Bang the Drum Slowly (1978)

From the salad days of both Robert DeNiro and Michael Moriarty comes Bang The Drum Slowly, a novel about a star pitcher and his buddy, a dying catcher. Remember this is a story of baseball in the days before free agency so you'll have to be a bit of an historian in order to relate somewhat. Doesn't attract from the beauty of the performances.Moriarty is the star pitcher and back in those days before big money for a year could set you up for life, ballplayers had to both have another income for the off season and a career plan once your playing days are over. Moriarty is selling insurance and that was not uncommon for players who after their athletic days were over could always sell a policy to fans in between talk of past glory days.Pitchers, star pitchers that is, could always impose on a ballclub for a favorite catcher. In my youth I remember the Baltimore Orioles had a second string catcher like DeNiro's character named Joe Ginsberg. He was around because Hoyt Wilhelm wanted it so. Seems as though their star catcher Gus Triandos couldn't handle Wilhelm's knuckleball, few could, but Ginsberg better than most. The Orioles had Ginsberg for duty when Wilhelm pitched.For this current season Moriarty has a clause put in his contract that DeNiro and he are a package item. Something that doesn't sit well with management, but he's a star and they have their quirks. What no one knows is DeNiro is dying of Hodgkin's Disease. Not noticeable at first, but he's getting more and more bad days. Moriarty is also putting his future with Arcturus Insurance in jeopardy because he's pulling a stall on DeNiro who wants to change his beneficiary on a big life insurance policy to his gold digging girlfriend Ann Wedgworth. Still everyone in the world can see what she's all about except a simple trusting soul like DeNiro.The worldly star pitcher and the simple Georgia country boy second string catcher are unlikely companions. But both DeNiro and Moriarty have a matchless chemistry. It's like they were giving two halves of one performance.Vincent Gardenia plays their manager and he got a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The whole story of the film is their effort to keep DeNiro's condition a secret, but Gardenia knows something's up. One story after another they give him including a hilarious scene where they say DeNiro has had a bout of the clap, but he's better now.The novel was written in the 50s, but updated for the early 70s as the men's dress would indicate. The New York Mammoths were really the New York Giants, but they were just a memory now as was their unusually contoured park the Polo Grounds. Which is why we saw Yankee style pinstripes and a home park that looked like old Yankee Stadium.Bang The Drum Slowly is one of the finest baseball films ever done. And DeNiro's character Bruce Pearson is the first of many firmly etched starring roles he'd give us for two more generations.

" . . . to carry my coffin," sings the back-up catcher of the pin-striped "New York Mammoths" MLB club as battery man "Bruce Pearson" (Robert De Niro), an eerie precursor of real-life N.Y. Yankees captain Thurman Munson, refuses to acknowledge the Grim Reaper swinging his scythe all around everywhere he goes. Munson went down in flames a day after driving in all the runs in a Yankees victory. (He had agreed to become the first Yankee captain since Lou Gehrig, not seeing any curse of pinstriped doom there.) Widely considered the saddest sports flick of all time, BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY ends on a bittersweet note. After getting the pennant-clinching hit, Bruce must waste away down in his native Georgia while his teammates sweep to victory in the playoffs and World Series. Bruce's career year ends with only ONE Mammoth attending his funeral. (As everyone but Pete Rose knows, there's been no gambling in baseball since 1919; they might have had "16 gamblers" on "The Streets of Laredo," but even the infamous Chicago Black Sox could manage just eight in 1919--and that's only IF you believe the verdict of "Hanging Judge" Landis.) Shoeless Joe would have been around to help shoulder Bruce had he been a Mammoth, but MLB had pretty much outlawed real men before BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY came out. Thanks to this movie, EVERY Yankee attended Munson's funeral.

I saw this when it was released in 1973. I did not know anything about DeNiro, Moriarty, or Mark Harris but I am a lifetime baseball lover and fan as is my wife. We were accompanied by a couple who also loved this production and none of had ever heard a word about it. It captures the feeling of baseball from the opening jogging scene throughout despite the fact that is not really about baseball as much as it's about dying. I also played baseball from age 12 to 18 and went to numerous games. I agree with all the favorable reviews and many of the disparaging ones as technical points are often well taken. Mark Harris wrote four books about baseball and Henry Wiggens; The Southpaw, this one, A Ticket for a Seamstitch, It Looked Like Forever as well as a collection of essays one of which I may have read as it is about his life long love of baseball and the making of the movie. Each of his books tells a story about humanity with baseball as an underlying theme. The essay on the movie mentions that it was partially financed by a reader who loved the story, none of the stars were baseball experienced but worked very hard to be convincing and I believe they captured the essence of the book preserving the humor and the Ring Lardner flavor.

This movie,"Bang The Drum Slowly", is about much more than a baseball season. Similar stories have been set in other locations, among other groups of men. The field hands in a bunkhouse in "Of Mice And Men", or the military barracks in "The Hasty Heart". These are all stories about friendships among men, at a time when those men need those friendships.When Michael Moriarty learns his friend Robert De Niro is incurably sick and will soon die, he makes a decision to give his friend a final season of friendship and support. These men talk half-bright teenager among themselves, and then try to sound like sports-interview aces in formal situations. Note Moriarty's awkwardness in refusing to have an unwritten clause about not trading De Niro away from the team: "No verbal words. Must be wrote." He is equally awkward, and must move cautiously, in persuading the other players to help, and to keep mum when symptoms of the illness appear. Eventually, everybody is in on the effort to help. De Niro is welcomed into the TEGWAR games, and into the glee club. The team doctor is in the dugout at every game. The patient is able to hold up his end as catcher when the rotation brings him up to catch a game. At bat, it seems his best play all year is to hit a good solid triple and come into third standing up. In what turns out to be his last game, his team-mates see the trouble coming. The first baseman dashes in and snags a pop fly that De Niro can no longer handle himself.In his final monologue, walking away from De Niro's graveside, Moriarty gives what could be considered a strong contender for the best curtain line ever: "From here on in, I rag nobody."