The Longest Yard (1974)
A football player-turned-convict organizes a team of inmates to play against a team of prison guards. His dilemma is that the warden asks him to throw the game in return for an early release, but he is also concerned about the inmates' lack of self-esteem.
Watch Trailer
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Surprisingly incoherent and boring
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Burt Reynolds plays Paul Crewe, a reprehensible character discovering, in a prison, dignity and esteem You see him, at the beginning of the movieas a rising starbeating up a woman, stealing her car, drunken driving, insulting cops in a bar, resisting arrest He's seen so funny when he insulted the miniature cop who's about to arrest him, while the cop's partner is laughing openly Eddie Albert was very charming when he meets Paul Crewe at his arrival to Citrus State Prison Aldrich wanted to play Warden Hazen as the guy who had the veneer of normalcy, the veneer of being a good executive, the veneer of keeping it all together till it starts unraveling He really was just a despicable, oily, warden type In one game scene, we see him over and over again, getting up just with that same look of shock on his face Ed Lauter (Captain Knauer) is wonderful He runs the football team He is a bad guy and he represents everything that is wrong with that prison system and everything else He changes as a result And to see that is just so delightful He's got the classic Ed Lauter's scene at the end James Hampton plays Caretaker, the character who brings the team all together and pushes Burt's character ahead to win the game Ray Nitschke plays the toughest, meanest linebacker in football Richard Kiel, Bob Tessier, Charles Tyner, Michael Conrad, and Harry Caesar give the film a certain veracity, you almost thing you are in jail
Disgraced former pro football quarterback Paul Crewe is sent to prison after a drunken night to remember. The prison is run by Warden Hazen, a football nut who spies an opportunity to utilise Crewe's ability at the sport to enhance the prison guards team skills. After initially declining to help, Crewe is swayed into putting together a team of convicts to take on the guards in a one off match, thieves, murderers and psychopaths collectively come together to literally, beat the guards, but Crewe also has his own personal demons to exorcise.This violent, but wonderfully funny film has many things going for it. Directed with style by the gifted hands of Robert Aldrich, The Longest Yard cheekily examines the harshness of gridiron and fuses it with the brutality of the penal system. The script from Tracy Keenan Wynn is a sharp as a tack and Aldrich's use of split screens and slow motion sequences bring it all together very nicely indeed. I would also like to comment on the editing from Michael Luciano, nominated for the Oscar in that department, it didn't win, but in my honest opinion it's one of the best edited pictures from the 70s.Taking the lead role of Crewe is Burt Reynolds, here he is at the peak of his powers (perhaps never better) and has star appeal positively bristling from every hair on his rugged chest. It's a great performance, believable in the action sequences (he was once a halfback for Florida), and crucially having the comic ability to make Wynn's script deliver the necessary mirth quota. What is of most interest to me is that Crewe is a less than honourable guy, the first 15 minutes of the film gives us all we need to know about his make up, but much like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest the following year, The Longest Yard has us rooting for the main protagonist entering the home straight, and that is something of a testament to Reynolds' charm and charisma.The film's crowning glory is the football game itself, taking up three parts of an hour, the highest compliment I can give it is to say that one doesn't need to be a fan of the sport to enjoy this final third. It's highly engaging as a comedy piece whilst also being octane inventive as an action junkie's series of events. A number of former gridiron stars fill out both sides of the teams to instill a high believability factor into the match itself, and the ending is a pure rewarding punch the air piece of cinema. 9/10
Seeing as this year this movie will have it's 33rd birthday, it has had a great legacy. I saw the remake with Adam Sandler, and that made me want to see this version. I didn't expect to like this, as I've had pretty bad encounters with movies made from 1980 or earlier.But...I did like this. For a movie that's 33 years old, it's long and has a touching story. Burt Reynolds was great as the hero.It is long. I'm not calling it a bad thing, though. This story is really too great to only be told in 90 minutes. Over 2 hours is a long time for someone with no attention span, but I can stay for a long time.If you can stay in your seat for 120 minutes and like these movies, rent or (I strongly suggest to) buy The Longest Yard. It has a great legacy, and it isn't about to die yet!
When I heard that Adam Sandler was coming out with a remake of this movie, I nearly winced. Not necessarily because I'm not the biggest Sandler fan, but because this movie is a classic in the sports film genre, and you don't mess with a good thing. Later, I found out that Burt Reynolds co-starred in the remake, so I figured it might be worth a shot. With that in mind, I rented the original and watched it again.My first reaction was "So THIS is where that Skynyrd song came from!" (I'm kidding, of course). Burt Reynolds (himself, a former college football player) stars as Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, a disgraced quarterback who got into trouble in a points-shaving scandal some years back. The movie starts at the peak of his contempt, where, in a drunken rage, he assaults his wife, steals her car, dumps it into a bay, then tries to beat up the cops who arrest him (and this is all during the opening credits!).The real story takes place when Crewe is sent to prison, where the warden (Eddie Albert) has a singular obsession with football, to the point that he manipulates Crewe into assembling a team among the inmates for an exhibition game against the guards.Now, if I go any further, I will be forced to send up a spoiler alert. What I can say is this film launched (or re-launched) the careers of Bernadette Peters, Michael Conrad (of "Hill Street Blues" fame), Richard Kiel (who plays Jaws in two James Bond films), and Ed Lauter, who went on to have a prolific career as a character actor (including an appearance in the Sandler remake of this movie).Some of the scenes seemed stilted here, and some of it was racially-biased (but this was Florida in 1974 -- They hadn't quite grown up yet), but much of the film holds up. By the way, the editing of the football game itself is among the best I have seen in film, and it undoubtedly was the source of inspiration of how the TV show "24" is presented.ESPN calls it "the best sports movie, period", and there are many arguments in that favor. As for me, I'll take "Field of Dreams", but this comes in at #2.