Category Archives: Billiards Documentary

The Billiards Documentary categories is about documentary films, full-length and shorts, that focus on billiards.

Alex Higgins: Life on Screen

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I am who I am. They call me the Hurricane. 

– Paul Norton, “The Hurricane” (1990)

It’s his game. | Brought him fame. | And his name is ‘The Hurricane’.

 – Georgie Fame, “The Hurricane” (1982)

The musicians’ names may not be familiar. Georgie Fame is an English R&B and jazz musician, who played with Van Morrison and had three number one hits in the UK.  Paul Norton is Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist who fronted the short-lived pop rock band The Runners.

Alex HigginsBut, if their names don’t resonate, their subject surely does – The Hurricane, aka Alex Higgins, aka one of the most beloved, controversial, iconic, and influential figures in snooker history. His rocket-fast, daring style of play was as legendary as his unpredictable, bad boy persona. 

Historians describe with awe and zeal his history-making World Snooker Championship win in 1972 against John Spencer, forever changing the face and trajectory of snooker, or his come-from-behind match ten years later in the World Snooker semis against Jimmy White. Yet, his biography is equally riddled with stories of excess, such as head-butting tournament director Paul Hatherell or forever indulging in his “three vices – drinking, gambling, and women.”

In a sport that has had its fair share of staid, colorless personalities, the Hurricane, who died in 2010, was “an accident waiting to happen,” “a breath of fresh air,” and, for many years, “box office gold.” 

Since Higgins first won the championship at age 22, there have been at least seven efforts to tell his story on the screen. I found four of the seven films, and as expected, they vary in their tone and structure, based on their time of release. (Note: the other three films are officially WANTED; please let me know if you can help me to locate them.)

Hurricane Higgins (1972) – WANTED

Hurricane Higgins (1972)Until Higgins arrived from Belfast in 1972, snooker largely lacked panache or personality. Clive Everton once described it as, “a folk sport…a lot of people played, but the professional game was virtually dead.” The reigning champion was John Spencer, who had already won the World Championship in 1969 and 1971. Into this largely off-limits prim and proper world entered Higgins, who turned it upside-down by defeating Spencer 37-31. 

The Hurricane Higgins 27-minute TV documentary came out on the heels of that victory. In the book Alex Higgins: Snooker Legend: Eye of the Hurricane, author J. Hennessey suggests the filmmakers wanted to portray snooker as a “game on the dole,” with Higgins as its resurrectionist. He quotes Higgins, “They deliberately set out to show the seedy side of snooker. They filmed at this club where there was green mold running down the walls. When they saw it, they said, ‘Great – just what we want.’”

Hurricane’s Wake (1988) – WANTED

Other than a brief BBC Two listing, I can find no information about Robin Anderson’s 17-minute documentary about a “budding snooker player [who] shows his form.”

Alex Higgins: I’m No Angel (1991)

After losing his first-round match to Steve James in the 1990 World Snooker Championship, Higgins got utterly sauced, and then announced his retirement at a press conference, but not before punching tournament official Colin Randle in the abdomen. The day’s debacle led to a 15-month ban from the sport.

During that hiatus, Higgins authorized the 90-minute documentary Alex Higgins: I’m No Angel, created by Joe and Oliver Cox. It was Higgins’ attempt to claim his narrative, though the Cox brothers did a great job of ensuring the documentary was not adulatory toward its subject. Opening with the aforementioned Paul Norton song, the film includes multiple quotes from fellow hellraiser actor Oliver Reed, as well as interviews with promoter Barry Hearn (“he was major box office on the table, but unmanageable off the table”) and his ex-wife Lynn Higgins, who “knew [her] problems were going to start” (after Higgins won his second World Championship in 1982 against Ray Reardon). 

The film also highlights other historical highs and lows in the Higgins timeline, including his incredible 16-15 comeback against Steve Davis in the 1983 UK Championship; his “I will have you shot…I will blow your head off” threat against fellow Irish snooker star Dennis Taylor at the British Car Rental World Cup; and his “big penalty for a night out with the lads” when he fell 25 feet out a window. The film ends with Higgins’ promise to return to the sport in August 1991.

Alex Higgins: Rebel Without a Pause (1997) 

Higgins did return to the sport, reaching the televised rounds of the 1994 World Snooker Championship, as well as making a 137 the following year, but his best days were long behind him. Alex Higgins: Rebel Without a Pause is primarily a 35-minute homecoming interview Higgins gave to Jackie Fullerton for BBC One Northern Ireland when he returned to Belfast for a nine-frame Sunday World exhibition match against Ken Doherty. 

The documentary toggles between the Doherty match and clips from Higgins’ life, including the 1982 Championship against Reardon.  Higgins is polite, soft-spoken, but obviously still bitter about the trajectory his career took following his ban from the sport. In one of the film’s more revealing moments, Higgins seethes, “Eight of ten people I’ve met are untrustworthy, thieves, felonious, pieces of shit.”

Like a Hurricane: The Alex Higgins Story (2001)

This hour-long 2001 documentary retells the story of I’m No Angel with a more robust cast of characters and without Higgins’ expressed permission. The film’s opening line makes clear its agenda: “Alex was an accident waiting to happen.” From there, Like a Hurricane brings us back to 1972, when the “urchin from Belfast” upended the establishment, “propelling snooker into the modern world and out of its dark excessive doldrums.”

