"LONGEST YARD" GOES EXTRA MILE

       

         The captivating 1974 cinematic touchdown starring Burt Reynolds about ex-pro quarterback Paul Crewe in prison leading a team of convicts in a game against the semi-pro guards.
          Eddie Albert plays the prison warden who embodies the rigged system in which antihero Burt finds himself caught.
          Featuring elements inspired by Cool Hand Luke and Papillon, The Longest Yard belongs to a genre of films--including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--which pit a tainted and imprisoned hero against perverted Establishment.
          Sort of an evolved version of director Robert Aldrich's earlier hit The Dirty Dozen, The Longest Yard has the same recruitment aspects, except instead of Lee Marvin selecting cons for an attack on the Nazis, it's Burt shopping for opposition to the warden's football team.
          The major pro recruiting the cons is the assumption that they will a.) play with unusually bad intention, and b.) amplify intention further in a chance to get back at the abusive guards.

          One of the guards is played by Mike Henry, a real-life former football player and former movie Tarzan. (Henry also plays the dim-witted son of Jackie Gleeson in Burt's Smokey and the Bandit.)
          Richard Kiel, who rose to fame as the silent but deadly giant henchman Jaws in Roger Moore's James Bond tenure, has several memorable scenes as the biggest of the cons.
          But the title of Baddest Cat in the Joint goes to the convict named Connie Shokner. The actor's name is Robert Tessier. He had a thriving career as the bald baddie, appearing in many movies and dozens of TV shows. According to IMDb, Tessier was of Algonquian Indian descent, and received not only a Purple Heart but also a Silver Star as a paratrooper in the Korean War.
          Also co-starring Bernadette Peters as the warden's secretary, who, in a plus for Burt, digs Burt. Score!
          Without his trademark mustache, Burt looks like Marlon Brando in '74, and the filmmakers had to be aware of this. Screenwriter Tracy Keenan Wynn (son of Keenan Wynn, grandson of Ed Wynn), seems to subtly refer to Brando's response in The Wild One when asked what he's rebelling against and replying, "What have you got?" When Crewe is asked what makes him so tough, he laconically responds, "I don't know, it just comes natural."
          Unnaturally re-made in 2005 with Adam Sandler and swiftly clotheslined.


THE LONGEST YARD
Starring Burt Reynolds,
Eddie Albert,
Ed Lauter,
James Hampton,
Mike Henry,
Bernadette Peters,
Richard Kiel,
Sonny Sixkiller,
Robert Tessier
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Written by Tracy Keenan Wynn
Based on a story by Albert S. Ruddy
Runtime 121 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby writes for 
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE