My friend Bill had an expression that he loved to use in the mid 1970s.
Whenever we had a difference of opinion, as often as not he would respond by saying, “Well, that’s what makes horse races.”
If you don’t quite get that, most people who attend horse races go there to bet and try to win money. Different people think different horses will win, and that’s why the races are interesting.
It’s in the arts that opinions often diverge the most. If you look at film reviews on the Internet Movie Database, you’ll see great films that get uniformly good reviews and horrible ones nobody seems to like. But there are others like the one I want to discuss here that some people love and others hate.
I think I’ve written about “Amazing Grace and Chuck” before. Now that I’m past a thousand posts on this site, about closing in on 75 years old, I probably repeat myself from time to time. I hope I’m bringing a new insight to the subect.
“AG&C” started with two strikes against it with some moviegoers. First was its small budget and second was the fact the premise was somewhat fantastic. An all-star Little League pitcher in Montana is horrified to learn of ICBMs and says he won’t pitch anymore until there is nuclear disarmament. An all-star player in the National Basketball Association is so impressed that he stops playing.
The story goes from there. There are several stars in the picture — Jamie Lee Curtis, William Petersen and the great Gregory Peck — but the two main characters are played by basketball player Alex English (Amazing Grace) and Joshua Zuehlke (Chuck). English scored more points in the 1980s than any other NBA player and is in the basketball hall of fame.
Zuehlke received good reviews for his performance but never acted again. In fact, there’s almost nothing about him on the internet.
Peck had been retired for years, but liked the script enough to play the small but crucial role as the president.
He is quoted on IMDB as to why he wanted to play the role.
”This is essentially a fable – ‘If only this could happen, the world would be a wonderful place.’ That’s the way Frank Capra’s pictures were. The little people overcoming the rich and the powerful and the corrupt. I love the theme of this movie.”
Of course that’s precisely why some people hated the movie and others loved it. I saw 37 reviews on IMDB, and eight of them gave it a 1/10 pan and eight others gave it a 10/10 rave. Overall it was rated 5.8, not good but not horrible.
You might be surprised to learn that Siskel and Ebert both liked the movie, giving it two thumbs up. I’ll apologize in advance for the quality of the video off YouTube.
One fascinating thing to me about the movie was that it came out in 1987 while I was working in Colorado and covering the Denver Nuggets. I saw Alex English play 40 times that year and was very impressed by him as both basketball star and man.
I would never call this a great movie, but if I had to rate it, I would probably say 6/10 on the IMDB system and thumbs up on Siskel and Ebert’s system. As for the folks who gave it 1/10, I’ll bet their parents and grandparents didn’t like Frank Capra movies either.
Or maybe it was a lack of shootouts and car chases.