Higgins the troublemaker was also Higgins the rainmaker; the more chaos he created, the greater the crowds grew. “Alex Higgins brought people into snooker who never had an interest in the sport – it elevated snooker from a backstreet sport into television entertainment.” His meteoric ascent was also intertwined with the rising popularity of Pot Black, the televised snooker tournament show that found its footing when BBC2 began broadcasting in color.  By 1980, every match of World Championship Snooker aired on TV for 17 straight days.

Like a Hurricane also digs into his rivalry with Steve Davis, who represented the new face and controlled style of snooker; essentially, “everything Alex was not.”  Barry Hearn, who created a stable of corporate, clean players (the Matchroom Team), but did not invite the volatile Higgins to join, commented, “It used to kill Alex inside when he lost to Steve Davis…Davis was the machine, Higgins was the heart” of snooker. 

Finally, the documentary probes deeper into Higgins’ troubled relationships with women. His marriage and divorce to Lynn is well-discussed, with the narrator sharing, “Away from drinks, [Alex] was such a nice person, but when he drank, he was terrible. It drove away his wife. And when his marriage was floundering, so was his snooker.” The documentary also digs into his subsequent relationship with Siobhan Kidd, 13 years his junior, who attempted suicide and left years later after signs of battery, and Holly Haise, a 26-year-old escort, who stabbed him three times.

Alex Higgins: Blood, Sweat & Tears (2005) – WANTED

Four years later, RTÉ, Ireland’s national public service media, released a True Live documentary on Higgins called Blood, Sweat & Tears. Though I’ve been unable to watch it, the show seems largely memorable for providing a rare interview with Higgins’ daughter, Lauren, who was one of the most famous babies in the world when Higgins insisted on having her in his arms to celebrate regaining his world snooker title in 1982.

Alex Higgins: The People’s Champion (2010)

Rounding out the cinematic septet is Alex Higgins: The People’s Champion, the 2010 BBC documentary that posthumously retells Higgins’ life story about two months after he died. No longer the ‘accident waiting to happen,’ the opening lines are more hagiographic. The narrator James Hesbitt refers to Higgins as “almost a god,” and Ronnie O’Sullivan, a self-described disciple of Higgins, calls him “ahead of his time.” It is no wonder that the “No Angel” and “Rebel” appellations of previous documentary titles have been replaced with the more endearing “People’s Champion.”

Much of the film obviously echoes the earlier documentaries; after all, there’s no telling the Higgins story without discussing the Championship match against Spencer (1972), the semi against White (1982), the Championship match against Reardon (1982), the UK Championship match against Davis (1983), the headbutt of Hatherell (1986), and the death threat against Taylor (1990).

But, interlaced throughout the footage, players give their respect, citing Higgins’ influence on the sport, the industry, and their individual game. Davis, Reardon, White, O’Sullivan, Taylor, Stephen Hendry – they’re all here with stories and platitudes. 

The documentary is perhaps most interesting in its assessment of Higgins’ final years, starting with his diagnosis of throat cancer in 1998. His daughter Lauren reminds us that Higgins said, “Cancer hasn’t got a chance. It doesn’t have a snooker cue.” And sure enough, he did beat the cancer, though he couldn’t truly recover, eventually deteriorating through a combination of respiratory problems, malnourishment, and financial distress caused by a long-term gambling addiction. 

The final scene is the Belfast funeral procession, attended by a slew of snooker celebrities and seemingly most of Belfast’s 350,000-person population. As his sister says, “He was the people’s champion, and the people were letting them know on that particular day what they thought of him.”

A Trio of Titans: Mosconi, Hoppe, Van Boeing

Sports biopics are a staple of Hollywood. They run the gamut from ultra-popular sports, such as football (e.g., Remember the Titans; Invincible), basketball (e.g., Glory Road; Hoosiers), and baseball (e.g., 42; Price of the Yankees) to those far more niche, such as horse racing (e.g., Seabiscuit), surfing (e.g., Soul Surfer), and ski jumping (e.g., Eddie the Eagle).  

You guessed it. There are no billiards biopics. 

Fortunately, over the years, a variety of companies have stepped in to honor some of the greats of the sport with short documentaries.  Though these films vary considerably in production quality and entertainment value, they all deserve some praise for attempting to preserve on-screen the legends of the baize.

Years ago, I wrote about the 2013 Sky Sports Productions documentary, The Strickland Story, focused on Earl Strickland, as well as the Probe Profile on Efren Reyes.  Today, I’ll turn my attention to Willie Mosconi, Willie Hoppe, and Shane Van Boeing, each the subject of a billiard short film. Also, in a future blog post, I’ll jump across the channel and review the documentaries on snooker stars Alex Higgins (Alex Higgins: The People’s Champion) and Ali Carter (Ali Carter: The Unbreakable).

A Pete Smith Specialty: The Mosconi Story

At 1621 Vine Street, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, there is a star honoring Pete Smith, an Oscar-winning  American producer and narrator of short subject films. Between 1931 and 1955, Mr. Smith made more than 150 movies that covered everything from household hints to insect life to military training.  The majority, however, were short comedic documentaries that he narrated.  This includes one of his final films, The Mosconi Story, about the life of perhaps the greatest pool player in history, “Mr. Pocket Billiards” William Joseph Mosconi. It is available to watch here.

Created in 1952, this 10-minute film is a reenactment of Mr. Mosconi’s life, starting when “Little Wille” would skip his violin lessons to practice billiards at Joe Mosconi’s Billiards Parlor using a sawed-off broom handle and potatoes. By age 7, Mr. Mosconi was traveling, doing exhibitions.  His career climbed quickly, eventually taking him to the Worlds Pocket Billiards Championship on six occasions.  But, he did not win any of those matches.

