Saturday's Hero

"Saturday's Hero" is a film about the experience of one college football player as well as the ugliness of the college football business.

Steve Novak (John Derek) is a star high school football player. Not surprisingly, he's recruited by many top universities and he chooses Jackson University. Once there, he's a serious student and star athlete but he also seems to be constantly refusing a variety of illegal payoffs...ways 'benefactors' of colleges make sure the athletes are paid for their services. It soon becomes obvious that college football is a business...one that cares little about the student athletes...especially when they no longer are profitable.

This is a most unusual football film for 1951, as instead of the usual film glorifying the sport and making college seem like a game, it shows some of the darker sides of the sport. It also is very somber in tone and, sadly, mostly true of college football today. Overall, well made and surprisingly frank...and John Derek did a surprisingly good job in the lead.

I just watched this film on AMC on a rare Tuesday off of work. I was surprised at how good it was. What struck me first was the cinematography, outstanding! Lee Garmes really understood how to frame a football game and uses some innovative mobile camera work to take you right into the action. His camera angles are very similar to ones you see covering football today and I wonder if he was a pioneer in this effort.

The story flowed well and kept you interested. It's somewhat disheartening that the underlying thread in the story (the dark (money)side of big time college football) is still so relevant. When Aldo Ray's character say's to John Derek's character "...do you think the fans get in for free?, It's a racket..." and you consider it is 1951 you wonder at how far we have really come.

I saw this film in 1951 when I was in high school. It was really depressing to some extent. It showed how the players were recruited and used only for the sake of football. I can somewhat remember how Steve was injured and how they gerry rigged a shoulder pad so he could play while injured. I also remember how he was rather a bright student in the class room. I only wish I could purchase the DVD or the VHS of this movie. I am not sure if it has ever been put out in that format. I think the movie when seen will seem like it just happened yesterday in that the situation in college football hasn't changed much over the last fifty years.

John Derek had a supporting role as a football player role in Columbia's earlier production All the King's Men. He heads back on to the field for more action in this highly engaging coming- of-age drama. He plays a young man caught up in a new life, to the point that he nearly betrays his values.

If that is not enough to sustain interest, there are plenty of subplots that just might. First, there are the scenes of the team, and the scenes with the literature professor (nicely played by Alexander Knox). Next, our star athlete visits his hometown. Then, there is a storyline about a friend who is being expelled from school. Indeed, the character and the audience get pulled in all sorts of directions, but John Derek's calm, soulful presence makes it enjoyable to watch.

Other strong performances bolster the production. Sidney Blackmer is on hand as the somewhat mercurial T.C. McCabe, and Aldo Ray (billed as Aldo DaRe) appears as a team member. The love interest is played by Donna Reed, who in real life is five years older than John Derek. At times, Miss Reed seems almost too mature for her role and certainly too mature for her costar. However, a great many elements coalesce to make Saturday's Hero a decent motion picture.

You know how media always likes to portray the current outrage -- in this case Big Money corrupting college football - as just having been hatched recently?

Yah, well, feast your eyes on Saturday's Hero. Within the first five minutes we meet the local sportswriter acting as a player agent (illegal), alumni/boosters paying to attract players (illegal) and a high school star who insists he's gonna study as if he's pursuing a legitimate degree (extremely unlikely outside the Ivy League) and the recruiter who pretty much laughs in his face.

Kid heads off to Jackson A&M Polytech, where he goes to orientation (full of Polyanna rules), meets his jaded faculty advisor (English prof who hates the fraud of ''student/athlete"), gets assigned a ''no show'' job, meets his new teammates and gets one brief speech from the hard-bitten head coach who basically tells them they're all nobodies. Next time we coach he's telling the team doc to shoot up John Derek the star player with novocaine so he goes back in the game despite obviously having a broken clavicle or dislocated shoulder. We learn later he was hit by an opposition player who admitted they put a bounty on Derek (take him out by injuring him) which is something that came to light under Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints. Then we get Mr. Bigtime Booster who pretty much controls the coach and pressures Derek to playing despite being seriously hurt. And then he loses his scholarship, just like Nick Saban pulls the scholarships of players he promised full rides to at Alabama.

The sportswriter-cum-player agent actually lobbies for players to be paid out of the obscene profits the college rakes in on football. In 1951! It only took another 71 seasons for the NCAA to fold under Congressional pressure to allow players to benefit from their Names, Images and Likeness. Progress!!

Despite the hard-hitting subject matter, it comes across as A Very Special After School Special. Certainly doesn't help that John Derek is a total stiff and Donna Reed (who I adore) simply does not excite me here. And the players come across as amateur actors (to be charitable).

The key quote is from the cynical player who suffered the career-ending injury: ''Look kid, do they let people in to see the games for free? It's a racket." That guy knew the score.

One question: Why do these sports movies about guys who come out of Palookaville, NJ, always feature immigrant families who talk pidgen-English? Just once I want pops to be a high school math teacher fourth-generation Quaker.