Attack of the IMDB

Well, so, yeah. Didn’t mean to leave this poor blog dormant for, um, like eight months or something. My bad.

We’re a few movies into our year of Sports Movies here in movie group land. So far we’ve done 1944’s National Velvet (horseracing with Elizabeth Taylor) and 1951’s Angels in the Outfield (which is considerably less wacky than the Disney remake). After a March-long break from movie night, we return with another baseball flick, in honor of the Royals’ opening day: 1988’s Eight Men Out.

For no good reason that I can think of, I hadn’t seen this movie yet. I mean, I love baseball movies, I love John Cusack, I love period pieces – what’s the dealio Cooke? I think the problem is that I knew how it was going to end, and I don’t like it when baseball goes and breaks my heart (the Royals hold the rights to that particular activity year after year, thankyouverymuch).

But this was a perfect movie group choice. You know how we’re always on the lookout for “hey it’s that guy”? Well, this movie is absolutely packed with them. In fact, I think we spent as much time watching the movie as we did on IMDB or racking our brains to figure out where we’d seen that guy before. Some of them came to us quickly; others needed the web/phone assist.

Apart from "that guy" moments, Eight Men Out also features the greatest collection of interesting noses I've ever seen. Even the extras sport significant schnozes. I don't know if it's enough to make it a theme of the movie, but it's definitely a strong visual motif (I'm pulling out the ol' English major vocab, folks!) 

Runner up motif: the chaw. Everywhere. D.B. Sweeney's cheek must have been permanently stretched from the size of the bulge in his mouth. (Pause for giggity.)

My favorite bits of trivia on this movie:

• According to some sources, the nickname 'Black Sox' was already in use for the Chicago White Sox long before the World Series fixing scandal. It was a reference to owner Charles Comiskey refusing to launder uniforms himself, forcing the players to do it themselves, which inevitably led to uniforms becoming filthy. Other sources, including Eliot Asimov's book 'Eight Men Out', do not mention the team being referred to as the 'Black Sox' before the scandal, however.
• In several scenes, White Sox players are seen tossing their mitts on to the field as they head towards the dugout. This was an actual practice by major league players to share equipment. The home team players would often leave the mitts on the field for the opposition to wear during the upcoming inning. The tradition slowly died off during the 1920s.
• The trial actually ends in August of 1921, nearly two years after the fix. The movie makes it seem as if it all took place in the time between the 1919 and 1920 baseball season.
• A child in the movie utters the famous quote "Say it ain't so, Joe!" In real life, a Chicago reporter was standing close by when a boy said something to the effect of "Say it didn't really happen Joe." In order to make a more emotionally-grabbing news article, the reporter took creative license, and created the "Say it ain't so, Joe!" quote.
• Director John Sayles was contractually obligated to a running time under two hours. To inspire the cast to talk fast, he showed them the film City for Conquest.  The final cut of the film is 12 seconds under two hours.

In honor of our “that guy” moments, here’s an annotated IMDB cast rundown:

• John Cusack – George “Buck” Weaver: Obviously, we know this guy. This movie came early in his career, a couple years after Sixteen Candles and one year before Say Anything (which, by the way, also featured one of his castmates from this movie – John Mahoney played the coach in Eight Men Out and played Ione Skye’s dad in Say Anything. Ask Steve to recite that speech about not wanting to buy anything sold or bought – he can do it.

• Michael Lerner – Arnold Rothstein: Recently, we know him from Elf – he played the CEO of the publishing company where James Caan works and demands a stupid meeting on Christmas Eve. He’s also in the Coen brothers’ fudged-up “Barton Fink,” “Newsies” and a charming little gem called “Wax On, Fuck Off.”

John Mahoney (far right). The other guys are the director John Sayles (far left, playing Ring Lardner) and the writer Studs Terkel.

• John Mahoney – Kid Gleason: Frasier’s dad plays the coach, who wears his hat Hal MacRae style, baby. Where else do we know him? Well, Frasier, obviously. Also I recognize him from The American President, Reality Bites, Say Anything and, my fave, Moonstruck. 

• Christopher Lloyd – Sleepy Bill Burns: Here he’s one of the slimy fixer gamblers, but just three years before he was Doc Brown. This is not our first Christopher Lloyd movie – he was also in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (his goofy face was particularly suited for the loony bin movie). Another movie group link: He was in the remake of Angels in the Outfield (as the lead angel), and we watched the 1951 original a few weeks ago (which was notable for its utter absence of wacky angels and bug-eyed Christopher Lloyd).

• Charlie Sheen – Oscar “Hap” Felsch: Ah, the Sheen. The Adonis DNA. The tiger blood. The winning duh. He’s so cute and young in this flick. He’s actually not in Eight Men Out very much – but it’s an ensemble movie, so that’s not surprising. Besides, we get our full dose of the Wild Thing in 1989’s Major League. Fun fact about the Sheen: he had a baseball scholarship to KU. Road not taken, huh? 