Most of The Mosconi Story takes places In 1941, when Mr. Mosconi opted to give it one more try.  With a child on the way, his billiards career was headed either for the “championship or the want ads.” As billiards historians know well, he made it to the finals to compete against three time world champion Andrew Ponzi, one of the “real greats of the day, the craftiest player in the game.” 

Neck and neck with Mr. Ponzi, Mr. Mosconi’s game is interrupted by a telegram telling him that his baby boy, Willie Jr., had arrived early.  That announcement gives Mr. Mosconi the confidence to attempt a five-cushion rail shot.  He makes the shot, winning 125-124, and becomes the world champion.  It was a feat he would repeat many times.

Columbia Pictures presents the Willie Hoppe Story

Released in 1954, The Willie Hoppe Story is a nine-minute mash-up of documentary and exhibition. The first 60 seconds is biographic, a whirlwind time travel from 1896, when Mr. Hoppe began playing billiards at the age of eight, to the present (1954), when a 66-year-old Mr. Hoppe starts showing off his three-cushion carom billiards skills at the world-renowned New York Athletic Club. It is available to watch here.

First, he dispatches with his opponent, New York professional billiards champion Edward Lee.  Then, he demonstrates the essentials of billiards, such as the proper grip and techniques for creating spin. Finally, he brings the real magic, showing off more than 20 eye-popping, three-cushion (or more) carom billiards shots, including a nine-cushion shot. 

Narrator Bill Stern, who thirty years later would join the inaugural class of the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame, can barely contain his euphoria watching the shots made by the “wizard of the cue, the king of the cushion, Willie Hoppe.”  He proclaims that Mr. Hoppe is “no professor of billiards, he’s a professor of English [spin],” and he describes one shot that navigates 25 bowling pins on the table as a “Sunday driver going to the picnic grounds.”

Shane Van Boeing – The South Dakota Kid

Given the number of billiards titles, championships and accolades accumulated by Rapid City’s Shane Van Boeing, it’s no wonder South Dakota Public Broadcasting produced this eight-minute segment in 2014 for its Dakota Life series focused on “interesting South Dakota people, places, and things.”  You can watch it here.

Mr. Van Boeing was only 31 years old in 2014, but he was already a six-time US Open champion, the 2008 doubles world champion, a two-time all around champion, a seven-time Mosconi Cup member, and the “current #1 pool player in the US.” (His accomplishments have only further proliferated in the past seven years.)

Shane Van Boeing initially takes a fairly standard approach to his life. He grew up in a pool-playing family, sitting in the baby chair watching pool and then getting his first table at age two from his grandfather. Soon he was participating in trick shot exhibitions.

But rather than continuing down memory lane and charting Mr. Van Boeing’s path to turning pro in 2006, Shane Van Boeing instead chooses to narrowly focus on his hearing impairment, with his mother, Timi Bloomberg, describing how she realized when Shane was 16 months old that he was almost totally deaf.  She describes being very careful that her son not get labeled as “handicapped,” insisting that he surrounds himself with “speaking people” to “function normal.” 

Mr. Van Boeing elaborates, saying he was bullied in school for his hearing impairment, but when he played pool, it was a different world where he didn’t have to worry about that. He says he really learned to communicate in the pool room – “this is where I got my better communication.”

Incredulously, Mr. Van Boeing says some opponents have derided his impairment as an “advantage,” indicating it’s “not fair” that he isn’t distracted by external sounds.  His retort: “put in earplugs, you’ll be just like me.”

In a wonderful closing note, he shares how he wants to be a role model for the hearing impaired. Kids can look up to him and think “I don’t have to be handicapped. I can utilize my disability to have ability in other areas.”

Manitoba Sharks (in production)

It took me a few months to track down Amanda Kindzierski, the documentarian behind the forthcoming short film Manitoba Sharks.  I first read about the film in a press release from the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival (WAFF).  According to the release, Ms. Kindzierski had won a $20,000 “pitch contest” from MTS Stories From Home, which is a collection of original, made-in-Manitoba programming created exclusively for MTS TV customers.

Manitoba Sharks

Director Amanda Kindzierski

While the release stated that Manitoba Sharks would “tell the story of pool in Manitoba [a province of Canada] through the eyes of Aboriginal proprietors and players who are among the best in the world,” the real story, as revealed to me by Ms. Kindzierski in an interview this past March, is far more fascinating.

Ms. Kindzierski began with a fundamental question:   Why does Winnipeg have so much billiards talent for such a small city?  (The population is about 660,000.) “We go to these Canadian tournaments and we clean up,” proffered Ms. Kindzierski animatedly.

Though my own post-interview research could not confirm that the citizens of Winnipeg (or Manitoba) win a disproportionate amount of Canadian titles, I was nonetheless hooked by Ms. Kindzierski’s personal story and her mission quest to make this film.

A born cinephile, Ms. Kindzierski became obsessed with movies early, deciding at age 8 that she wanted to become a director.  After some life decisions took her off that path, she ultimately pivoted, giving up her job, apartment, and car, to pursue film.  She was one of nine Canadians accepted into the National Screen Institute New Voices program, in which she attended a nine-month broadcasting school and then, two years ago, made her first short film, The Path.

But, as an active “middle-of-the-road” pool player, she also knew she had another story to tell. “Winnipeg has one of the largest pool leagues in the world,” she shared.  In fact, the Aactive Pool League has more than 4,000 members and 450 teams.  She asked herself: Why does Winnipeg have such a high concentration of billiards players?

