off set by depicting them humanely while showing the guards as racist and demeaning. The stereotypical southern prison suggests some of these cons (especially the minorities) were more than likely railroaded or at the very least given harsher sentences than they deserved.This movie was typical of the times for its gritty and impoliticly correct themes- a breath of fresh air compared to today's ultra sensitive society. And the recent remake, as usual in these instances, doesn't compare to the wit and fun of its predecessor; Adam Sandler couldn't hold Burt Reynolds' jock as an entertainer. One of my favorites!

Nazi_Fighter_David Burt Reynolds plays Paul Crewe, a reprehensible character discovering, in a prison, dignity and esteem… You see him, at the beginning of the movie—as a rising star—beating up a woman, stealing her car, drunken driving, insulting cops in a bar, resisting arrest… He's seen so funny when he insulted the miniature cop who's about to arrest him, while the cop's partner is laughing openly… Eddie Albert was very charming when he meets Paul Crewe at his arrival to Citrus State Prison… Aldrich wanted to play Warden Hazen as the guy who had the veneer of normalcy, the veneer of being a good executive, the veneer of keeping it all together till it starts unraveling… He really was just a despicable, oily, warden type… In one game scene, we see him over and over again, getting up just with that same look of shock on his face… Ed Lauter (Captain Knauer) is wonderful… He runs the football team… He is a bad guy and he represents everything that is wrong with that prison system and everything else… He changes as a result… And to see that is just so delightful… He's got the classic Ed Lauter's scene at the end… James Hampton plays Caretaker, the character who brings the team all together and pushes Burt's character ahead to win the game… Ray Nitschke plays the toughest, meanest linebacker in football… Richard Kiel, Bob Tessier, Charles Tyner, Michael Conrad, and Harry Caesar give the film a certain veracity, you almost thing you are in jail