The Longest Yard (1974)
(The Mean Machine)
Country: US
Technical: col 122m
Director: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Burt Reynolds, Eddie Albert, Ed Lauter
Synopsis:
A jailed football pro is charged by the prison authorities with forming a convict team to play against the warders.
Review:
The director's reworking of The Dirty Dozen is a would-be political satire for the Watergate generation. It works passably well thanks to Reynolds's nascent star charisma and the fact of the game itself, which, like courtroom drama, makes for good cinema. Barrackroom violence for laughs and genuine unpleasantness make strange bedfellows, however, for Aldrich is a man of little taste or subtlety who, on a good day, can be as raw and gripping as Sam Fuller, but at other times directs like Michael Winner. A notable success in its day, the film was kind of covered by Escape to Victory, and remade both as The Longest Yard, with Adam Sandler, and Mean Machine, with Vinnie Jones.
(The Mean Machine)
Country: US
Technical: col 122m
Director: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Burt Reynolds, Eddie Albert, Ed Lauter
Synopsis:
A jailed football pro is charged by the prison authorities with forming a convict team to play against the warders.
Review:
The director's reworking of The Dirty Dozen is a would-be political satire for the Watergate generation. It works passably well thanks to Reynolds's nascent star charisma and the fact of the game itself, which, like courtroom drama, makes for good cinema. Barrackroom violence for laughs and genuine unpleasantness make strange bedfellows, however, for Aldrich is a man of little taste or subtlety who, on a good day, can be as raw and gripping as Sam Fuller, but at other times directs like Michael Winner. A notable success in its day, the film was kind of covered by Escape to Victory, and remade both as The Longest Yard, with Adam Sandler, and Mean Machine, with Vinnie Jones.
(The Mean Machine)
Country: US
Technical: col 122m
Director: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Burt Reynolds, Eddie Albert, Ed Lauter
Synopsis:
A jailed football pro is charged by the prison authorities with forming a convict team to play against the warders.
Review:
The director's reworking of The Dirty Dozen is a would-be political satire for the Watergate generation. It works passably well thanks to Reynolds's nascent star charisma and the fact of the game itself, which, like courtroom drama, makes for good cinema. Barrackroom violence for laughs and genuine unpleasantness make strange bedfellows, however, for Aldrich is a man of little taste or subtlety who, on a good day, can be as raw and gripping as Sam Fuller, but at other times directs like Michael Winner. A notable success in its day, the film was kind of covered by Escape to Victory, and remade both as The Longest Yard, with Adam Sandler, and Mean Machine, with Vinnie Jones.