Born to a Polish/Ukrainian mother and an Ojibwe Cree father, Ms. Kindzierski wanted the world to know about Winnipeg’s talent – and more important, wanted  that story to be told from an indigenous Canadian point of view.  As evidenced by the success of her 3-minute pitch (to a panel that included actor Adam Beach, currently starring in the heavily anticipated summer movie Suicide Squad), a lot of people wanted her to tell that story, as well.

Manitoba Sharks

Joe Ducharme

To represent that story, Ms. Kindzierski opted to focus on two individuals of two different generations.  The first was her father, Joe Ducharme.  A highly experienced amateur player, Mr. Ducharme has won both the Aactive Championship League and placed second in the 2007 Valley National 8-Ball League Association (VNEA).

Manitoba Sharks

Shannon Ducharme (photo by Richard Walker)

The current generation in Manitoba Sharks is represented by Shannon Ducharme (no relation), whose exciting career has been checkered by both a stint in jail and a bout with cancer. A full-time construction foreman by day, Mr. Shannon Ducharme, who once won the Western Canadian 8-ball title at age 19, recently slingshot his career by placing 2nd in the CBSA Canadian Men’s Open 9-ball Championship, and then competing in Doha, Qatar at the 2015 World Nine-ball Championship, where he made it to the fourth round before losing 9-6 to the heavily favored Warren Kiamco from the Philippines.

But, as Ms. Kindzierski narrates the tale, the real impressive story is that “Shannon can only play pool his spare time.  The fact he is competing with these guys is incredible.  Shannon lost to a [top] guy [at the World Championship].  And Shannon couldn’t even find a sponsor.  He was allowed three logos on his shirt and he couldn’t find anyone.”[1]  She adds, “Guys [like Shannon] are digging ditches and driving trucks and then competing against people who play for a living.”

As of two months ago, Manitoba Sharks was in post-production with a rough cut almost completed.  According to Ms. Kindzierski, the next step is to send the estimated 20-minute film to MTS for approval so that it will be released on Stories From Home. Once that happens, Ms. Kindzierski will then turn her attention to securing a distributor in Winnipeg and submitting the documentary to film festivals so a wider audience can view it.

As for the question, Why does Winnipeg have such a high concentration of billiards players?, Ms. Kindzierski acknowledges the obvious answer of the weather.  “We have winter from October to April.” But, she continues that the real reason is that there is a “huge amount of teaching and coaching and sharing of knowledge that doesn’t happen in big cities.”

[1]       Mr. Ducharme will again represent Canada in the 2016 World Nine-ball Championship in Doha, Qatar.  An online fundraiser is underway to help him raise $2000 to attend.

The Strickland Story

Maybe it should come as no surprise that The Strickland Story documentary, produced and aired by Sky Sports Productions on November 27, 2013, provoked a lot of heated online debate, specifically around Earl Strickland’s claim, “I’m one of the greatest athletes America has ever produced.”

Strickland StoryIn the days after the documentary aired, billiards message boards and forums lit up with debates raging between ardent admirers and heated haters. Many professed their lifelong support for Strickland, calling him “amazing,” “a pool god,” and “brilliant.” On the other end of the spectrum, some of the borderline unprintable comments included, “Someone should just show him a picture of Efren Reyes and tell him to shut the f*** up!,” or “His arrogance and unsportsmanlike conduct make him an a**hole,” or “This guy is a nut sack! There is no talent here!! His ego is the only thing happening here!”

As a billiards movie blogger, and only an amateur pool player, I certainly do not feel qualified to deliver an opinion on whether Earl “The Pearl” Strickland is, in fact, the greatest. (Though given he won the US Open Nine-Ball Championship five times and the WPA World Nine-Ball Championship three times, I think anyone who tries to claim Strickland ‘doesn’t have talent’ should be forced to watch an endless loop of Strickland’s mind-blowing performance in the 1996 Million Dollar Challenge.) But, I do want to set the record straight on a few things:

  1. Strickland StoryThe documentary did not declare Strickland to be the “greatest player ever.” At some point in the lead-up to the film’s release or shortly thereafter, the title morphed into The Earl Strickland Story: The Greatest Ever, but this apposition never actually appears in the 46 minutes of film.
  2. Strickland is far from the first athlete to declare himself the “greatest athlete” in his/her sport. This superlative has been proclaimed, in one variant or another, by many, including Muhammad Ali (boxing), Ricky Henderson (baseball), Usain Bolt (track), Randy Moss (football), Federica Pellegrini (swimming), Maurice Greene (track), and Shaun Palmer (snowboarding). One or two of these athletes probably could make legitimate claims. Few, if any, probably set off such a backlash of anger.
  3. There have been many “Greatest Athletes of All Time” lists (e.g., Bleacher Report, ESPN). To my knowledge, not one of those lists has ever included a billiards player. Chew on that sad fact for a moment.
  4. Finally, Strickland’s complete quote was, “I’m one of the greatest athletes America has ever produced, whether the general public has acknowledged it or not. That’s how I feel.” Some may call this arrogance, others may call this confidence. In any event, it’s self-opinion from one of the most passionate, committed athletes alive.

Haters aside, there are probably two types of viewers for this documentary: (1) those who know very little about Strickland; and (2) those who know a lot about Strickland. Both viewers are in for a great documentary, which you can watch in its entirety here.

For those who know very little about Strickland, the documentary succinctly charts his biography, from learning to play billiards at the age of 8, when his father first snuck him into a pool hall in North Carolina to becoming “the best player in Houston by age 19” to entering tournament play and winning five US Open Nine-Ball Championships (more than any player in history) to participating in the Mosconi Cup. Some criticized the film for not including the Million Dollar Challenge or the Color of Money match against Efren Reyes, but with more than 50 titles and achievements to Strickland’s name, it would have been impossible to hit on all the highlights.

