| Slap Shot | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster by Craig Nelson | |
| Directed by | George Roy Hill |
| Written by | Nancy Dowd |
| Produced by | Robert J. Wunsch Stephen J. Friedman |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Victor J. Kemper |
| Edited by | Dede Allen |
| Music by | Elmer Bernstein |
Production companies | Pan Arts Kings Road Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 123 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6 million[1] |
| Box office | $28 million[2] |
Slap Shot is a 1977 Americansportscomedy film directed byGeorge Roy Hill, written byNancy Dowd, and starringPaul Newman andMichael Ontkean. It depicts a minor league ice hockey team that resorts toviolent play to gain popularity in a factory town in decline.
Dowd based much of her script, as well as several of the characters, on experiences of her brotherNed Dowd who played minor league hockey in the 1970s.
WhileSlap Shot received mixed reviews upon release and was only a moderate box-office success, it has since become widely regarded as acult film.
In the fictionalRust Belt city of Charlestown,Pennsylvania (inspired by the real city ofJohnstown, where the movie was filmed), the localsteel mill is about to permanently close andlay off 10,000 workers. This indirectly threatens the existence of the town'sminor leagueice hockey team, the Charlestown Chiefs, which is struggling with a losing season, incompetent players, and increasingly hostile spectators.Player-coach Reggie Dunlop, like most of the team, has no employment prospects outside hockey. As a money-saving measure, the team's penny-pinching manager, Joe McGrath, signs the young, immatureHanson Brothers.
After seeing Charlestown fans responding positively to violence, Dunlop unleashes the Hansons, whose play mainly consists of brutalizing the other team. To motivate the players, he leaks to a newspaper a fabricated story about a potential sale to a community inFlorida, hoping that if the team becomes popular enough, it will happen. The brawls bring fans to the games, increasing attendance, and the Chiefs start winning.
Ned Braden, the team's top scorer, refuses to take part in the violence; Dunlop attempts to get him to fight by exploiting his marital troubles, encouraging but failing to get Braden's wife Lily to leave him due to his coldness. Games devolve intobench-clearing brawls, which become increasingly violent. Dunlop offers a $100 reward to any player who assaults Tim McCracken, the player-coach of the rivalSyracuse team. The Chiefs rise up the ranks to become contenders for the league championship. Dunlop attempts several times to reconcile with his estranged wife Francine, who wants a divorce and to take a job on Long Island. After Lily moves in with Dunlop to get away from Braden, Dunlop takes her to meet Francine, and the women commiserate over their difficulties in being married to hockey players.
Eventually, Dunlop meets the reclusive team owner, Anita McCambridge, and learns that his efforts to increase the team's popularity and value through violence have been for naught, as McCambridge would make more money if she folded the team as atax write-off. Dunlop decides to abandon the strategy of violence for the championship game, believing it to be his last, and the rest of the team agrees. Their opponents from Syracuse have stocked their team with violent "goons.” After the Chiefs are crushed during the first period while playing a non-violent style and getting booed by their fans, McGrath tells them thatNational Hockey Leaguescouts, whom he invited, are watching the game.
Dunlop and the rest of the team, except Braden, switch back to brawling, much to the delight of the fans. When Braden sees Lily cheering for the Chiefs, he enters the rink and performs astriptease, adding to the audience's enjoyment and breaking up the fight. When McCracken protests this "obscene" demonstration andsucker-punches the referee for dismissing him, Syracuse is disqualified, granting the Chiefs the championship. With the Chiefs folded, Dunlop accepts the offer to be the player-coach to aMinnesota team, intending to bring his teammates with him. In a parade held for the Chiefs, Dunlop fails to convince Francine to stay with him and watches her drive away.
