Le dernier match

Robert DeNiro looked so young in this picture I hardly recognized him and the role he played is unbelievable. This is however, a good baseball film with many veteran actors giving great supporting roles. In this picture Bruce Pearson, (DeNiro) plays the role of a simple minded catcher who was made fun of by all of the team players except one guy, Henry Wiggen, (Michael Moriarty) who stood by Bruce and gave him all the moral support and good advice to deal with his situation. It seems when the players got off of Bruce's back, he was able to hit home runs and had more pep as a catcher. Henry brings Bruce to the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis and there was bad news for poor Bruce. Henry agreed not to tell anyone about the findings at the clinic and this is when the story gets funny at times and it hits a rather sad note. Entertaining film and great to see DeNiro just starting a great career on the silver screen. Enjoy

Good sports movies are hard to come by. Sure, there are a lot that are pretty decent, the ones that truly strike a chord seem to have been made mostly in the 70's, and this one is included. DeNiro plays a struggling catcher on the Yankees who finds out hes's dying, and Moriarty plays the pitcher. They're two completely different characters who form a bond with each other throughout the last year or so of the catcher's life. And though it still somehow gets centered mainly on Moriarty until the pivotal points of the movie, DeNiro still amazes, as the slow witted catcher with a problem that he doesn't want to tell anyone, so as not to get pity. This is real story with baseball as the backdrop, and that's how it should be done, to get real sports movies.

I originally saw this movie when it first opened in early 1973 . I haven't seen it in many years but fondly remember it as one of those pictures that leaves an indelible impression. Based on an early '50s novel by Mark Harris about a fictional N.Y.City Baseball Team (The Mammoths) the movie's focal point is the friendship between the team's star pitcher and a dying catcher, a naive, backwoods boy lacking in the social graces.

I'll never forget Michael Moriarty's Henry Wiggen in a scene where he reaches out to embrace a distraught, frightened Bruce Pearson (Robert De Niro), trying his best to console his dying roommate. " We're all dying " , Wiggen says to his friend, and thus begins and shortly ends one of the most tender scenes ever filmed between two men, in a movie about baseball, no less. And yet it's really not about baseball at all; yes, there are the obligatory scenes of the team at play and a humorous locker room speech by the team's crusty manager (the wonderful, late Vincent Gardenia, who received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for this film). There is plenty of humor to go along with the pathos in this story but pathos wins out. Death hangs over everyone's head in this picture : the message is pure and simple . To quote the movie's poster tag line, "Nothing is more important than friendship, not even death". I suppose a movie like this wouldn't work as well nowadays. The team support and management along with ridiculous sky rocketing salaries and apathetic treatment of sports fans has changed everything for the worse; this sweet little movie touches on a more innocent time. BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY will not enter the record books as one of the all time greats: it's too pat and maudlin at times (the locker room scene where Piney Woods plaintively strums the title song on the guitar is overkill, although it gets to me every time). But Moriarty and De Niro and a timeless reminder of the importance of love and friendship make this an unforgettable film.

Henry 'Author' Wiggen (Michael Moriarty) is a pitcher and his best friend Bruce Pearson (Robert De Niro) is a catcher on the major league baseball team New York Mammoths. Bruce is told that he's terminally ill. Henry can be pretty hard on the slow-witted Bruce but he's protective of Bruce especially from Bruce's gold-digging girlfriend Katie. Henry takes lower pay to keep Bruce on the team. Manager Dutch Schnell (Vincent Gardenia) is not happy but forced to accept it. It's a baseball season of ups and downs.

De Niro is still an unknown at this point. The on-screen friendship is fine. They would be better served with more screen time together. The baseball action isn't much. Vincent Gardenia is great although I would have liked some more compelling teammates.

There was nothing hokey overly melodramatic about this story, and usually you get that with a sports story or about a good person dying. In this case, we have a combination of the two.

This is simply a mellow, sweet-natured human interest story well-acted by the two main stars: Michael Moriarity and Robert De Niro. Both are nice to watch, playing very easy-going non-offensive characters.

Moriarty plays a pitcher on a pennant-contending team who lovingly looks after his not-so-smart-but-dying teammate and friend (De Niro). By today's standards, it's slow-moving but I never got bored with it in several viewings. As nice a film as it is, there is one warning: a lot profanity by the manager (Vincent Gardenia) but it's not a kids' movie anyway.

I watched it years ago and then again recently when it came out on DVD. It's hard to get excited about it, yet it's a memorable story that I could never get out of my head. We all wish we had friends like the one Moriarty portrays here.