The film also effectively weaves in interviews with Strickland, sports event promoter Barry Hearn, and pool legends Johnny Archer and Rodney Morris, among others, to present the complexity of Strickland’s character. As Archer says, “He is not understood well. I think he is a genius on the pool table.”

Strickland StoryThose interviews reveal Strickland’s obsession with the sport (“Pool has taken over my mind, my soul, everything. I eat, sleep obviously, but other than that, I go to the pool table. It’s almost like a drug, I got to have it.”); his volatility (“he’s borderline mad”); his antics (i.e., jumping on the table after his win in Cardiff and declaring, “I’m king of the world.”); his occasional aggression to the fans (i.e., threatening them with a cue stick and later breaking it at the Mosconi Cup); and his intensity (“You think it’s some kind of game or something. It ain’t no game. I’m dead serious. I’ll shoot your liver out and hand it to you.”).

But, The Strickland Story is equally enlightening for those who sought more than the biopic headlines. For example, it delves into his bipolar personality, or what Barry Hearn calls his “Jekyll and Hyde character.” The film also reveals how the same fans he has been known to chastise are the ones who enabled him to pivot from a career as a gambler to a career as a professional player. (“People don’t clap for gamblers. I felt something inside of me when people clapped. Someone asked me for my autograph. I changed just like that…a better life where I was appreciated.”)

Strickland StoryRegardless of one’s familiarity with Strickland, it is impossible not to be moved by the documentary’s ending. Blaming both himself (“I made bad decisions. It’s not pool’s fault.”) and the general public (“Years ago, I would have been proud of who I am. That doesn’t exist anymore. You stripped me of that.”) for his pecuniary condition, he laments the state of pool today, including the lack of respect and financial options available for players:

“I have to live in a city of 30 million to make some money…exhibition are gone…I’m lucky I still have a name…every time we get some hope, it gets dashed…we have no hype, we’re all broke…I don’t understand how you could desert this game, how could my country desert this game…I am here to protect and preserve this game the way I found it…if pool deserves to die and not get us respected and make us millionaires, then all sports deserve to die.”

In all the many posted comments I read about The Strickland Story, the one that resonated most with me was from Aleo on the Two Plus Two forum. He writes, “The sad thing about this documentary is that you can see how heartbroken [Strickland] is about the state of the game. Everyone always talks so much about how talented or explosive Earl may be, but as good as he is, what’s always impressed me most about him is how much he genuinely LOVES pool. Honestly I’m not sure anyone loves pool as much as Strickland does.”

Wilson Jones

In October 2013, snooker returned to its birth country when the Indian Open, a professional ranking snooker tournament, was held in New Delhi.   It was the first ever ranking snooker event played in India. Among the 64 participating players from around the world, two of the lower-ranked players, Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta, were both from India. Surprising many, both made it to the quarter-finals, where they played one another, and Mehta made it all the way to the finals, where he lost to China’s heavily-favored Ding Junhui.

Almost exactly one decade before that landmark historical event, the world lost one of the greatest Indian snooker (and billiards) legends, Wilson Jones, a man likely not well-known among many billiards fans, though surely revered by Advani and Mehta, who would have each been just 18 years old when Jones died.

Fortunately, the Films Division of India released from its vaults a 17-minute documentary film, Wilson Jones, about the snooker sensation.   Directed in 1971 by Vijay B. Chandra, the biopic reveals snippets of the life of this humble champion by interspersing billiards footage with family interviews and scenes of Wilson Jones presiding at his Bombay home and proudly displaying his stereo system. The film is available to watch here:

As is shared in the film, Wilson Jones not only won the amateur National Billiards Championship of India 12 times, and the World Amateur Billiards Championship (now known as the ISBF World Billiards Championship) twice, in 1958 and 1964, but also was India’s first world champion in any sport. He won numerous Indian awards, including the Arjuna Award (best sportsman), which is shown in the film (3:10), and the Dronacharya Award (best coach). At the time of documentary, Wilson Jones had already retired from billiards. He says the decision was driven to spend more time with his family, as well as a conviction that the best time to retire is when one is “at the top of [his] career.”

Wilson Jones 2The film’s narrative is not that revealing or insightful, though it’s interesting to hear one unnamed player describe him as an “extremely tough man to beat in competition because of his cool temperament and great determination,” and another describe him “as a person better than he is as a player because he is considerate, helpful, always willing to give a hand to any person who wants to learn.”

Perhaps, more disappointing is that the film itself is shot rather unimaginatively, given direction by Vijay B. Chandra and production by Pramod Pati, two leaders in Indian experimental film of that era. While there are a handful of unusual close-ups and camera angles sprinkled through the film, it’s still fairly vanilla, in comparison to Chandra’s surreal Child on a Chessboard or Pati’s psychedelic short film Abid.

Toward the end of the film, Wilson Jones says that, “in snooker [India is] a little way behind. The gap has been narrowed a bit [but] what we need is [for] these snooker boys to go out more often…and eventually, India should be very good.” It may have taken longer than he had hoped, but with players like Advani and Mehta now making global headlines, it seems Wilson Jones’ legacy has become complete.

One Too Many 8 Balls

I will concede that if I were writing or producing a billiards movie, I might consider throwing “8-Ball” or “eight ball” in the title, such as Up Against the 8-Ball or Behind the Eight Ball or even the whimsical 8 Ball Stud. After all, the eight-ball is laden with symbolism, given its inherent neutrality in the battle of solids and stripes, as well as its association with both good and bad, depending on whether it leads to someone’s victory or defeat on the billiards table.