The original screenplay byNancy Dowd is based in part on her brotherNed Dowd's experiences playing minor-leaguehockey in the U.S. in the 1970s. At that time, violence, especially in the low minors, was a selling point of the game.[12] Dowd would call his sister “from these various towns—Utica, Syracuse, New Haven—and tell me how he was being beaten-up and having his teeth knocked out.” That, she toldThe New York Times, “sort of fascinated me.”[13]
Dowd was living in Los Angeles when she got a call from Ned, a member of theJohnstown Jets hockey team. He gave her the bad news that the team was up for sale.[14] Dowd spent a month with his team doing research for a movie. She worked her own notes and from tape recordings that her brother had made for her in the locker room and on the team bus. She was paid $50,000 for the screenplay, which took four months to complete, and was present during the entire filming.[13]
The movie was filmed inJohnstown, Pennsylvania,Pittsburgh, and in central New York State (Clinton Arena andClinton,Oneida County;Utica Memorial Auditorium,Utica;Colgate University,Hamilton,Madison County and theOnondaga County War Memorial Auditorium,Syracuse).
Nancy Dowd used Ned and a number of his Johnstown Jets teammates inSlap Shot, with Ned playing Syracuse goon Ogie Ogilthorpe. He later used the role to launch a career as a Hollywood character actor, an assistant director, and eventually a line producer. The characters of the Hanson Brothers are based on three actual brothers: Jeff, Steve, andJack Carlson, who played with Ned Dowd on the Jets. The character of Dave 'Killer' Carlson is based on then-Jets player Dave "Killer" Hanson. Steve and Jeff Carlson played their Hanson brother counterparts in the film. Jack Carlson originally was written to appear in the film as the third brother Jack, withDave Hanson playing his film counterpart Dave 'Killer' Carlson. However, by the time filming began, Jack Carlson had been called up by theEdmonton Oilers, then of theWHA, to play in the WHA playoffs, so Dave Hanson moved into the role of Jack Hanson, andJerry Houser was hired for the role of 'Killer' Carlson.
Paul Newman, claiming that he swore very little in real life before the making ofSlap Shot, said toTime in 1984:
There's a hangover from characters sometimes. There are things that stick. SinceSlap Shot, my language is right out of the locker room!
Newman stated that the most fun he ever had making a movie was onSlap Shot, as he had played the sport while young and was fascinated by the players around him. During the last decades of his life, he repeatedly called Reg Dunlop one of his favorite roles.[15]Al Pacino wanted to play the role of Reggie Dunlop (#7) but director George Roy Hill chose Paul Newman instead.[16]
Nancy Dowd rejected suggestions that the film was sexist and said that she considered herself to be a feminist.[13]
Yvan Ponton and Yvon Barrette (who played forward Jean-Guy Drouin and goaltender Denis Lemieux, the two Quebec players in the film) dubbed their own voices for the film's translated French version. The film is one of few mainstream American films that was translated in colloquialQuébécois French and notStandard French. Heavy use of Quebec expressions andfoul language has made this version of the film a cult classic among French-speaking Canadians, where lines from the movie such as "Dave est magané" ("Dave's a mess") and "Du hockey comme dans l'temps" ("good old-fashioned hockey") are common catch phrases.[17]
The movie was filmed in (and loosely based around) Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and used several players from the then-activeNorth American Hockey League Johnstown Jets (the team for which Dowd himself played) as extras. The Carlson Brothers and Dave Hanson also played for the Jets in real life. Many scenes were filmed in theCambria County War Memorial Arena[18] andStarr Rink (Colgate University) inHamilton, New York; theUtica Memorial Auditorium (used as Peterborough where the pre-game fight occurs and where a Hanson reprimands the referee for talking during the anthem);Onondaga County War Memorial (used as Hyannisport where the Hanson Brothers charge into the stands to accost a fan and are arrested); and in other Johnstown locales. Coincidentally, the Johnstown Jets and the NAHL folded in 1977, the yearSlap Shot was released.
Although much of the film takes place during the fall and winter seasons, when hockey is in season, filming at the Utica Memorial Auditorium took place from June 3–4. Similarly, in Johnstown, Newman is wearing a coat as though it should be cold, but there is no snow on the ground and the trees are in full bloom.
