Category Archives: Billiards Movies

The Billiards movies category is about movies that prominently feature billiards or that have plots focusing on billiards.

Bad Boy

Let’s all agree: Hollywood is hot for its Bad Boys.  And I’m not just talking about Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, the stars of Bad Boys (1995) and its sequel Bad Boys II (2003).  Or, Sean Penn, the headliner in Rick Rosenthal’s 1983 movie Bad Boys.  I’m talking about a more general infatuation with the charismatic, misbehaving, Bad Boy archetype.  As Laura Jacobs wrote in a recent Vanity Fair article, “America has always loved its bad boys, but it wasn’t until the movies that we got to revel in them as one nation. Suddenly, in the 1930s, the libertine, gangster, outlaw, scofflaw, public enemy, serial seducer, bank robber, and sexy barn burner had faces.  And what faces!”

Bad Boy - billiards movieTo that list of no-gooders, we must add one more bad boy – the infamous pool hustler.   That is the premise of John Blystone’s 1935 billiards movie Bad Boy, based on the story of the same name by Viña Delmar.  To my knowledge, Bad Boy is the first full-length (56 minutes) billiards movie, though other short films about billiards (e.g., Billiards Mad (1912), A Game of Pool (1913), and W.C. Fields’ well-known Pool Sharks (1915)) preceded it by more than two decades.

In Bad Boy, James Dunn plays Eddie Nolan, a wisecracking pool ace in love with the sweetheart Sally Larkin (Dorothy Wilson).   Eddie’s plans to proclaim his love of Sally to the woman’s parents are foiled when the father recognizes him as the “pool shark” who periodically hustles him.  In a fit of rage, the father makes it clear the romance has no future, saying he “had higher hopes [for his daughter] than to marry a street-corner loafer” and insisting that she stop “chasing a pool hall hoodlum.”  Her mother echoes this sentiment, bemoaning that her daughter is “too fine a girl to get mixed up with a bad boy.”

Hoodlum?  Street-corner loafer?  Bad boy?  Since when did playing pool take become so sinful? So akin to the aforementioned list of criminals and reprobates?

Bad Boy - billiards movieAlas, for Nolan there is no nobility playing in pool in the 1930s (some might argue the same is true today, unfortunately), so the only path to legitimizing his love and making his marriage public is to find a real job – ideally selling pool tables at a local sporting goods store — before a competing suitor, who has a “good job at a bank, car all paid for, two lots in Flushing, and a savings account” makes in-roads on his missus.   He doesn’t get the job initially, but things do seem to work out, albeit very abruptly, in the end.

Bad Boy is quaint and dated, though it still retains a certain gosh-golly Capraesque feel.  But, as a billiards movie, it sets a standard in trick shots that was not surpassed until 1961 with the production of with The Hustler.  Even more impressive, James Dunn makes all his own shots.  Sure, they’re classic trick shot setups, but the opening scene shows Dunn (1) making a backspin draw shot that sinks two opposing balls in the middle pockets; (2) hitting a frozen cue ball corner shot; (3) doing a beautiful masse shot; (4) using his Stetson as a pseudo-bridge for his cue stick; and (5) shooting one-handed through the bend at his elbow.  (All of these are made as part of a straight pool game to 100 in which the winner gets $2.)

Bad Boy is available to buy as a DVD for $15 from Loving the Classics.  Even if you don’t watch the whole movie, it’s worth buying for the opening few scenes that feature the aforementioned sequence of shots.  They’re pure billiards gold.

The Color of Money

The Color of MoneyIt’s hard for me to imagine that more than a handful of my blog’s visitors and readers have yet to see the 1986 billiards movie masterpiece The Color of Money.  As this is my 50th blog post, rather than attempt to review this film, I thought I would commemorate it with an appropriately-titled quiz, “50 Questions about The Color of Money.”  Answers appear after the quiz, including some detailed explanations.   Though I anticipate a lot of you will be able to answer many of these questions, I suspect precious few can answer them all, as they range from the easy to the esoteric.   For those who can answer more than 40, you are truly Balabushka-worthy.  Enjoy!

Origins

  1. How many years occurred before The Color of Money was made as a sequel to The Hustler?
  2. Who wrote the book The Color of Money?
  3. In preparation for the movie, who said, “I know nothing about pool.”
  4. Why does Jackie Gleason’s character, Minnesota Fats, not appear in The Color of Money?
  5. Who convinced Martin Scorsese to make The Color of Money?

Actors

The Color of Money

  1. Which three actors have received Oscar nominations since the release of The Color of Money?
  2. Who won a Best Actor Oscar for his acting in The Color of Money?
  3. Who plays Amos, the young man who successfully hustles Eddie?
  4. What actor, who frequently appears in Spike Lee and Coen Brother movies, plays Julian?
  5. What actress from The Color of Money first appeared on-screen as an uncredited extra in another Martin Scorsese film, The King of Comedy?

Quotes

  1. Who provides the opening voiceover in which the game of 9-ball is described?
  2. What does Carmen tell Eddie he’ll be doing if he wins one more game (against Grady Seasons)?
  3. According to Eddie, what are the two things one needs to win?
  4. Who said the memorable quote, “It’s like a nightmare isn’t it?  It just keeps getting worse and worse.  The impossible dream.”?
  5. What are the final two words spoken in the movie?

Critical Reaction

  1. What film critic panned The Color of Money, calling one of its pool sequences “gimmickry that looked like it had been set up for a TV commercial”?The Color of Money
  2. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a white Cadillac among the other mainstream American movies of the season”?
  3. How many Oscar nominations did The Color of Money receive?
  4. What film critic said, “If this film had been directed by someone else, I might have thought differently about it because I might not have expected so much.”?
  5. What newspaper ran a review of The Color of Money, calling it “a scratch, a contrived cliffhanger that sets us up for Hustler III”?

Music

  1. What famous Warren Zevon classic was used when Vince first plays Moselle and introduces him to “Doom” (the Balabushka in the case)?
  2. What song did Eric Clapton write and sing specifically for The Color of Money?
  3. What punk rocker makes a cameo as one of the many people Vincent hustles on the road?
  4. What famous musician produced the soundtrack to The Color of Money?
  5. What song is the lounge singer singing in the Atlantic City green room?

Pool Professionals

  1. Tom Cruise did all his own trick shots, except the shot in which he jumped two balls. Who made that shot?
  2. What professional pool player plays Vincent’s nemesis, Grady Seasons?
  3. What four pool professionals had speaking roles in The Color of Money?
  4. What two professional pool players served as the principal technical consultants in the movie?
  5. In 1996, what two professional pool players competed in an event called “The Color of Money,” a three-day race-to-120 challenge match of 9-ball?

Pool Playing

  1. What’s the name of the initial hustle that Eddie teaches Vince and Carmen?
  2. What type of pool cue was made to look like the famous Balabushka that Eddie gives to Vincent?
  3. As Eddie starts to regain his confidence, what kind of “trick” 8-ball shot does he successfully make?
  4. In contrasting the game of 9-ball to straight pool, what two games does Eddie mockingly compare 9-ball to?
  5. In which ball does Eddie see his reflection when he decides to forfeit at the Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament?

Locales

  1. What is the name of the real-life pool bar where Eddie first discovers Vincent and hears his “sledgehammer break”?
  2. To what restaurant does Eddie take Carment and Vincent for a meal and a lesson in “human moves”?
  3. What famous Chicago billiards hall is used in the scene where Vince first plays Grady Seasons?
  4. Where was the final Atlantic City 9-Ball Classic tournament actually filmed?
  5. What former billiards hall was used for the scene in which Eddie is hustled by Amos?

Cultural Impact and References

  1. What comedic actor made a parody of The Color of Money called The Hustler of Money in which Vince is now an amazingly talented bowler?Color of Money
  2. What NBC comedy television show featured a spoof of the “Werewolves of London” scene, with both characters stripping out of their clothes?
  3. What first-person video shooter game got its name from a scene in The Color of Money?
  4. According to movie historians Ray Didinger and Glen Macnow, what movie was a cross between The Color of Money and Dumb and Dumber?
  5. In the movie Poolhall Junkies, Mars Callahan’s character, Johnny Doyle, wears a black shirt with white lettering that is intentionally a reference to the shirt Vince wears in The Color of Money.  What does Doyle’s shirt say?

Movie Minutia

  1. What video game does Vincent play and describe as tougher than 9-ball?
  2. At what toy store does Vincent work?
  3. What is the license plate of Eddie’s Cadillac?
  4. What is Vincent’s last name?
  5. How much did The Color of Money gross domestically?

 NOW THE ANSWERS

Continue reading →

The Story of One Billiard-Room

2 Replies

The Story of One Billiard-Room

Years ago, I stumbled across posters for the 1988 Russian billiards movie The Story of One Billiard-Room (original title: Istoriya odnoy bilyardnoy komandi). The posters, available through Pop Culture Graphics, were unusual and memorable, striking in comparison to the more typical movie posters seen across the billiards movie landscape.  But, aside from the posters, my research uncovered very little about the film.

The script is by Alexsandr Adabashyan, who has written, acted in, directed, or helped produce well over 40 movies and television shows.  It also features an all-Russian cast, including Sergei Gazarov and Semyon Farada, both of whom are stage and film veterans. But, for all three of these gentlemen, this particular movie seems to have been largely ignored.

The only path that was not a dead-end was researching the movie’s director, Sebastián Alarcón.  Mr. Alarcón is a native of Chile, who left his homeland after graduating college to attend VGIK, a film school in Moscow.  Though he planned to return to Chile to make movies, his efforts were thwarted by a political coup and he was forced to remain in Moscow living in exile. Thus, he then began making movies for Mosfilm, the largest and oldest film studio in Russia.

One of the first films Mr. Alarcón made was a 1977 documentary Night Over Chile, which became immensely popular.  Its success spurred the director to continue making films about Chile, often about dictatorships and political struggle.  It was not until the late ‘80s when Mr. Alarcón turned to lighter subjects.  This is the time when he made the black humor comedy The Story of One Billiard-Room. The only reference I could then find to the movie was from a 100-year retrospective on Chilean cinema that described the movie as follows:

A sports team faces its toughest match: the danger of the degradation and dissolution, to lose the sense of their existence by the transformation of the town in which they live. The arrival of consumerism causes loss of consciousness and competition team that for years has called and given the identity. It is a metaphor both what happened in those years in the Soviet Union, but also to Chile molded in the ’80s.

The Story of One Billiard-RoomHaving otherwise struck out on learning more, I marked the film as “Wanted,” and moved on to other billiards movies. Luckily, in September 2021, a reader of this blog, Leonardo O, learned about my search and shared that he had gotten an .avi file of the film, without subtitles, from a Russian site two years ago. He then extracted the sound and used a service to generate an automatic transcription in Cyrillic. This allowed Google Translate to generate an automatic translation to English. He shared the file with me, while admitting the English subtitles had mistakes in translation and synchronicity. 

I am so thankful to Leonardo for reaching out and sharing the film. Unfortunately, the auto-translation was too butchered to make much sense, so my understanding of the movie remains only nominally better than the aforementioned description.

That’s too bad, as there’s some unusual imagery in the movie. For starters, the billiards team all wear numbered red jerseys and bicycle helmets. They also congregate around the billiards table, which is – wait for it – round with four pockets along the perimeter and a pocket in the middle.  When a ball falls into the middle pocket, smoke shoots up from the center, and the team’s captain uses a small handheld fishing net to retrieve the ball. 

