One on One

Henry Steele grows up playing basketball in small town USA, doing well at his high school he is soon signed by a college. There he enjoys easy money and special treatment in many ways. However when he begins to fall for Janet, who is teaching him extra classes, he loses his focus on the basketball. This causes his coach to regret his pick and ask Henry to resign his scholarship. When Henry refuses it begins a war of attrition between the two.

At heart this is a tale of a little guy who overcomes obstacles in his attempt to do well in life and in sport. When I taped it all I knew was that it was a basketball movie, so I thought I'd give it a try. At the start I thought it was going to be all innocent as opposed to sports movies now that focus on the real side of it as well as the game (Any Given Sunday, Blue Chips etc), however this had layers of brutality, drugs, money being `given' to students etc. The story at core is one of Henry battling against his coach and it is quite good, but the added layers add more too.

It may never be excellent but it is better than expected and was quite enjoyable (even if the basketball is played at a bit slower pace than now!). Benson is a bit too innocent and whiney at times as Steele but once you get used to him it's ok – he also co-wrote, not bad for a 21 year old! O'Toole is OK but isn't really anything other than a device for moving the plot on. Spradlin is good – but for the first 20 minutes I could hear his voice giving better lines in a better film – it bugged me until I placed him in Apocalypse Now. An almost unrecognisably young Melanie Griffith makes a brief appearance – but overall the cast is good enough to keep this just above the level of a TVM.

Overall it may seem a little naive compared to modern college sports films but it's actually quite enjoyable, even if it won't change your life!

This was the first Robbie Benson I ever saw. Once I did see it, I have always been alert for other things which involved his talents.

This movie was especially meaningful to me because I took a much younger friend to view it with me. After seeing the movie I bought the fabulous movie soundtrack album by Seals and Crofts, and those songs were played over and over by this young friend and I until every word and note could be sung-along with the artists. I think this experience was an inspirational time for both myself and my young friend, who could identify in many ways with Benson's character.

Decades later I find that few fans of Seals and Crofts even know they recorded such a soundtrack, much less having any familiarity with the movie One On One. However, I have always since sought-out other features and appearances by Robbie Benson, and have become a life-long fan of this talented, if somewhat obscure, actor. I will continue to seek-out his productions and performances wherever Robbie Benson may show himself next. We are blessed by the gift of such a competent and gifted artist.

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.

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.

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.