Not all films are Biker Flicks… But a hell of a lot have motorcycles in them! 

THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976)

Run Time: 1:42:00
Producer: Paramount Pictures
Director: Michael Ritchie
Writer: Bill Lancaster
Key Cast: Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Vic Morrow

FILM MAKERS

There’s Always A Motorcycle is a new Vintagent series of compiled clips from moto centric cinema.

“I got a Harley-Davidson. Does that turn you on? Harley Davidson.”

In November, the Kelly Leak bike blew up the internet. Actor Jackie Earle Haley who had his first role as a talented juvenile delinquent in The Bad News Bears, was presented with a fully restored 1975 AMF Harley Davidson Z90, to celebrate next year’s Bad News Bears 50th anniversary. It was believed that this was the actual bike he rode in the film, but unfortunately, it turned out that the bike wasn’t the actual bike, but instead an homage replica. In the end Haley did not accept the bike, but it reminded us all of the impression that that ‘lil motorcycle left on us!

Fun fact: It was a Honda XR75 was used as stunt double to do wheelies.

SUMMARY

…together they make it happen!

An aging, down-on-his-luck ex-minor leaguer coaches a team of misfits in an ultra-competitive California little league.

In 1976, Morris Buttermaker, an alcoholic pool cleaner and former minor-league baseball pitcher, accepts a secretive cash payment from lawyer Bob Whitewood to coach his son Toby’s youth baseball league expansion team, the Bears. The team is made up of unskilled players, formed as a settlement to a lawsuit brought against the league for excluding such players from other teams. Shunned by the more competitive teams (and their competitive parents and coaches), the Bears are considered outsiders and the least talented team in the Southern California league.

Buttermaker makes little effort to help the boys improve, accomplishing nothing before their first game except for finding a sponsor to provide uniforms. He forfeits the opening game after the Bears allow 26 runs without recording an out.

With the entire team wanting to quit due to the humiliation of their first loss, Buttermaker begins to take his coaching more seriously, teaching basics like hitting, fielding and sliding. In addition, he recruits two unlikely prospects: sharp-tongued Amanda Whurlitzer, the 11-year-old daughter of Buttermaker’s former girlfriend and a skilled pitcher (trained by Buttermaker when she was younger); and the local cigarette-smoking, loan-sharking, Harley-Davidson-riding troublemaker Kelly Leak, who is also the best athlete in the area but has been excluded from playing in the past due to his juvenile delinquency. With Amanda and Kelly on board, the team gains confidence and they begin to win. The strained past relationship between Buttermaker and Amanda is revealed as the team improves.

Eventually, the Bears make it to the championship game opposite the top-notch Yankees, who are coached by aggressive, competitive Roy Turner. As the game progresses, tensions rise between the teams and the coaches, as Buttermaker and Turner engage in ruthless behavior toward each other and the players in their fervor to win the game. But when Turner strikes his son Joey, the pitcher, for ignoring his orders and intentionally throwing at the batter Mike Engelberg’s head, Joey retaliates by holding on to a comebacker until the Bears runner scores, then walks off the field.

Buttermaker realizes that he, too, has placed too much emphasis on winning, and puts in his bench-warmers to allow everyone to play. The Bears lose in the end, but despite Buttermaker’s move, they nearly win the game. After the trophy award ceremony, Buttermaker gives the team beer, which they spray on each other in a celebration as if they had won, telling the Yankees “where [they] can put their championship trophy”.

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