There’s no actual playing in the movie, though the captain takes the team through some dexterity drills and mathematics practice. It seems he had grand ambitions for how the game could raise the global profile of his village and his athletes, but those plans fall apart as his team is lured to the surrounding material attractions of Coca Cola, music, television, and hot rods. By the end of the movie, the billiards table sits unused beneath a dusty cover, and the team is garbed in punk clothing, lollygagging with local ladies, and acting reckless. From the broken translation:

We together created a new game that demanded wild efforts of energy with self-sacrifice, energy, discipline… my friends and what kind of people, who they are, what they want,  what I personally do not know. But in general it seems that they are not interested in our game at all.

A Billiards Education in the Movies

Leave a reply

When many people think about billiards, they are really thinking about pool (also known as pool billiards or pocket billiards), specifically one of the numerous variations of pool, such as eight-ball, nine-ball, straight pool, or one pocket, that are played on a 6-pocket table of 7-, 8-, or 9-foot length.

billiards moviesA simple Google search verifies this billiards bias.  A search for “8-ball” and “9-ball” yields 909 million and 870 million results, whereas a search for “snooker” yields 44 million results, and a search for “carom” (as in carom billiards) yields less than 3 million results.  And, if we start narrowing our search to some of the more regional variations of carom billiards, such as Balkline or Goriziana, there are less than a few hundred thousand search results.

Certainly, in North America, one reason people commonly equate billiards with pool is because pool is the only game they’ve played.  According to research done 10 years ago by the Billiards Congress of America, about 90% of billiards players in the US primarily play pool; the rest play snooker or carom billiards.

But, another reason for the global association between billiards and pool is because of popular culture.  Conduct any informal survey in which you ask people to name “billiards movies” and the most common responses are The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986). Ask billiards players and other common responses are Poolhall Junkies (2002), Shooting Gallery (2005), Turn the River (2007) and maybe Stickmen (2001).  Each of these films has its own merits, and some are much better movies than others, but a common link is they all feature variations of pool:  The Hustler (straight pool), The Color of Money (9-ball), Poolhall Junkies (9-ball), Shooting Gallery (9-ball), Turn the River (one-pocket), Stickmen (8-ball).

Fortunately, there have been a handful of billiards movies that don’t focus on pool.  So, if you’re looking to expand your familiarity with some of the other cue sports, get your Netflix or Amazon Instant Video queue ready and read on.

Snooker

Snooker is a billiards game played on a 12’x6’ table using a cue and 22 snooker balls (one white cue ball, 15 red balls, and 6 balls of different colors and point values).   The object of the game is to score more points than one’s opponent by potting the object balls in a predefined order.  Red balls must be potted in order to attempt to pot one of the colored balls.

Billy Kid and Green Baize Vampire - billiards moviesOne of the most interesting movies to feature snooker is Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, a 1987 film from the UK that revolves around a snooker showdown between a cockney named Billy Kid and a seven-time world snooker champion who wears clip-on fangs and relaxes in a coffin named Maxwell Reardon, aka the Green Baize Vampire.  The two main protagonists are modeled on real-world legends Ray Reardon (whose nickname was “Dracula”) and Jimmy White, who battled it out in snooker championships in the early 1980s.

The movie is actually a musical, composed by George Fenton, a 5-time Oscar-nominated composer, and includes the song “Snooker (So Much More Than Just a Game).”  If you liked The Rocky Horror Picture Show, you’ll enjoy this film based on its camp/cult value alone.  But, even if musicals are not your thing, you’ll get a thrill out of watching the exceptional snooker playing, particularly in the final showdown.

Other snooker movies you might wish to check out include Legend of the Dragon (1991, Hong Kong), which actually features snooker champ Jimmy White, and Number One (1985, UK), a made-for-TV movie starring Bob Geldof and Alfred Molina.

Three-Cushion Billiards

Three-cushion billiards, one of the most popular and challenging cue sports in the world, consists of three balls and a pocketless pool table.  The object of the game is to carom the cue ball off both object balls, but to make sure the cue ball hits the rail cushion at least three times before hitting the second object ball.  A point is scored for each successful carom.

Carambola - billiards movieA humorous, tongue-and-cheek film that prominently features three-cushion billiards is Carambola (2003, Mexico).  In this low-budget drama, shot entirely in one location, the character “El Vago,” having won a carom-billiards saloon from the character “El Mexicano,” must now figure out how to restore honor and popularity to the game of three-cushion billiards.  A lot of mishaps occur, especially in his decision to recruit “El Perro” (the fabulous Diego Luna) as the manager, who feels three cushion billiards is an old man’s game.  Amazing three-cushions shot are scattered throughout the movie, and there is a comedic skit in the beginning, in which El Vago attempts to make an instructional video about the rules and nuance of the sport.

Another movie you might wish to check out is Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1972, Japan), a “pinky violence” film in which an outlaw heroine tries to save a bar through a three-cushion billiards competition.

Goriziana

Goriziana (or 9-pins) is a form of carom billiards especially popular in Italy. Nine pins sit in the center of a pocketless table. Two cue balls and a red ball are used. Each player attempts to hit the opponent’s ball and, from there, scores points by striking the red ball, or by making the opponent’s balls or the red ball knock over the pins. Play continues until someone reaches or surpasses a pre-set number of points.

Pool Hustlers - billiards movieThe best way to visualize Goriziana is to watch the romantic comedy The Pool Hustlers (1983, Italy), also known by its Italian name Io, Chiara e lo scuro.  The story focuses on Francesco, a skilled Goriziana player, who never plays for money.  He challenges Scuro, the reigning Goriziana champion (played by real 9-pin billiard legend Marcello Lotti), for a “spiked cup of coffee” wager.  When Francesco wins, his newfound confidence leads him to break his own no-betting rule, and he quickly falls into significant debt, losing his rematches to Scuro.   This debt leads him to steal money, and ultimately, to compete in the International Single Set Goriziana Championship as way to pay off his financial obligations, preserve his relationship with his girlfriend Chiara and avoid jail.

The Pool Hustlers was followed by a sequel Casablanca, Casablanca (1985, Italy), which continues Francesco’s love of Chiara and of Goriziana, and then much later by Il signor Quindicipalle (1998, Italy), which is also about 9-pins but with different characters.

So the next time you’re asked to think about billiards, consider the larger universe of exciting cue sports that exist.  And, if we’re lucky, maybe there will be some billiards movies about Russian Pyramid or Balkline in the near future.  We could all use some more educating.

Carambola (billiards movie)

Leave a reply

Within the billiards movie genre, one of the best and least-known is Carambola, a 2005 low-budget, highly stylized film that took more than two years to reach the big screen after its premier at the Guadalajara Film Festival, and then, sadly, disappeared almost as quickly.  Directed and written by Kurt Hollander, an accomplished writer and photographer, who unfortunately for us, did not continue to make movies, Carambola is the story of El Vago (Daniel Martinez), an aging three-cushion billiards hustler, who has the chance for reinvention when he wins a billiards hall in a bet.

Carambola - billiards movieThe billiards hall is not only the sole setting of Carambola, but it is also a central character in this tale of reinvention.  Foremost, there is the tension between El Vago’s wish to preserve the “real tradition in this pool hall,” which means keeping the billiards tables intact, and that of his more business-minded ambitious assistant, El Perro (the wonderful Diego Luna), who believes that only old geezers plays billiards, and that to turn the hall into a successful business requires pool tables, discos, and strobe lights.  Even El Vago must concede that “pool is the flavor of the new generation.”

(For those that may already be confused, “pool” is not synonymous with “billiards.”  Pool is akin to pocket billiards, shot with a cue ball and 15 balls on a six-pocket table between seven and nine feet long.  In Carambola, “billiards” refers to three-cushion billiards, also called carombole, which is generally played on a pocketless five-by-ten foot table with just three balls.  The object is to score points by caroming the cue ball off both object balls, but making sure the cue ball hits the rail cushion at least three times before hitting the second object ball.   Fortunately, if you were watching the movie, you would not be confused, as the rules of three-cushion billiards are explained by El Vago in the opening scene as part of an instructional video he’s shooting to earn some extra cash.  Not only does he explain the objective, but he gives pointers such as, “knives longer than five inches and guns carried in one’s belt…interfere with a clean shot,” or “gold chains, shiny rings, and flashy tattoos on one’s hands disrupt concentration.”)

El Vago ultimately acquiesces to the vision of El Perro, thereby ushering in dramatic and costly changes that pack the pool hall with young supple bodies, but leave the elders disgusted and El Vago with a permanent ulcer that is exacerbated when all the “little shits…put their feet on [his] tables.” In great and uncomfortable juxtaposition, El Vago even kills the music in one early scene to stage a billiards demonstration by El Campeon, aka “The Champ,” who shows off some wonderfully gorgeous masse and rail shots to a rather apathetic and benumbed audience.

Carambola - billiards movieTrouble mounts as quickly as the bills.  El Perro is determined to take control of the billiards hall, or at least rob El Vago blind while doing lines of cocaine in the bathroom.  The sexy La Pájara (Laura Hildalgo) is a constant distraction, particularly once El Vago peeps her straddling his table to make a pornographic video with a cue stick. El Mexicano (Jesús Ochoa), a businessman with a bad temper who sells “cues made from rare woods with exotic and erotic images,” always appears to be one step away from reclaiming the bar he lost or using his “death cue” on the the kneecaps of anyone ogling his daughter, La Pájara.  And none of this bodes well for a billiards tournament El Vago is trying to organize to raise funds to keep the billiards hall solvent.

Amidst this offbeat soap opera, there is, as I suggested in the beginning, a battle not only to define the future of the billiards hall, but to re-examine the very purpose of billiards, for every character has his own dogmatic definition.  For “Gums,” billiards is all about “style, flair…winning is not so important.”  For El Judas, billiards is a distraction: “who gives a fuck about billiards…if you want to do something in this world, you got to play with bigger balls.” For La Medusa, “billiards is a mirror of the heavens…when someone stands in front of table and shoots, they’re playing on three levels: universe, earth and inner world.”  El Chiquilin is less philosophical in his world view of billiards: It is a “game of kings… unfortunately it’s been adopted by a group of lowlifes, murderers, rapists, prostitutes and pimps.” And all of this contrasts with the beliefs of El Vago, who not only is set on teaching his audience to play the game through his video, but also on cementing his conviction that “any second rate player can make a shot, but to miss believably, only the best.”

Carambola - billiards movieIt’s that philosophy that ultimately cues the audience that maybe the down-and-out El Vago, with the ghastly ulcer and pitiful business sense, is, in fact, “missing believably.”  I won’t spoil the movie, but let’s just say, to use another El Vago quote, “to win, you have to know how to lose.”

Carambola is widely available to rent or buy on DVD or instant video.  It should not be confused with the similarly named Mexican billiards movie Operacion Carambola (1968), the Italian billiards movie Carambola (1974) or that film’s sequel, Carambola, Filotto…Tutti en Boco (1975).

Virgin Pockets

In 1997, the nominees for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture were Speed 2: Cruise Control, Fire Down Below, Batman & Robin, The Postman, and Anaconda.  (The Postman won the award.)  But, let me tell you, compared to the straight-to-video billiards movie Virgin Pockets, which came out that same year, these other lemons are downright Oscar-worthy.