But, to name the movie just 8-Ball? Where’s the originality in that? This is a crowded market folks, and as difficult to believe as it may be, I uncovered five billiards movies and short films called 8-Ball, as well as a couple of non-billiards movies of the same name. Welcome to a world of confusion.

8-Ball

8 Ball MovieAt the top of my watch list is the forthcoming billiards crime drama 8-Ball, starring and executive produced by David Barroso.   Mr. Barroso promises the movie will borrow elements, narration, and plot elements from Godfather Part II, GoodFellas, The Usual Suspects, and The Silence of the Lambs. According to the movie’s Twitter feed, it’s now expected to hit theaters this fall. Fortunately, this is the only full-length film with the title 8-Ball.

8 Ball

8 Ball MovieLess about billiards as sport, and more about billiards as an allegory for life, is the 2007 short film 8 Ball, directed by Inon Shampanier. As Shampanier shared with me, the larger allegory is that “like balls on a pool table, the lives of strangers collide and change course.  The film poses questions about the accidental nature of these collisions and the sense of ‘order in the chaos.’”

8 Ball

This seven-minute Australian film, shown as part of the 2012 Aurora Short Film Festival, anthropomorphizes the 8-Ball as an enlightened maverick, fleeing the confines of a pool table to explore the outside world. (“There was nothing these suckers could do to stop me.”) While the concept is interesting, the dialogue is terrible, including the encounter with a female tennis ball. A far better movie that brings pool balls to life is Pool Talk, a two-minute 2009 short film.

8 Ball

This four-minute American film, made some time in 2012 or 2013, has no dialogue, no plot, and sadly, no purpose. Directed by George Monard when he was probably 17 or 18, it features a “dangerous” pool player who is unsuccessful in his intimidation of the other players. A match ensues; he loses, so he shoots his opponent. I didn’t get it either.

8 Ball

8 Ball MovieUsing billiards as a backdrop, this four-minute American film, made a few years ago, was directed by Garrett Gutierrez, while a graduate student at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. It basically features two friends arguing about religion. The project was intentionally constrained to 3 pages, 2 characters, and 1 location.

OK, at this point, cinematic confusion should be setting in. But, now is when it gets really weird…

8-Ball

8 Ball MovieIn 2012, the short film 8-Ball was released in Argentina. Having nothing to do with billiards, the movie is about a man having a personal crisis who seeks solitude in a park, when a passing stranger named 8-Ball takes an unwelcome interest in him. The movie won a host of awards throughout the UK. Apparently, no one thought to question the inanity of the title.

8-Ball

8 Ball MovieFinally, there is the 2013 full-length Finnish crime film 8-Ball. It is about a single mother who, having just been released from prison, is trying to start her life anew. The return of her former boyfriend stirs up a past she preferred to leave behind. I don’t know why it’s called 8-Ball, but I’ll cut the director Aku Louhimies a little slack, since its original title is 8-Pallo.

 

So, the next time you’re thinking about making a film about billiards (or not about billiards for that matter), heed this advice:  There’s still an opportunity to cash in on the 5-Ball or 13-Ball. Just stay away from (un)lucky number 8.

Pichitas (billiards documentary)

A beauty of billiards is that it has no singular, global definition.  Played around the world, the game has morphed and been shaped by local customs, cultures and personalities, assuming various rules and strategies and relying on different types of equipment, depending on where it’s played.  The sport encompasses everything from goriziana (Italy) to keglebillard (Denmark), from kaisa (Finland) to sinuca (Brazil), from yotsudama (Japan) to pyramid (Russia). The sport’s celebrities, too, span the globe, forming a transcontinental pantheon of billiards all-stars:  Efren Reyes (Philippines), Earl Strickland (US), Pankaj Advani (India), Thorsten Hohmann (Germany), Ronnie O’Sullivan (United Kingdom), Mika Immonen (Finland), and many more.

Pichitas - billiards documentary

R.A. “Jake” Dyer

One country, however, that receives little mention is Costa Rica. Perhaps, that is a grave oversight.  Certainly, that is the conclusion of R.A. “Jake” Dyer, the preeminent pool author (The Hustler & The Champ; Hustler Days), historian, blogger, and former documentary filmmaker.  Back in 1991 or 1992, Dyer returned to Costa Rica, where had lived for three years shooting pool among “some of the country’s greatest players” to make a movie about Luis “Pichitas” Calderon, the “best hustler, the best pool player in the world.”  Shot on Super-8 film in black-and-white and running about 23 minutes, Pichitas: A Costa Rican Pool Documentary is Dyer’s personal quest to find and film the legendary Pichitas, a billiards player of near mythic status.  The full film is available to watch on Vimeo here.

The documentary features Dyer as director, interviewer, and Spanish translator, intimately talking with the denizens of “Center Pool,” a (now-closed) pool hall in the market district of San Jose that had 50 billiards tables and was reputedly a frequent destination for Pichitas.

Pichitas - billiards documentaryInterspersed between the interviews is footage of this “wonderful cast of characters, some of whom were vaguely disreputable,” with the popular Cumbia tune “Juana La Cubana” by Fito Olivares playing in the background. Dyer also packs into this billiards documentary some sociological history, comparing the role pool halls played in the lives of turn-of-the-century heterosexual American bachelors to the role they play for men in Costa Rica today.  “Most the men are married, but you wouldn’t know it from their behavior.  They are here literally all day…they are not unlike the lifelong bachelors that one time thrived in the US.” [1]

Of course, the great irony of the documentary is that Dyer set out to “look for Pichitas and make a movie about him because he is legendary. That’s what this movie is about, that’s what we’re going to do.” But as the film progresses, Dyer is unable to locate Pichitas.   One starts to wonder if he is like the Yeti of Nepal, el fantasma de Costa Rica.  Even Dyer expresses doubts (or at least frustration), saying, “They’ve told me Pichitas is here, Pichitas is there…I have no idea, I can’t find him anywhere.”

