When Billie Beat Bobby

When Billie Beat Bobby tells the story of the events leading up to the famous match between women's tennis champion Billie Jean King and over the hill Bobby Riggs. It was big sports and sociological newsin the 70s and promoted like the match horse race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral.

Billie Jean King was in her prime back then and took her game and her opponents seriously. Bobby Riggs was a ranking pro back in the 40s but was now a middle aged sports hustler be it tennis, poker, tiddlywinks, whatever.

Riggs got the idea to challenge ranking women pros and make the challenge boorish saying a midddle aged over the hill male player could beat the best the female sex had to offer. It was the battle of the sexes as t had never been fought before.

For Riggs it was a joke and he treated it as such. When he beat Margaret Court it was because she didn't and should have taken him seriously.

This film reminded me a lot of the Rocky film where heavyweight champion Sly Stallone trains to fight the fight of his life against the Russian challenger Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren trained on borscht and steroids. The results were predictable.

Holly Hunter as Billie Jean King and Ron Silver as Bobby Riggs fitted quite nicely in their parts.

For all you female dreamers out there, this male recommends this film highly.

I suppose it was. not a horrible film, but it wasn't the best film of the year. It made me recall the real battle of the sexes and the circus surrounding it. My only real comment on the film would be, who the heck thought Fred Willard would make a good Howard Cosell?

This is one of the best TV movies to come along in years, maybe longer. As usual, Holly Hunter turns in a wonderful performance as Billie Jean King (both as the person and the tennis player). But the real shocker here is the writing and directing. "When Billie beat Bobby" has a wonderful sense of style that rarely, if ever, is available for free in the comfort of your home. It makes use of visual grain, hand held camera work, jump cuts (when was the last time you saw a jump cut on TV), and non-diagetic visuals. This does not deserve to be on TV and it does not deserve to be called a movie. I would have loved to see this film in a theater and ABC got their luckiest break since "Millionaire." From an artistic standpoint, seeing this in a theatrical release would have taken a great TV movie and turned it into one of the year's best films. From a business standpoint, someone would have made a lot more money if this was on the big screen. I don't know if this will be availiable on video one day (or in theaters) but if you ever get a chance to see it then do. It really harkens back to the TV movies

I was blithely unaware of the existence of the Battle of the Sexes until happening upon this film one evening on my way to bed.

I ended up staying awake for the whole film simply because its manner of taking classic caricatures of personality extremes and making them not only something to laugh at, but human and warm and intelligent.

I am NOT a tele movie type of gal, but this one took a hold somehow and just went from strength to strength. I will be looking for it to add to my DVD collection.

I know the whole women's lib thing was a significant event to which I should be eternally grateful etc etc, and that theme was well developed of course, but what this film really showed me is that in any situation where people are oppressed and undervalued there can be a positive, friendly and adamant attitude that can bring about real and genuine change - not just in the rules but in the attitudes of the masses, the place REAL changes occur.

I'll be looking for this film to add to my DVD collection and I'll be making sure I show my children when they are older to inspire them and prove that we are able to stand up for what we believe in without putting others down.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up!!

Amen, sister! Can I get a witness? Hallelujah, I'm saved! Yes, he orthodox gospel of feminist rectitude is proclaimed at full volume in this trying-to-be-relevant-but-mostly-fluffy made-for-TV movie.

My daughter has recently taken up an interest in tennis, so I dropped this lightweight drama in my Netflix queue, not expecting much either way. As it turned out, this could have been a really bad movie, but thankfully it's not. What saves it (hallelujah, it's saved!) from being just another dreary feminist harangue is good performances from Holly Hunter as Wimbledon champion Billie Jean King and Ron Silver as the aging hustler Bobby Riggs. I was going to further criticize this movie for unequal treatment: making King an actual human being but portraying Riggs as a nothing but a one-dimensional buffoon (after all, who doesn't want a dastardly villain who is easily dispatched?), but the more I read about Riggs, the more I came to realize that that was the way he was in real life.

This is not a fine-cuisine-and-red-wine type of movie; it's more like a Burger King meal deal. Fun, but not to be taken too seriously, and not with all the heavy-handed preaching.