• David Strathairn – Eddie Cicotte: The underpaid, tortured pitcher who first threw a game then came back to win one in the series. I love me some Strathairn. Here’s where you know him: A League of Their Own, Good Night and Good Luck, The River Wild (an overlooked Meryl Streep movie that I suggest you check out), The Bourne Supremacy, LA Confidential. The man gets around. And he’s awesome everywhere.

• Clifton James – Charles “Commie” Comiskey: The owner of the Sox and one of many villains for this tale. James made a career out of playing Southern sheriffs, as it turns out, in Cool Hand Luke, Dukes of Hazzard, The A-Team, etc. So, props.

• D.B. Sweeney – Shoeless Joe Jackson: Toepick! Steve lost a man card for this one. He was the first to break out the toepick. Sweeney is inherently too pretty to play Shoeless Joe (see pic), but he does his best to ugly him up with the world’s largest hunk of chaw permanently imbedded in his cheek. Nasty. Where else do we know D.B.? The Cutting Edge, obviously, also in a bunch of TV shows’ guest spots. But it really comes down to toepick, in the end.

• Michael Rooker – Chick Gandil: He played the first of the dirty players, the one who used all kinds of peer pressure on the other players to get them to turn. Rooker has one of those faces that I just recognize, but it’s not from something terribly specific. He was in Mississippi Burning, which I remember seeing in high school, also in Cliffhanger and Tombstone and Slither. Mostly, though, he’s just “that guy” for me.

• James Read – Lefty Williams: We figured out during the movie (thank you IMDB!) where we knew this guy: He played Elle’s dad in Legally Blonde and the sisters’ dad in Charmed. 

• Gordon Clapp – Ray Schalk: That poor, frustrated catcher who really wanted to win but his pitchers wanted to lose. We recognized him from NYPD Blue. Director John Sayles loved this guy – cast him in four of his movies.

• Bill Irwin – Eddie Collins: Leave it to Dave the dad to connect this guy to Sesame Street. Of all the potential references on Irwin’s resume – Hot Shots, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Popeye – David knew him best as Mr. Noodle, Elmo’s friend on the Street. 

• Richard Edson – Billy Maharg: This is one guy whose name you’ll never know, but you’ll always know him by his nose. In a movie of great noses, he is the king of distinctive noses. He’s one of the first “that guy” references we spotted – he’s the valet in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off who takes the Ferarri on a joy ride. He’s also in Platoon, Good Morning Vietnam, Do the Right Thing and lots of others.

• Kevin Tighe – Sport Sullivan: This was my first “Oh yeah! I know that guy!” reference for this movie – he’s the bar owner in that deathless classic Road House. More recently, he was Locke’s incredibly awful father Anthony Cooper on Lost. Before that, he was also in Newsies and School Ties. His accomplishment in Eight Men Out boils down to 1. Being that guy who was in Road House and 2. Sporting an incredibly awful Irish accent. Seriously, take it from the Costner, if you can’t pull off an accent, don’t even try.

• John Anderson – Judge Landis: I was sure that I knew this guy from somewhere – there are only so many crusty old men with Andrew Jackson’s haircut out there. David and I determined that he simply reminded me of grandpa from Christmas Vacation. Mystery solved.

John Sayles as Ring Lardner

Ring Lardner himself

• John Sayles – Ring Lardner: The director played one of the very famous writers who broke the scandal. Sayles also wrote the script, and it took 10 years to get it to the screen. Originally, he wanted to cast himself as one of the players, but he realized that in the intervening decade, he had gotten too old. So he cast himself as Ring Lardner – and the physical resemblance is eerie. Lardner, by the way, was good friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald (who wrote “The Great Gatsby” – whose main character, Gatsby, is rumored to have gotten his fortune by betting against the Black Sox), and Lardner’s son was Ring Lardner Jr., who wrote the movie “MASH” and won an Oscar for “Woman of the Year” and was one of the Hollywood 10 who were blacklisted in the Joe McCarthy communist scare. Whew! This one was a loooong reference tangent.

• Nancy Travis – Lyra Williams: Lefty Williams’ wife (the pitcher whose wife was threatened if he didn’t follow through) – she was in So I Married an Axe Murderer and 3 Men and a Baby (she was the mom with a terrible British accent. (note: this was not a chick-heavy movie.)

• Tay Strathairn – Bucky: This is the little tow-headed kid whose big brother said “say it ain’t so, joe” – he was played by David Strathairn’s son (Strathairn played the other pitcher). He’s 30 years old now and not an actor (at least as far as IMDB can tell me). But super cute. 

• Dick Cusack – Judge Friend: played by John Cusack’s dad. Seriously, if there’s a movie set in or filmed in Chicago, Dick Cusack is in it. Observe: While You Were Sleeping (Chicago), High Fidelity (Chicago and son), Fugitive (Chicago), Return to Me (Chicago). I swear, I see him everywhere.