For fans of documentaries like Searching for Sugar Man, there is an expectation that the denouement will result in the big reveal.  But, it never happens, at least not for the audience.  The movie technically ends with Dyer running off camera to pursue a possible sighting.  But, in the epilogue, Dyer returns, triumphantly announcing that he did finally meet Pichitas, though the moment is not captured on film.  As Dyer subsequently explains, “We saw Pichitas.  He was everything we promised.  He was the best hustler, the best pool player in the world. He was a great guy…but we ran out of film, sorry, that’s the breaks…maybe next time.”

“Sorry, that’s the breaks?!”  It is arguably the cruelest of endings, a final vanishing act, a punch line at the audience’s expense.  Or, maybe it’s the perfect capstone to this supernatural quest.  If one goes online today, the only mention of Luis “Calderon” Pichitas is by Dyer. There are no other stories, no images, no artifacts.

In a December 2009 blog post, Dyer wrote that Pichitas was like a “trickster figure,” a legend shared through oral tradition.  He added:

I also recognized in each case messages about the “culture” of the pool room, in that they would communicate lessons about such matters as gambling etiquette, attach value to certain sorts of figures and heap ridicule on others, and define the language common to members of the “tribe”.

So, who was Pichitas? Where is he now? Does he exist?  I don’t know the answers to any of these questions.  I only know my passion for pool just got a little stronger watching the wonderful documentary Pichitas.

 

[1]       Dyer draws on the work of Ned Polsky from his book Hustlers, Beats and Others.

Chasing Wincardona

Billy Incardona - Chasing Wincardona

William “9-Ball Billy” Incardona

In Moby Dick, Herman Melville tells the canonical story of Captain Ahab and his maniacal, obsessive pursuit of the great, white sperm whale.  Had Melville been writing today, rather than 150 years ago, he might have told a similar story about an emerging billiards talent Ronnie “Wiseguy” Wiseman and his 25-year pursuit of a re-match with William “9-Ball Billy” Incardona. [1]

The billiards community doesn’t have a Melville, but it does have documentary filmmaker Angel Levine, who interviewed Incardona and Wiseman the day after his quarter-century chase culminated with a game of one-pocket at the 1st (inaugural) Annual Southern Classic Tournament in Tunica, Mississippi.  The interview, along with a few snippets of the match, are presented in Levine’s nine-and-a-half minute 2013 film, Chasing Wincardona, available to watch below in its entirety.

Levine describes Incardona as a “former nine-ball champion and ex-hustler [who] through his expert negotiations and handicapping of the games he enters into, has played and beaten the world’s best, both in the tournament arena and in private one-on-one matches after hours since 1970.” Today, he’s also a member of the One-Pocket Hall of Fame, the “voice of Accu-Stats,” and a commentator for ESPN.

As the story goes, future Pro player Wiseman first met Incardona at Bogart’s Billiards on April Fool’s Day, 1987.  Incardona convinced Wiseman he didn’t know how to play nine-ball, and subsequently proceed to hustle him.  Says Wiseman: “I paid a couple thousand for my lessons [on that day].”

Wiseman spent the next 25 years following Incardona around the country, trying to win back his money and regain his honor.  As Incardona says, “Every time I see [Wiseman], he plays the same record…It’s in his craw.” The film doesn’t broach why Incardona didn’t give Wiseman a second chance all those years, or why this particular tournament broke the spell.  But, the two ultimately do play in a $2500 one-pocket game of two-against-one, with “Downtown” Eddie Brown as Wiseman’s partner against Incardona.

Given the 25-year desire to “revenge that loss,” it’s amazing to listen to the jocular spirit between these two.  Moby Dick fans will recall that when Ahab finally encountered his nemesis, he said, “From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”  There’s no such enmity here.  The two laugh, joke, trade barbs, and remind us all that the competitive spirit that governs play on the pool table doesn’t have to remain off the table.

Raising the HustlerThe Chasing Wincardona footage is just a tiny sample of the 600 hours of film that Levine has collected over the past seven years as part of her forthcoming documentary Raising the Hustler.  To anyone who hopes to see that opus on the large screen, I encourage you to support Levine through her current fundraiser, in which she is selling t-shirts to fund the film’s final editing and post-production. You can show your support at the Booster-Raising the Hustler website.

Also, as a final postscript, Chasing Wincardona was co-written and co-narrated by George Fels, who passed away on New Year’s Eve.  Fels was one of the most acclaimed and prolific billiards writers, earning the nickname “Pool’s Poet Laureate.”  Thank you for everything you did for the sport, Mr. Fels.

[1]       Melville may never have formally written about billiards, but there are occasional references to billiards in his writing.  For example, in Moby Dick, he likens preparing porpoise meat to making the meat “into balls the size of billiards balls.” And, when Melville first arrived at Oxford, he described the grass as “smooth as the green baize of a billiards table.”

Raising the Hustler – A Billiards Documentary in Production

In the United States, there are approximately 11.5 million baseball players of all ages.  How many can name at least one professional player?  75%? Certainly, at least half, with many citing team rosters, wearing the jerseys of favorite players, collecting memorabilia about the pros, and/or talking about the legends of yesterday.

