Making films with fact, farce

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By GARY SHELTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 9, 2001

I don't know about you, but I have my favorite scene in Billy Crystal's touching new movie 61*.

It's the scene where Roger Maris is standing in rightfield and a heckler, obese and obscene, starts yelling at him. When Maris doesn't respond, the fan throws a chair. Whereupon Maris rebels against the matrix and runs up the foul pole. The fan pulls a gun and shoots, but Maris simply waves at the bullets, which fall harmlessly to the ground. Because Maris is The One.

Okay, okay. That never really happened in the movie, which is sort of the point here. Frankly, it seems a lot of things in 61* never really happened.

It's odd. As a story, 61* is certainly compelling enough on its own, and as a movie, it is wonderful entertainment. So why help it along by inventing chair-throwing incidents or home fans booing home runs? Bob Cerv, Maris' roommate at the time, has suggested the movie is "75 percent" accurate.

That is a common complaint against movies that deal with history. They tweak some characters and turn others into composites, and alter timelines. You heard it about The Hurricane. You heard it about Chariots of Fire and Raging Bull and, yes, even Soccer Dog: The Movie. Remember Cool Runnings? There was barely a true sentence in the entire movie.

Which begs the question: When dealing with a movie about things that really happened, how much should a director be allowed to include things that didn't?

However you feel, get used to the debate. Because when you look at the movies scheduled for release over the next couple of years, you'll hear it again.

2130*: A retelling of the Lou Gehrig Story, starring Tom Hanks as the Yankees first baseman. Not only will Hanks move viewers to tears when he tells them he considers himself the luckiest man on earth, he'll stir your passions when he dashes from the restaurant for the airport, where he gives the letters of transit to Victor Lazlo and convinces Ilsa, his long-lost love, to join Victor on the plane.

10.75*: She fell short of five gold medals, but the Marion Jones saga is still a love story. Wait until you see the scene in the diner, when she and husband C.J. Hunter are talking about sex, and Marion starts moaning and groaning and tossing her head about, saying "Yes! Yes! Yes!" And then, from across the diner, you hear Cathy Freeman tell the waitress, "I'll have what she's having."

4,256*: Was Pete Rose really a gambling addict? Or was he a secret government agent who went inside to fight against the game fixers who threatened the integrity of baseball, only to be betrayed and barred from the Hall of Fame? Jack Nicholson plays the hustled Charlie Hustle, with Billy Bob Thornton the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson.

19*: Not only did Johnny Unitas, played by Ray Liotta, win the biggest game ever played in the NFL, he threw so many passes that his right arm eventually was left almost useless. Not only that, but it turns out Unitas wouldn't have gotten his chance if Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom had been convinced to offer him a contract after finding a horse's head in his bed.

23*: Michael Jordan, considering a comeback, transforms a DeLorean into a time machine to visit the past, a place where he was almost as big as Tiger Woods. Key scene: Where Michael and Scottie Pippen, trying to get away from the posse, jump off the cliff and into the river.

'94*: The untold story behind the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding rivalry leading up to the Lillehammer Olympics. For the first time, we see that a mistake led Tonya the Vampire Killer to mistakenly order the attack on Kerrigan, whom she mistook for one of the personality-lacking creatures.

56*: In the summer of '41, Joltin' Joe DiMaggio made a nation hold its breath when he hit successfully in 56 straight games. But when DiMaggio (John Turturro) loses Marilyn Monroe (Madonna), he gets even by baiting John F. Kennedy into the Bay of Pigs disaster. "You gonna take that from Castro, Jack? Huh?"

32*: Can the government really frame a citizen? Here, in the sequel to Enemy of the State, Will Smith plays popular football player O.J. Simpson, left to chase the mysterious one-armed man after being framed for a crime. With Kevin Spacey as Keyser Soze.

714*: A hard-hitting, no-holds-barred biopic on the life of Babe Ruth. No, it turns out Ruth wasn't really calling his shot that afternoon in 1932. What he was doing was pointing out a flying saucer. Excusing himself after the game, Ruth rushes to the spaceship where the giant robot says "Klaatu Barada Nikto." And Ruth says "Hakuna Matada" and defeats him with his light saber.

406*: Not only was Ted Williams perhaps the greatest hitter of all time, he lost parts of six seasons as a fighter pilot. Here, shot down behind enemy lines, he exposes the traitor of Stalag 17 and, upon escaping, helps the von Trapp family escape the Nazis by traveling over the Alps.

70*: For most of a summer, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa captured our imagination with their home-run battle. How were we to know that during the off-season, they saved the town of Rock Ridge from Hedley Lamarr by uniting the railroad workers into a fighting force.

'47*: It was America's greatest journey of strength when Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line. Little did America know that besides suffering racists as he played second base, Robinson was also an adventure-seeking archaeologist who pursued the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

12*: Barry Manilow makes his acting debut as Joe Montana, the unlikely quarterback who leads the 49ers to a dynasty. Early in his career, in a moment of self-doubt, Montana wishes he never had been born. But an apprentice angel shows him if that had never happened, Mr. Bailey would own the entire town and Mr. Walsh would be a car salesman.

17-0*: Years after being an unbeaten football team, geezers in Dolphins colors show up at strange stadiums to pull against teams threatening their records. Somewhere along the way, they are invigorated by alien cocoons by swimming in the same pool.

91*: What turned Dennis Rodman from a hard-working defensive star into a cross-dressing tattoo artist? Could it have been The Time Warp? Again?

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