Virgin PocketsVirgin Pockets is the inane story of pool professional Lizzie Monroe, who years ago removed herself from the tournament circuit because of the pressure and control of sponsors, and turned to hustling pool locally.  In a dive bar, she meets Jordan “J.J.” Jamison, a young, scantily-clad, dyed-blond, pool hustler, who first flaunts her talent by challenging the locals to games of pool. [Reviewer’s note:   Jordan’s physique may be real, but the money she was betting was most certainly not. It was labeled “toy money.”]

One by one, the lambs line up to play Jordan, only to get mesmerized by her cleavage and miss their shots.  Eventually, Lizzie plays Jordan and schools her in the game of pool.  After, Jordan attempts to befriend her, but is told by Lizzie she has “virgin pockets,” meaning she “has no idea how to play.  Straight pool is pool.  When you play 9-ball, that’s not a game.”  [Reviewer’s note:  they were playing 8-ball, not 9-ball.]

But, ultimately Lizzie is convinced they could make quite a hustling team (like Billie Jo Robbins and Nick Casey in The Baltimore Bullet). So, she takes on Jordan as a protégé and educates her in the art of hustling.  [Reviewer’s note:  for women, the art of hustling apparently includes repeated blowing on cue tips, stroking cue shafts, hiking up skirts to reveal lace garters, and of course, conspicuously removing money from inside one’s bra.]

As Lizzie says, “the best players in the world aren’t found on ESPN.  They’re found in pool halls, in the worst parts of town. If you really know how to play this game, that’s where the real money is.”  [Reviewer’s note:  all the “hustling” takes place in the one town of Erie, Pennsylvania, with its population of 100,000, and not exactly the ghetto of America.]

Virgin PocketsSoon, they’re racking up big dollars, playing the real sharks in “games that no one talks about.” [Reviewer’s note: the most they ever win appears to be $500.] Sometimes, they even hustle on coin-operated tables (!!).  But, their lucrative lifestyle falls apart when Jordan abandons her mentor to compete in the Erie Brewing Company 9-Ball International.

Ripping off of The Color of Money, Lizzie makes the decision to return to the tournament world, where she hopes to get Jordan’s best game.  I dare not spoil the ending, but in the final teacher-student showdown, it was “never about the money, always about the game.”

Virgin Pockets was produced on a shoestring budget of about $3000, so expectations shouldn’t start too high.  And, in fact, the story might have been bearable if other aspects of Virgin Pockets were entertaining. But, the acting is abysmal, the camera shakes constantly, and then there is the ungodly pool.  I never thought I would say this about a billiards movie, but there is way too much pool in this movie.  Every other scene consists of our leggy ladies making the same 5-6 shots (including one three-rail shot, which is unfortunately overused), while the incessant music plays in the foreground.  It was like watching a bad music video…on repeat.

One minute into the movie, Lizzie asks the question, “Why am I here?”  Trust me, if you sit down to watch Virgin Pockets, you’re going to be asking yourself that same question.

Virgin Pockets is available to order on DVD on Amazon.  The full movie is also available to watch online on YouTube.

Virgin Pockets

[Wanted!] A Paradise Without Billiards

In Monday’s “Battle of the Sexes” blog post, I lamented the fact that leading men in billiards movies almost always play the role of the brash, cocksure hustler.  A Paradise Without Billiards (original title:  Ett Paradis Utan Biljard), a 1991 comedy from Sweden and Italy, appears to be an exception to this rule.  I say “exception” because I have neither seen it nor been able to find it, which is why I inserted “[Wanted!]” into the title.  If you can help me locate this movie, please contact me directly.

Paradise Without Billiards

Ett Paradis Utan Biljard (Sweden)

Directed and written by Carlo Barsotti, an Italian who had lived in Sweden for 20 years when he made the movie, A Paradise Without Billiards is one among a number of movies that sought to depict the post-World War II immigration into Sweden as foreigners were lured by the prospect of plentiful jobs and a prosperous economy.

In this film, Giuseppe (representing the Italian immigrants) becomes enchanted by the idea of moving to Sweden after receiving a letter from his friend Franco, who immigrated to Sweden a year ago.  While Giuseppe passes his time pleasantly eating, playing pool and having a little romance, he is poor and his existence is nothing compared to what Franco promises he’ll encounter in Sweden.

The Swedish film historian Rochelle Wright describes Franco’s depiction of Sweden in her book The Visible Wall: Jews and Other Ethnic Outsiders in Swedish Film:

Sweden is a virtual paradise. Wages are three times higher than they are in Italy, and housing and hospitalization are free. Unions and employers work together to solve conflicts, so there is no need to strike. In general, disagreements are settled amicably – Swedes only raise their voices when they are drunk. ..The girls are blond and beautiful, and they find dark men attractive…Only one thing is missing: Swedes do not play billiards.

But, as soon as Giuseppe takes the plunge and moves to Sweden, he finds it’s not quite the paradise he was promised.  He is rudely treated at the border, the living conditions for immigrants are barracks, the jobs are in grim factories, the locals don’t appreciate Italians pursuing their women, and adding insult to injury, there is no ability to play billiards. This combination of pains ultimately presents a difficult choice:  either conform fully or go back home.  Whereas Franco chooses the former, shedding his Italian identity acculturating fully, Giuseppe opts for the latter and returns to Italy.

Ironically, A Paradise Without Billiards is a billiards movie that focuses more on the absence of billiards, rather than the playing of the game.  According to Wright, this is because billiards is a “concrete manifestation of homesickness and what is missed in the homeland” and the billiards table, nonexistent in Sweden, is a “focus point…for fellowship and camaraderie,” the very elements that Giuseppe cannot find in the new country.