In the United States, approximately 40 million people played pool at least once in the last 3 years.  How many can name a professional billiards player? 1%? Not a chance.  The American Poolplayers Association (APA) has about 265,000 members.  Can even 10% name one of the sport’s legends besides Willie Mosconi or Minnesota Fats (no, not the Jackie Gleason character from The Hustler)?

Raising the Hustler - Billiards DocumentaryIf you’re wondering where I’m going with this jeremiad, I’m channeling the very spot-on sentiments of Angel Levine, the director and producer behind the highly anticipated documentary Raising the Hustler. It has already taken Levine 7 years to film, costing her “every dime [she] ever had and maybe some dimes [she] hadn’t” to collect more than 600 hours of footage about the legends of pool so she can help them tell their story in their own words to a generation that is perilously close to forgetting their existence.

“I got tired of watching my legends die broke and penniless.  They need to be heralded,” Levine told me in an hour-long interview in late August.  “[Pool players] are looked at so poorly in this country.  They’re looked at as gamblers, hustlers…Compare this to the Philippines, parts of Asia. Pool players there have a fan base.”

In a 2003 article in the Asia Times Online, Levine’s point jumped off the page: “Mention the sport of pool or billiards [in the Philippines] and you’ve tapped into something much deeper in the Filipino soul, something that is a part of the very fabric of this society…Filipinos of all persuasions will be able to tell everything you need to know about a kick shot, the break, a billiard shot and a safety shot… If a Filipino emerges victorious [at the World Professional Pool Championship], expect a ticker-tape parade in Manila.”

In fact, Levine’s lament goes beyond recognizing just the great old-timers.  “Pool is dying in the US. ESPN won’t work with the men anymore…Women have to pay ESPN to be on TV.  Nobody watches, nobody cares.  The amateurs don’t even know who Johnny Archer is.  They only know the Asian Woman [Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee].

Raising the Hustler - Chris's BilliardsSo, Levine set out to make her documentary not only to honor her idols, but to honor her sport.  And, fortunately, she is the perfect person to do it. “I grew up playing with legends of the sport in Chicago.  All of the greatest players have come through or lived here, and I know most of them and could go where most couldn’t with a camera, which is why I have carte blanche access to the industry…Initially I decided to focus my documentary only on the stars around my room at Chris’s Billiards (where The Color of Money was partially filmed).  It was on a smaller scale.  Only after I started peeling the onion did I realize I had to start traveling.  And the more I did, the more I fucking cried.”

The more stories Levine told me about the pool greats, the more self-aware I became of my own pathetic lack of knowledge about them.  Leonard “Bugs” Rucker.  Santos Sambajon.  Riley “Jet” Johnson.  Sang Lee.  Freddy “the Beard” Bentivegna. The interview became a history lesson and my own personal wake-up call.

Raising the Hustler - Billy Incardona

“Pittsburgh Billy” Incardona

Unfortunately, we will all have to wait a little longer to view the complete fruits of Levine’s efforts, as she recently announced that she has postponed the release of Raising the Hustler until 2015. On the positive, she just submitted a 10-minute documentary to Sundance entitled Chasing Wincardona, which is all about the great one-pocket player “Pittsburgh Billy” Incardona.  (I look forward to reviewing that film in a subsequent post.)

If there is a tragic irony to Levine’s story, it is that since she started filming, 31 of her interview subjects have passed away.  When she told me that, I nearly collapsed, incredulous that so many greats could fade from the annals of billiards history.  But, then I also smiled, grateful that someone like Angel Levine could be so passionate and committed to make sure their stories were documented and their tales will have the chance to inspire and educate future generations of pool players.

To stay informed about Raising the Hustler, like the movie on Facebook.

The Cuemaker (billiards documentary)

In 2012, Gary Chin, a 20-year-old film student at Ithaca College in upstate New York, directed and produced a 19-minute billiards documentary about Dana Paul, an impressive 64-year-old local artisan, who makes custom pool cues and espresso tampers.   Entitled The Cuemaker, the short film, which won Chin a Best Director award at the 2012 Honey and Buddy Documentary Film Festival, is largely not about the technical aspects of making cue sticks, but more about the passion and commitment Paul brings to his craft.

The Cuemaker - billiards documentaryChin, a rising pool player and the president of Ithaca College’s Billiards Club, starts his documentary with his personal quest to “take [his]game to the next level by building a custom cue,” specifically a 19.5-oz jump break cue.  That quest leads him to Paul, the resident cue repair and cue-building expert.  Along his quest, he also attends the 2012 Super Billiards Expo in Philadelphia, where he observes Shane Van Boening, currently ranked #1 in the US, win the Ten-Ball Players Championship.

But, Chin’s quest is intentionally subsumed under Paul’s larger “quest for [cue-making] perfection.”  It is powerful to hear a craftsman talk with such pride about his trade. Speaking to Chin, Paul says, “I am not attached to [a] particular piece of wood…I’m attached to the idea that it will become, it not treasured, at least respected by you or maybe even your children.  He then later adds, “I am not obsessed but I am determined….I want to love the cue because I want it to be an example of my most prodigious effort to do the best I can do with a cue.”

In the end, Chin, with Paul’s obvious assistance, does make himself the perfect jump break cue.  But, it’s also clear that Paul will forever chase that state of perfection.   If I were currently investing in a cue stick, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Cuemaker billiards documentary is available to order on DVD only through Gary Chin’s website.  A preview trailer for the documentary is below. You can also show your support for Chin by liking his Facebook page for The Cuemaker.  To see more of Dana Paul’s woodwork, visit his Tamperista website.