Hey, movie fans. Welcome back to the stomping ground of the forgotten film. You know, when I get set on profiling a certain film for this column, I’m usually pretty unwilling to change my mind. I start writing it in my head and am all ready on Sunday to write it out, and honestly, I’m very comfortable with that routine. But routines are made to be broken, I suppose. I saw a film tonight that was so good, so… pure, for lack of a better word, that I just had to push to the side my intended movie of the week and in it’s place hold up another to the light. Now, I should state right off that this film skirts the very edge of what could be considered a “forgotten film”. For one thing, it’s brand new, having only premiered on Saturday. If you haven’t seen it, it might just be because you haven’t turned on the TV yet. Also, it’s a film done by HBO, a cable channel that’s pretty popular, to say the least. But I figure, not everyone has HBO, and maybe there are a few of you out there who haven’t seen the numerous magazine ads and other promos. But really, I want to write this column about this movie and that’s all there is to it. I promise that next week, I’ll delve back into obscurity once again, but this for now, I want to talk about 61*.
The film 61* tells the story of a couple of average joes named Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, who just happened to be two of the greatest baseball players of all time. They were sluggers, “bombers” for another name. They could hit the ball like no one could and it was this particular skill that put them in the situation that the movie focuses on. In 1961, they did the, at the time, unthinkable. They dared to make a play for the record that Babe Ruth had set many years before… 61 homeruns. A few had tried before, but had always come up short. It was a holy thing, akin to someone trying to… oh, I don’t know… break Roger Maris’s homerun record. But America became swept up in “M & M boys” fever. It was all they talked about that summer. Hell, even Kennedy interrupted a press conference to announce that Maris had hit his fifty-second homer. You remember back in ’98 when McGuire and Sosa did the thing they did? That kind of hype was only magnified back in ’61 because in those days, baseball was king and these two men where the knights that rode proud through the stadiums. However, something happened halfway through the season. As they started inching up closer to the record, to holy feet of The Babe, things got ugly for the M & M boys, particularly Roger Maris. You see, Roger Maris was a bit press-shy and when he played the game, he rarely smiled, not because he was mean or moody, but simply because he was concentrating. Not exactly lethal qualities, but when put up next Mickey Mantle, the epitome of aw-shucks humor and farm boy charisma, Maris seemed downright unlikable. The fans turned on him, sending him death threats, heckling him from the stands and what have you. The pressure wore both men down, and it’s this that gets the movie’s heart beating.
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