To return to my opening point, it is also a movie that makes no equation between billiards and hustling.  In a welcome break from the traditional billiards movie storyline, billiards is about friendship and simple pleasures.  Ultimately, billiards is about paradise.  Now, there’s a story that could be told more often.

As mentioned, I have not been able to locate this movie anywhere, so I welcome your help.  The trailer for the Italian version of the movie, Un Paradiso Senza Biliardo, is shown below.

 

Battle of the Sexes in Billiards Movies

Leave a reply

Pool is not a man’s world.  According to the National Sporting Goods Association, a full 40% of pool players are women in the US.  In honoring Jeanette “The Black Widow” Lee into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame this year, the BCA referred to Lee as “unquestionably the most recognizable contemporary pool player in the world.” But, when it comes to their depiction in billiards movies, the sexes couldn’t be more different.

Historically, billiards movies were movies about men, typically portrayed as cocky, brash hustlers, using their pool skills to be king of the mountain.  The supporting women in these movies were cast as non-pool-playing arm-candy or play-it-straight foils to their intractable men.  More recently, a number of billiards movies have cast women in the lead roles.  And while the women possess skills equivalent to those of the men, they exhibit none of the braggadocio of their y-chromosome counterparts.  Instead, they are portrayed as good citizens, trying to play it straight, or reluctant billiards players, who rely on their cue stick (and only if necessary) for the pursuit of more noble reasons.

Let’s start with the men of the Big Three.

The Hustler - Billiards MovieIn The Hustler (1961), “Fast Eddie” Felson, a small-time, fast-talking pool hustler, is out to prove that he is the best player in the world by beating the legendary Minnesota Fats.  Eddie’s love interest, Sarah Packard, the sole woman in the movie, tries to convince Eddie to leave his “perverted, twisted, and crippled” world, but he’s too headstrong to quit.  And we all know it doesn’t end so well for Sarah.

Twenty-five years later, The Color of Money (1986) introduces viewers to Vincent Lauria, a cocksure, undisciplined, small-time hustler with incredible skills and a “sledgehammer break.” He is managed by his girlfriend Carmen, but it’s really “Fast Eddie” Felson, reprising his role from The Hustler, who teaches him how to hustle significant sums of money. Brazen and big-headed to the core, Vincent ultimately dumps his own game to make the real money on side bets.  In contrast to Sarah Packard, Carmen supports her man’s habits, but her primary form of influence is sexual manipulation.

Finally, in Poolhall Junkies (2001), there is Johnny Doyle, a gifted pool player, for whom hustling is so ingrained that he is literally unable to escape the lifestyle.  He combines lies and deceit with his billiards prowess and silver-tongue to free his brother from jail, but more important, to prove he’s the best and capable of beating any professional player.  Barely registering in the film is his girlfriend, Tara, who, unable to discourage his hustling, ultimately endorses it by finding him a stakehorse.

This pattern continues in other lesser-known billiards movies:   Nick Casey and Billy Joe, the two hustlers who star in The Baltimore Bullet (1980). Billy Joe “The Cajun Kid” Stanley, the loudmouth hustler in The Baron and the Kid (1984). Billy the Kid, the cockney cocky snooker player, in Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (1987).  The list goes on and on.

In comparison, billiards movies in which the lead is a woman have an entirely different narrative. I believe the oldest billiards movie with a female lead is the Japanese “pinky violence” movie Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1972). Nami, a young woman released from prison who was taught by her uncle to hustle pool at a young age, wants to bury her past by getting a hostess job in Ginza.  But, when a local yakuza threatens to seize her uncle’s bar, she is left with no choice but to utilize her billiards skills (in a tense match of three-cushion billiards) to right an unfavorable situation.  And when that doesn’t work, she resorts to all out sword massacre (!!).  In this film, pool is a last resort, a necessary evil, just one step below all-out bloodshed.

Kiss Shot - Billiards MovieKiss Shot (1989) features Whoopi Goldberg as Sarah Collins, a single mother who loses her job and is at risk of losing her house if she can’t come up with $7500 in the next four months.  Literally, to save her family, she starts hustling pool at a local billiards hall, and then competes in a tournament.

In the low-budget Up Against the 8 Ball (2004), Krista and Monique, two cash-strapped girls at a historically black college, want nothing more than to complete their undergraduate education.  But, unable to come up with the necessary $10,000 of tuition and unwilling to drop out, they take their pool-hustling skills to Las Vegas to compete for a $50,000 prize.  Pool then is a  means to a noble end, namely, a diploma.

In Turn the River (2007), Kailey is an immensely talented billiards player who takes no joy in the sport.  Initially, she hustles pool and poker for gas money; later, she reluctantly hustles a local shark into playing one-pocket and then nine-ball for $60,000.  But Kailey is not looking for the big score.  Rather, she’s looking for just enough money to rescue her 11-year old son from an abusive father and flee to Canada to start a new life.  Turn the River is the story of an anti-hustler, the reluctant samurai, seemingly forced to play a role, but only to escape a fate.

9-Ball with Jennifer Barretta - Billiards MovieFinally, the most recent addition to the canon is 9-Ball (2012), the story of Gail, who is left in the care of her creepy uncle after he father is murdered.  The uncle, sensing great pool skills in his niece, turns her onto the life of hustling and uses her as a way to make money for himself.  But, as Gail gets older, she aspires to break out of that lifestyle and join the APA to become a professional 9-ball champion. In 9-Ball hustling is an evil, a psychopathic trait, a nightmare that Gail can’t wake up from.  For Gail, pool is not a last resort (like it is for Nami or Kailey) or a way to avoid economic hardship (like it is for Sarah, Krista and Monique), but a path to salvation, and specifically, a path to camaraderie, respect, and joy that comes from joining an amateur pool league.

