Bang the Drum Slowly – Book, TV Special, Movie – it’s all good.
Suppose you wrote a book about baseball that earned acclaim as one of the best sports books of all time, suppose it was good enough to be turned into a TV special starring Paul Newman, and suppose it eventually become a feature film starring Robert DiNero. That would make you Robert Harris – and the novel, stage play, TV special and feature film would be “Bang the Drum Slowly.” This review is about the 1973 feature film, but BBRT also recommends the TV special and book (as well as Harris’ novels The Southpaw, Ticket for a Seamstress and It Looked Like Forever).
Bang the Drum Slowly (Paramount) is consistently ranked among the top ten baseball movies of all time, and with good reason. It’s a tragedy, a comedy and a sports movie that takes you from the Mayo Clinic, to the ball park to the gritty life (at least in baseball’s “golden age”) of a major league ballplayer. As the title (a line from the poignant cowboy song “Streets of Laredo”) suggests, it’s a movie about dying, but it is equally a movie about living, about passion and compassion, about laughing and crying, and victory and defeat, and about baseball. The principals are:
- Star Left-hander hurler Henry Wiggen (Micheal Moriarty);
- Mediocre catcher Bruce Pearson (Robert De Niro);
- Gruff manager Dutch Schnell (Vincent Gardenia); and
- A host of New York Mammoths team members, well chosen for the parts they play.
The story is basic. Pearson, the mediocre and slow (in multiple ways) catcher is diagnosed with terminal (but not yet debilitating) Hodgkin’s Disease and, wanting to stay on the field, tells only Wiggen (the NY Mammoths’ star left-handed hurler). Wiggen takes a vow of secrecy, fearing the team would cut Pearson if they found out about his health problems. As you might expect, the secret is larger than Wiggen’s resolve and slowly spreads across the team. Team members rally around Pearson, protecting him on and off the field and coming closer together themselves in the process.. And Pearson, now playing solely for his love of the game find a little extra power in his bat and zip in his arm (at least for awhile).
A bit sentimental at times, yes. De Niro, in this early role, may overplay his part a bit. But there is plenty of story, plenty of emotion and plenty of baseball. And a couple of asides. Bang the Drum Slowly will take you back to a different time, when even the “stars” had other jobs. Wiggen, for example, the Mammoths’ “ace” pitcher sells insurance (and writes books) on the side. Watch for TEGWAR, The Exciting (card) Game Without Any Rules, and see if you’d be willing to sit down to a hand or two with a major leaguer. And finally, listen for the town of Cannon Falls (home of BBRT), mentioned nine times in the movie.
