The Bob Mathias Story

This is a biopic of sportsman Bob Mathias (Bob Mathias). Melba (Melba Mathias) is his girlfriend. His life centers around athletics. His high school Coach Virgil Jackson (Ward Bond) suggests the unusual decathlon in 1948 London. He surprises the world and wins. Four years later, he has other priorities. The Russians are joining the Olympics for the first time.

This is a rather simple sports biopic. The most interesting aspect is Bob and Melba playing themselves. It could have been a train wreck, but the couple is functional in their acting. The first Olympics actually packs a good emotional punch. The second Olympics looks to be actual footage. This is functional and that is more than can be expected.

I did not know this athlete and about decathlon, I remember Michael Curtiz's JIM THORPE ALL AMERICAN. I don't know it was better than this one, which is on the tradition. Not bad, not great either. Just a bearable time waster, nothing more. Maybe a TV movie from the seventies or eighties would have been better, more accurate, not so much in the Hollywood standards. The director Francis D Lyon was more inspired with his westerns and adventures movies. I guess this one was an "order" movie, to help him paying his gas bills. It is also rare that an an athlete plays his own role on screen. Audie Murphy did the same for TO HELL AND BACK. But it was about a soldier.

Bob Matthias was certainly a hero for his times. And as a sports hero he got the chance to star on film in the story of his own life up to the point he won that second Olympic Decathlon the only man ever to do it twice. And I'll say this for him at least he was a better actor than Jackie Robinson who played himself in The Jackie Robinson Story.

Of course playing himself at the age of 24 he looks all of 24 and not quite the 18 year old who won the 1948 Decathlon. But also being himself the footage of the Olympics and other track events was easily able to be integrated into the finished film.

The romance and courtship of his wife Melba is in keeping with the times. It could have been an episode on the Donna Reed Show. Melba Matthias also plays herself.

Ward Bond plays Matthias's track coach and Ann Doran his mom. There professionalism certainly was in contrast to Mr.&Mrs. Matthias.

After the action of this film is concluded, Bob Matthias did do a TV series with Keenan Wynn called The Troubleshooters, did 2 1/2 years in the Marines after the 1952 Olympics and got elected to Congress in 1966 and served four terms. All in all a worthy life.

It's a low budget film with not too much in the way of production values. Still it's a decent enough tribute to an American hero.

This biographical account of Bob Mathias's life up to and including his Olympic gold medals is more like a documentary or "real-life" TV show than anything else.

Track & Field enthusiasts will find it interesting. You certainly can't complain that the scenes of Mathias competing aren't realistic, seeing as he plays himself!