Writers, directors, producers, lend me your ears!  It’s time for some new billiards stories to be told.  This is not intended to be a criticism of the aforementioned movies.  Some of these films are fantastic; others are atrocious.  But, this genre will benefit from some out-of-the-box thinking.  Not every male pool player is a headstrong hustler.  Not every female pool player has unduly suffered.  Let’s not just break the rack.  Let’s break the stereotype while we’re at it.

 

Turn the River

Leave a reply

In the 1986 film The Color of Money, there is an outstanding scene in which Tom Cruise’s character, Vince, slowly reveals his Balabushka cue stick to his opponent, a small-time hustler, and, referring to the cue as “doom,” proceeds to methodically and smugly trounce his competitor in 9-ball.

In fascinating contrast is Kailey, the pool hustler played by Famke Janssen in Chris Eigeman’s 2007 movie Turn the River.  An immensely talented billiards player, Kailey takes no joy in pool.  She has no cue stick of her own, instead using house cues to hustle for gas money, and later in the movie, to raise the necessary funds to rescue and flee with her son.

The Color of Money presents the pool-playing hustler as a cocksure warrior, brandishing a cue stick like a katana, deftly twirling it like a bō and stabbing at the air. Turn the River is the opposite.  It’s the story of the anti-hustler, the reluctant samurai, seemingly forced to play a role, but only to escape a fate.

Turn the RiverAs an individual movie, viewed entirely on its own merit, Turn the River is passable, at best.  The gorgeous Janssen, a former fashion model and best known as Jean Grey/Phoenix in X-Men, is decent in the role, but it’s a little hard to accept her as a worn-down single mom from the school of hard knocks.  Divorced from her husband and without visitation rights to see her 11-year old son Gulley, she hatches a plan to take her son away from his father, who she believes has been abusing him.  To succeed, she’ll need $60,000 to flee to Canada with fake passports.  So, with the help of her friend and pool-hall proprietor Teddy Quinette (played by the awesomely-named Rip Torn and similar in every way to Rod Steiger’s friend and pool-hall proprietor role in Poolhall Junkies), a high-stakes pool game is organized. If the logic is a little questionable up to this point, it gets downright absurd in the last quarter of the movie, once Kailey wins the non-suspenseful pool match and proceeds to “steal” her son.

But, as one of the better-known members of the billiards movie canon, Turn the River presents a number of interesting themes and cinematic choices that are worth discussing in more detail.

First and foremost, as mentioned above, is the creation of an ‘anti-hustler.’  Kailey has no pool ambition like “Fast” Eddie Felson in The Hustler.  She employs no braggadocio, there are no taunts, like those quipped by Johnny Doyle in Poolhall Junkies (e.g., “You watch my mouth, Chico. ‘Cause you sure as hell don’t wanna watch me play pool. Unless, of course, I’m blind-folded and hand-cuffed with a pool cue stickin’ out of my ass.”).

In fact, she seems to barely understand the game of hustling, as she is caught off-guard to learn one of her adversaries, Ralph (played by Tony “Silent Assassin” Robles, one of the top 10 billiards professionals in the world and the movie’s pool technical advisor), is throwing games, or that for her to win $60,000, she’ll need a “stalking horse” (i.e., someone who can lose well to an opponent to encourage him to bet large).  She doesn’t even appreciate that her opponent, Duncan, will “try to fuck with [her], knock [her] off [her] rhythm.” All Kailey has are her formidable billiards skills.

Tony Robles - Raising the Hustler

Director Chris Eigeman and technical pool advisor Tony “Silent Assassin” Robles

Variety Magazine made this interesting observation: “In casting a woman in a traditionally male role, Eigeman subtly shifts both genre and gender.  His heroine adopts the iconography of the hustler movie, but feminizes it.” And, in this sense, Kailey is first a mother, and only second a pool player.  This is dramatically different than the famous male billiards hustlers, for whom pool-playing is their sole identity.

Eigeman’s approach to filming pool is equally interesting. In an interview with IFC, he said, “I was always interested in how much [pool] I had to show. It can get really uninteresting watching balls fall into pockets — it’s a lot like sex scenes, here [what’s] going is infinitely less interesting than [the expressions on] people’s faces.”

In the DVD commentary, he added, “The goal was to show as little pool as possible because it was never just a movie about pool.  We had to show just enough to keep the movie moving.” But, the pool had to be compelling and feel authentic, while still adhering to a very limited budget.  To achieve this, the cast and crew took over a pool-hall for six non-stop days of shooting pool.  They were able to shoot 360-degrees, filming everything with the hope that the shots could be edited together in post-production to form a coherent story.

Turn the RiverEigeman expanded in the same IFC interview: “We were very controlled and very loose…the controlled was we built 20 or 30 pool shots — we took pictures of them, put them in a notebook and named them: Ann, Betty, whatever…all the way down. So we had these shots, and the last shot that Famke makes — Zelda — and we knew that was the shot that we would end all the pool with.”  (“Zelda” being a reference to the four-bank carom shot that Kailey makes to win the match.  Janssen, who did all her own pool-shooting in the film, made this shot on her first attempt, though a full half-day of filming had been budgeted to get it right.)

Finally, it’s intriguing that for most of the movie, the game played is one-pocket, a type of pocket billiards in which “the player making the break chooses a foot corner pocket for the rest of the game; all of that shooter’s balls must be shot into that pocket. All of the opponent’s balls must be made in the other foot corner pocket.”  To my knowledge, Turn the River is the only billiards movie to feature one-pocket, though the final match consists of a race to seven in the more widely known 9-ball.  When her opponent opts to switch to 9-ball, Kailey retorts by referring to 9-ball as “a chumpy game…that’s beneath us.”   Presumably, this is her way of mocking 9-ball, a game that can involve some luck, compared to one-pocket, a game that purists would argue involves almost no luck when played expertly.

