In this increasingly video-cam-mad age, home movies have a sorry, who-needs-`em? reputation.
But ”When It Was a Game” (9 p.m. Monday on HBO) should change that. It is one of the most captivating visual documents you`ll ever see: movies of the ”home” that existed in the nation`s baseball parks when baseball was a game and not big business.
It`s the product of a 15-month search through closets and dusty basements by Steven Stern and George Roy. They contacted former ballplayers and fans, and when they were finished they had 50 hours of deliciously evocative footage.
Cut to the one hour that constitutes ”When It Was a Game,” the movies-all but a 1934 snippet from the World Series are in vivid color-take us on a terrific trip to teams that no longer exist-Braves from Boston, Dodgers from Brooklyn, Browns from St. Louis; players in baggy woolen uniforms; and Wrigley Field before the ivy was on the walls.
The 8-mm and 16-mm color films were shot from 1934 to 1957, and a palpable innocence shadows the images, especially the carefree ambience of spring training, where the players behave like kids at camp.
There are an enormous number of surprises: Bogie and Bacall caught as they work their way through a crowd at Ebbets Field; Pepper Martin performing his famous baseball juggling routine, a gracefully playful act; some of the wacky pregame contests that were popular before World War II.
None of the individual moviemakers are credited, but they deserve credit for pointing their cameras steadily at such fascinating things as Willie Mays teaching a little kid how to hit; the amazing faces of Ty Cobb and Cy Young;
Lou Gehrig in full stride and Mickey Mantle in youthful flight.
And credit the producers for embellishing these images with some of the most wonderful anecdotage, from fans and players, such as Enos Slaughter, who recalls that he and other players had to buy their own sandwiches between games of a doubleheader.
James Earl Jones, Roy Scheider and Jason Robards contribute readings from writers and poets, and some of these words are a little too sappily reverential.
But otherwise, this is a wonderment, able to transport the viewer completely and forcefully into an era of enchanting innocence. In so doing it provides the perfect antidote to the whining that so frequently afflicts the modern ballplayer.
Here, Rickey Henderson, listen to what Billy Werber, a third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds in the 1930s, had to say: ”When I played in Cincinnati we all, right down to the last man, wanted to win for the people of Cincinnati. And when we won championships and the World Series, we were just delighted that we could do something for those good people.”
They don`t make `em like that anymore.
”WHEN IT WAS A GAME”
An HBO Sports presentation. Executive producer is Ross Greenburg; co-producers Dave Harmon for HBO Sports, George Roy and Steve Stern for Black Canyon Productions; narrated by Peter Kessler with dramatic readings from James Earl Jones, Roy Scheider and Jason Robards. Airing at 9 p.m. Monday and other dates in July on HBO cable network.
Channel hopping . . .
– A modest but not unappealing Fox original, ”Pink Lightning” (7 p.m. Monday on WFLD-Ch. 32) is set in the central California town of Turlock in 1962.
There`s a wedding, a beauty pageant, back-seat sex, Elvis on the juke box, Jack Kennedy on the tube, a boozy road trip to Yosemite and five longtime female friends struggling to come of age at the end of their teen years.
One is bright, one loose, another married, another nice and another pretty. They share secrets and have emotional confrontations. And if it all has a familiar feel, the actresses are a lively bunch.
The men are little more than car-crazed mopes, and the film`s sensibilities are best captured when one of the five women expresses this pre- feminist rustling: ”They`re not all that important, guys. They`re not like friends. Sure they may love us, but they don`t like us all that much.”
Written and directed by Carol Monpere and obviously based on some of her own experiences growing up in Fresno, Calif., ”Pink Lightning” is harmless diversion.
– Three environmental nightmares are examined in this week`s edition of
”P.O.V.” (10 p.m. Tuesday on WTTW-Ch. 11).
The music of Philip Glass peppers ”Sea of Oil,” a horrifying visit to Valdez, Alaska, to witness the mess of the Exxon oil spill and how the people and town were adversely affected by the so-called cleanup.
”Chemical Valley” shows us the uneasy relationship between the residents of West Virginia`s Kanawha Valley and the potentially dangerous area chemical plants.
In ”Turn Here Sweet Corn” we see, through the story of one Minnesota family, the painful pressures that are destroying family farms. All three films ask the question, ”Are we paying too high a price for progress?” The answer, as expressed here, is ”absolutely.”
