Re: TCM is doing an evening of made-for-tv movies

On Sat, 23 Mar 2024 17:02:50 -0000 (UTC)
"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On Sat, 23 Mar 2024 01:00:28 -0000 (UTC) Adam H. Kerman
<ahk@chinet.com>: 

 

Brian's Song
Vinnie in the Plastic Bubble
Duel
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman 

 

I've never seen the first two but the latter two were both excellent
films, well worth seeing again. I might even watch Brian's song since
I've heard it is excellent. I have no interest in seeing Travolta in
the plastic bubble though. 

 
That was the year he became a breakout star on Welcome Back, Kotter,
and the same year he did Carrie. I don't know which movie was produced
first. I watched the end of it on TCM. I'd never seen it all the way
through. From what I've read, it's heavily fictionalized and took lots
of liberties with the real story. The real person criticized the
"astronaut suit" he used toward the end because there's no way to
clean the outside of the suit so it didn't introduce pathogens deadly
enough to him, carried into the bubble room where he had to take it
off. He'd have needed some sort of sterile robing/disrobing room
before he entered the bubble.
 
They made Billy Dee Williams look a lot like Gayle Sayers. James Caan
had played high school and some college football before studying
theater.
 
The practice sessions didn't look tough enough, so I suspect some of
the "players" were actors and not football players, but there were
genuine Chicago Bears as extras in the movie.
 
I read a little about what Piccolo went through with the cancer. It
was far more gruesome than what was shown on television. It was in
his lung but it wasn't lung cancer. The first surgery was treating
cancers that had already metasticized throughout his body. He had a
series of major surgeries and, essentially, didn't benefit from any
of them.
 
The movie wasn't terribly clear on the passage of time but a couple of
months had passed between several of the hospital scenes.
 
For a football player, Piccolo really was a little guy, even before
the weight loss due to the cancer.

Was he a quarterback then? I gather most quarterbacks are small but I
know absolutely nothing about Piccolo and Sayers.

--
Rhino