Turn the River is widely available for rent or to purchase online or on DVD.

Poolhall Junkies

“Poolhall Junkies is a porno movie for billiards fiends.”

Alas, I can’t take credit for authoring that beautiful sentiment (it belongs to the staff writer Purple for Movie Magazine), but it’s a zinger of truth.  From the opening scene, as the camera methodically, seductively explores the baize of the billiards table, the interior of the pocket, the smoothness of the rail cushion, the length of the cue, and even the symmetry of the rack, one feels they’ve entered a world of pool fetishism.  It’s no wonder that this is the mise-en-scene of the 2003 billiards movie Poolhall Junkies and the home of its star, Johnny “Sidepocket Kid” Doyle, a pool player so good that “the cue was part of his arms, the balls had eyes, and the thing that made him so good was that he thought he could never miss.”

Poolhall JunkiesIt’s also then no surprise that Doyle is played by Mars Callahan, the movie’s director and writer, and an incredible pool player in his own right.  In making the film, Callahan clearly wanted to make a billiards movie.  He used his own life growing up fatherless in Los Angeles, hustling and playing pool starting at the age of 12, to form the basis of the movie, though it would take him 10 years to get it to the silver screen.

The storyline for Poolhall Junkies is pretty simple (and often criticized for being a retread of better movies such as Rounders).  Johnny is a teen billiards prodigy who aspires to be a pool professional.  But, his “mentor” uncle Joe (the excellent Chazz Palminteri) has bigger plans to “educate” him and turn him into a pool hustler.  Fifteen years later, when Johnny breaks from his mentor, he tries to start a new life away from pool-sharking.  But, Joe, hell-bent on revenge, won’t let him leave, and sics his new protégé Brad (the head-scratchingly cast Rick Schroeder) on Johnny’s friends and family, creating for Johnny a world of debt and problems that can only be resolved in a – wait for it…you guessed it – 9-ball showdown.

Okay, so the plot is beyond predictable.  Can we move on now?  Let’s talk about the pool!  The movie is a billiards bonanza of rapid-fire strokes, rail assist jumps, table-length draws, absurd masse shots, double-bank carom shots, with some of the most eye-popping shots performed by billiards legend Robert “Cotton” LeBlanc, who not only was a technical pool advisor for the film, but also makes a cameo in the film at the Olhausen $100,000 9-ball Shootout, along with trick-shot maestro Mike Massey (as St. Louis Louis).

But, Poolhall Junkies does not just rely on professionals to dazzle.  To the contrary, the movie is notable for creating an aura of authenticity through its use of continuous wide-angle pool shots, taken not just by Callahan, but also by the other players in the movie.  Perhaps, the most famous shot in the movie is the frozen cue-ball carom kick shot shown below that Johnny uses to hustle his girlfriend’s boss at a party.

In Poolhall Junkies, this shot, which immediately inspired thousands of audience members to try to recreate it at their local pool halls, is done – on the first take, no less – by Johnny’s partner and bank-roller Mike (the scene-stealing Christopher Walken).  The shot is then repeated by Callahan…with one hand! (For a full explanation of the physics of this shot and others in the film, check out the article from Dr. David Alciatore in his series, “Billiards on the Big Screen.”)

Billiard movie aficionados will also note Callahan’s clear homage to The Color of Money in everything from the use of pool shot montages and the selection of recognizable pop songs to power the pool scenes (e.g., “Werewolves of London” in The Color of Money;  “The Payback” and “Use Me” in Poolhall Junkies) to the overt Color of Money poster in the local pool hall. More subtle tributes include the use of a deafening crack of the break to signal a one-of-a-kind pool player, as well as Johnny’s pompadour and white-on-black HUSTLER t-shirt that are reminiscent of Vince’s (Tom Cruise) bouffant hairdo and white-on-black VINCE t-shirt.

And yet, as an ode to billiards, Poolhall Junkies carries with it a negative underbelly, namely the close equation of pool with hustling.  While the movie opens with the line, “I don’t want to be a hustler. I want to be a professional,” it so romanticizes the pool-shark, with its short cons, sang-froid and hyper-masculine lifestyle, that it comes dangerously close to tainting the sport in the process.

As skilled as all the pool players are in the movie, they ultimately rely on deceit and even an old-fashioned ass-stomping to succeed.  Johnny lands a mobile-home sales job by tricking the company owner into making a bet he can’t win.  Another character wins a fast $200 by duping two guys in a drinking game.  Johnny’s brother attempts to beat Brad by only playing him on a pool-table he rigged with a crooked leg.  Brad, allegedly the 13th ranked player in the US, must resort to a cheap “four balls off the table” hustle to win money in 8-ball.  And, the most egregious example of all, in the final $100,000 showdown between Johnny and Brad, Johnny only wins because he cons his opponent into letting him take the otherwise “impossible” shot.

In this respect, it’s interesting to compare Poolhall Junkies to Anthony Palma’s 2012 movie 9-Ball.  Both movies start with a pool prodigy who wants to pursue the professional path, but is held back by a manipulative uncle intent on exploiting their skills for financial gain. In 9-Ball, league play is the path to nirvana, and the billiards professionals are portrayed as angelic messengers to aid in that pursuit.  On the contrary, in Poolhall Junkies, the professionals lie, intimidate, and even physically attack, and hustling, as evil as it may be, is the ultimate magnet and the only way to win over the girl, free the brother, and take the $100,000 pot.

Poolhall Junkies is widely available to rent or watch online or on DVD.

Poolhall Junkies