The Reggie Dunlop character is based, in part, on formerEastern Hockey LeagueLong Island Ducks player/coachJohn Brophy, who receives homage by his last name being used for the drunken center of the Hyannisport Presidents. Coincidentally, Brophy would later coachDave Hanson, who played Jack Hanson, with the Birmingham Bulls in 1978.[19]
In one scene announcer Jim Carr remarks that Ned Braden is "a college graduate ... and an American citizen!" – both unusual distinctions for a pro hockey player of the time. In real life,Michael Ontkean is Canadian, but played hockey for and graduated from theUniversity of New Hampshire in 1970.[20][21]
Syracuse Bulldogs rookie goon Ogie Ogilthorpe, who was mentioned throughout the film but never actually seen until the final playoff game, was based on longtime minor-league goonBill "Goldie" Goldthorpe. Like Ogie Ogilthorpe, Goldie Goldthorpe is also infamous for his rookie season in professional hockey (1973) when as a member of the Syracuse Blazers he amassed 25 major fighting penalties before Christmas.[22]
TheBroome County Blades in the film were based on theBroome Dusters. One scene was specifically drawn from events that occurred inBinghamton, New York. In the film the Hanson brothers wear black-rimmed, Coke-bottle eyeglasses, and in one game get into a fight immediately after the opening faceoff; in reality, both Jeff and Steve Carlson did wear that style of glasses, and did indeed get into a long fight right after an opening faceoff. CoachDick Roberge:
We got into Binghamton about two or three weeks before the playoffs. In the team warmup, we're out there and all the Binghamton players came out with the plastic glasses and big noses, every one of them, poking fun at the Carlson brothers. We went back in the dressing room and the boys said, "Coach, as soon as that puck is dropped, we're pairing up." We had one heckuva fight. They went about 30 minutes until everyone got tired. We met them again in the [1974 –75 season] finals and beat them four straight.
— Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, as related by CoachDick Roberge
A scene in the film shows the Hanson brothers jumping the Peterborough Patriots during pre-game warm-ups. This is based on events in a mid-'70sNorth American Hockey League playoff series between theJohnstown Jets and theBuffalo Norsemen. The Jets had a black player on their roster, and during a playoff game held in North Tonawanda, New York (a northern suburb of Buffalo where the Norsemen played their home games), a Norsemen fan held up a derogatory sign stating that blacks should be playing basketball. The next game in the series was held in Johnstown, and the Jets retaliated by attacking the Norsemen players during the warm-ups, with a huge brawl erupting. The Norsemen players and coaches then returned to the dressing room and refused to come out to start the game. The game was awarded to the Jets by forfeit, as was the playoff series since the "win" gave the Jets the needed number of victories to capture the series.[14]
Another scene is also based on a real-life event. In the film Jeff Hanson scores a goal and is hit in the face by a set of keys thrown by a fan. The Hansons then go into the stands after the fan and Jeff Hanson punches the wrong fan. After the game the Hansons are arrested for the incident. In real life a similar incident occurred in Utica, New York, in a game between the Johnstown Jets and theMohawk Valley Comets. Jeff Carlson was hit in the face by a cup of ice thrown by a Utica fan and went into the stands after the fan with brothers Jack and Steve. All three were arrested and Dave Hanson gathered the money for bail for the Carlson brothers.[14]
Slap Shot was a moderate hit upon release, grossing $28,000,000 during its theater run, which placed it at #21 among movies released in 1977 and well below the receipts of Paul Newman's three previous wide-release films:The Towering Inferno,The Sting andButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which all grossed over $100 million.[23]
Reviews were mixed and ranged fromRex Reed writing inThe Daily News that it was “violent, bloody and thoroughly revolting,” toNewsweek's assertion that the film was “tough, smart, cynical and sentimental—the key ingredients in our new pop populism.”[13]
Variety wrote that "director George Roy Hill is ambivalent on the subject of violence in professional ice hockey. Half the time Hill invites the audience to get off on the mayhem, the other half of the time he decries it. You can't really have it both ways and this compromise badly mars the handsomely made Universal release, produced by Robert Wunsch and Stephen Friedman."[24]Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times described the performances as "impeccable" and thought the film had "a kind of vitality to it” but found it "unfunny" and noted an "ambiguous" point of view with regard to violence.[25]
