One on One

How many popular teen heartthrob actors co-wrote a sports movie script about college basketball with their Dad, got the lead role in the movie and is so good at basketball that he doesn't need a double? The answer is probably only one and that was Robby Benson.

Robby stars as a short (5' 11" is short by basketball standards) but fast and feisty high school wunderkind called Henry Steele from a small town in Colorado who scores a full ride scholarship to Western University in LA replete with all the excess inducements like a sports car, sellable tickets and cash in an era before stricter NCAA enforcement. Henry arrives to start his freshmen season with the kind of doe-eyed innocence and gentle down home naïveté that characterized a number of roles Benson had previously played. Pretty soon he's thrown in the deep end of the seedier side of college professional sport including bribes, corruption, sexual favors, coach bullying, performance enhancing drugs and wild parties.

The WU Coach Smith is played brilliantly by GD Spradlen who is an amalgam of every hard assed demanding sports coach imaginable. He reacts negatively to Henry's hot dogging playing style and tries to force him to give up his scholarship. Here Benson assumes a familiar coming-of-age gritty determination that was a feature in many of the more than half dozen roles he played as a teenager as he refuses to be broken by the coaches. At first Benson's baby face looks and height well shorter than his fellow players means he looks like literally a boy amongst men (despite being 20 when the movie was filmed) but Benson's never-say-die attitude and his obvious intense athleticism gives an edge of realism to the intensity of the college basketball scenes and the realities of the bullying he faced.

The budding romance between Henry and his senior aged tutor Janet (ably played by Annette O'Toole) gives the movie a very touching and sweet counterbalance to the coaches' attempts to drive Henry out. At first Henry seems destined to be a typical jock in Janet's eyes but quickly he proves to be a more genuine scholar than Janet is used thus gradually endearing him to her. One of the movie's best acted scenes is a tutoring session in the presence of Janet's current professor boyfriend, an anti sport cynic, where Henry not only won't take the jock stereotyping lying down but he almost comes to blows with the man who held thrall over the woman he is falling for. His feisty determination to stand his ground leads Janet to dump the professor for her eager, younger pupil.

One on One also offers a real blast down a 1970's memory lane with tight flared pants, huge collars on flowery shirts and basketball shorts that were SHORT. Final bits of trivia: 19 year old Melanie Griffith makes an endearing cameo appearance and this movie was the first of three sporting movies Benson starred in, all with pretty demanding physical roles but throughout these roles, he nursed a shortness of breath due to a faulty aortic heart value eventually necessitating open heart surgery undertaken in his late 20's that effectively ended Benson's storied career in front of the camera.

What can I remember about "One on One". I was like 10 years old. I think I saw it as a double-feature with another sports movie called "Take Down". That is when double-features existed and they usually had movies with similar themes. Anyhow, One on One is a pretty cool movie for anybody, let alone those who love basketball. I remember Robby Benson going to college and he is literally dwarfed by some of the other players. The center was 7'4", his new friend was like 6'6" and little Robby is only 5'11". But he still can dazzle us with his ball handling and great outside shots. He falls in love with a nice Freshman and the relationship is very sweet and tame. I think they may have kissed twice, one being just a simple short kiss. This is your typical underdog story told in a sport's theme while giving the audience the allure of young adults learning about life and love. The closing song and montage is also nice and reminiscent of the 70's.

If it wasn't for "Hoosiers", I would have to say that "One on One" would be my favorite basketball movie of all time. In fairness, I am partial to movies where the actor playing an athlete can actually perform as one. You would be hard pressed to find a real actor(I'm not talking about the cast of "Space Jam") who displayed as much basketball skill as Robby Benson does in this movie. The dude can flat out play.

I am not giving a backhanded compliment when I say that G.D. Spradlin does an outstanding job of portraying an a$$hole coach. He gives virtually the same performance as he did in "North Dallas Forty". His attempts to crush Henry seem harsh but believable given the power and ego that some of these big time coaches possess. Annette O'Toole does a good job although watching the movie again with my son, I forgot how much of a love story this film is as well.