Kevin Thomas of theLos Angeles Times was negative, writing that since the "characters possess so little dimension and since we have so little opportunity to get to know and therefore care about them, their incessantly brutalizing behavior and talk can only seem exploitative in effect. What's more, in playing for laughs,Slap Shot gives the nasty impression of seeming to patronize both the players and their fans."[26] Gary Arnold ofThe Washington Post wrote "Slap Shot comes at you like a boisterous drunk. At first glance it appears harmlessly funny in an extravagantly foul-mouthed sort of way. However, there's a mean streak beneath the cartoon surface that makes one feel uneasy about humoring this particular drunk for too long."[27]Tom Milne ofThe Monthly Film Bulletin described it as "a film which, while deploring the incidence of violence in sport, does everything it possibly can to make the audience wallow in that violence."[28]
Gene Siskel gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four in his original print review, writing that "whatSlap Shot does to its ultimate failure is exaggerate every one of its fine facets. It's as if those locker room tape recordings had been edited to remove the silences and banalities to include only the most outrageous sex-and-violence. And regrettably, 'Slap Shot' moralizes about violence in its tacked-on, whipsaw ending. This, after filling the screen with nonstop mayhem."[29] Years later he said, "My initial review was mixed and then I saw it two weeks later, thankfully, and I knew it was a terrific film."[30] He included it among the runners-up on his year-end list of the 10 best films of 1977, explaining that "the more I saw it, the more I liked it."[31]
The Wall Street Journal's Joy Gould Boyum seemed at once entertained and repulsed by a movie so "foul-mouthed and unabashedly vulgar" on one hand and so "vigorous and funny" on the other.[14] Michael Ontkean's strip tease displeasedTime's criticRichard Schickel, who regretted that "in the dénouement [Ontkean] is forced to go for a broader, cheaper kind of comic response."[14] Despite the mixed reviews, the film won theHochi Film Award for Best International Film.
Pauline Kael inThe New Yorker was mixed, writing that "I don't know that I've ever seen a picture so completely geared to giving the public 'what it wants' with such an antagonistic feeling behind it. Hill gets you laughing, all right but he's so grimly determined to ram entertainment down your throat that you feel like aStrasbourg goose." However, she praised Newman for giving "the performance of his life—to date."[32]
| Steve Carlson #17 (@Hanson_Brothers) tweeted: |
It has been brought to our attention that the broken cd of #SlapShot was found at the wreck of the #HumboltStrong team bus.We wish "putting on the foil or "buying a soda after the game" could help but instead we will reflect and pray God gives peace and comfort during this time.
9 April 2018[33]
In the years since its initial release,Slap Shot has come to be regarded as acult classic.[34][35][36]
Critical reevaluation of the film continues to be positive. In 1998,Maxim namedSlap Shot the "Best Guy Movie of All Time" above acknowledged classics such asThe Godfather,Raging Bull,[37] and Newman's ownCool Hand Luke.Entertainment Weekly ranked the film #30 on its list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".[38] In the November 2007 issue ofGQ, Dan Jenkins proclaimedSlap Shot "the best sports film of the past 50 years."[39]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 87%, based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 7.10/10 and the critical consensus stating "Raunchy, violent, and very funny,Slap Shot is ultimately set apart by a wonderful comic performance by Paul Newman."[40]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 61 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[41]
The film is standard viewing for youngice hockey players on road trips, includingChristian Hanson, son ofDavid Hanson, who saw the film for the first time when he was 11 years old during a hockey road trip with his team.[42] After theHumboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018, a brokenSlap Shot DVD was found at the crash site.[43][44]Steve Carlson met with some of the survivors.[45][46]
The film directly inspired the name of the Bostonhardcore bandSlapshot.[47]
Canadian punk rock groupThe Hanson Brothers was named after the film’s fictional brothers. The band members adopted “Hanson” stage name, wore eyeglasses like the film’s Hanson brothers and wrote songs about ice hockey and beer.
Concurrent with the release of the film, Berkeley Books released a novelization of the screenplay, written byRichard Woodley.[48]
The film was followed by two direct-to video sequels:Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice (2002) andSlap Shot 3: The Junior League (2008). Paul Newman and the rest of the original cast did not participate in either sequel, with the exception of the Hanson Brothers, who had major roles in both.[49]
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