Realistic basketball play and a true underdog theme make this movie a good one for me. Certainly a little dated but hardly irrelevant, I would say watch this movie with your young athlete. It is finally available on DVD and worth the $12 I paid for it.

G. D. Spradlin is a splendid actor. Between his role as the coach here, and in the same role in the great football flick, "North Dallas Forty" - he has undoubtedly won, hands-down, the prize for the best portrayal of the quintessential "total horse's-ass coach." As others have pointed-out, it is illogical that he would recruit Henry (Robby Benson) as heavily as he did, then not know who he was when he reports on campus. Also, he knew Henry was a small-school, small-in-stature, fast-break player, whose talents were speed, ball handling and shooting - and yet, he is non-plussed when this doesn't seem to fit with his slower, ball control, "big-team" offensive philosophy.

The gratuities furnished Henry (automobile, do-nothing job, alum booster buying his game tickets for exorbitant amount) are beyond the scope even the most "liberal" programs would furnish - at least in terms of their obviousness, with little intent to provide some sense of legitimacy to them. And the coach's decision regarding Henry's scholarship, and his measures to try to drive him off the team, are over-the-top, even for the heavy-handed character portrayed (and even bearing in mind that big-time college athletic programs are not as altruistic as the schools like to portray).

But these contrivances are also what make the movie more interesting, and sometimes characterizations which are exaggerated help as much as they hinder the plot - and they do so here. I remember seeing Burt Reynolds with Johnny Carson on a show, discussing a movie in which Benson had appeared with him. He laughed about winning bets from others when Benson was able to do 100 sit-ups in about a minute. With some of the performances in sports movies, where the principals can be made to look like they can perform only by using trick photography or stunt doubles - it is a pleasure to watch Benson, who obviously is physically capable, and knows how to handle, pass and shoot a basketball. Annette O'Toole is engaging in the female lead, and together they make an attractive, appealing young couple.

......Young, naive kid comes from the sticks to make it in the world of big-college basketball, encounters a Bobby Knight-type tyrannical coach, gets his ego stroked however by a caring teacher (tutor) and that carries him through to where one day, when the starting guard goes down with an injury, he gets his chance and turns into Magic Johnson/Larry Bird....and then tells the coach where to stick it......

As writer Dave Barry used to say, "I am not making this up."

Here is another example of movie I re-watched on tape in the mid 1990s and wondered, "How could I have liked this film so much when it came out?" That was then, and now is now. Yes, one tends to be far less discerning when one is younger, but some movies also get dated in a hurry. This is one of them. Actually, actor Robby Benson is another. He was a hot commodity in the '70s but faded fast.

However, despite having said all of the above, this movie IS fun to watch.

Good acting (and ballplaying) by Benson as college student-athlete "Henry Steele" and G.D. Spradlin as hard-nosed basketball coach "Moreland Smith" set up some intense confrontations in this sports movie, another gritty one from the era.

Benson also was a hot actor in this decade, and he's convincing in this role. He usually played interesting characters, as did Spradlin, who was always effective as a villain. By the way, don't buy the Hollywood cliché that every sports coach is tyrannical maniac. In college basketball, ask the players at UCLA who played under John Wooden, or the cagers at Duke under "Coach K," or hundreds of other places. Most coaches are NOT Bobby Knight, as portrayed here. This character is over-the-top, big-time.

Anyway, this film is so engulfed with movie clichés like the above that you could easily drown in them. Everything is so predictable, such a cliché that it is embarrassing to watch this at times, although it is entertaining and must be given points for that. You know things will work out for "Henry Steele." It's how they do that get a bit irritating, and Henry's attitude isn't always admirable, either. Boy, do they manipulate you, however, in this film! You HAVE to root for the kid, even if he is a hot dog on the court.

Overall: this film will keep you involved, but don't believe anything in this story.