“Bang the Drum Slowly” is a baseball action film telling the story of a young catcher trying to finish the season after being diagnosed with a terminal illness and his friendship with one of the team’s pitchers. Director John Hancock (“Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” 1971) does an excellent job of pacing the drama, and staging enough of the movie in baseball stadiums, like Yankee & Shea, to give the project an authentic baseball feel.
The stars of the show are Michael Moriarity as the pitcher and Robert De Niro as the catcher. This early role of De Niro shot him to superstardom. The supporting cast includes Vincent Gardenia as the team manager, a flamboyant Tom Lasorda-type, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and Barbara Babcock as the team owner, as well as Selma Diamond, Danny Aiello, Phil Foster, Ann Wedgeworth, Tom Ligen, Patrick McVey, Marshall Efron, and Heather MacRae, daughter of Gordon & Sheila MacRae and sister of Meredith MacRae.
“Bang the Drum Slowly” was a modest success in theaters for Paramount Pictures. The excellent screenplay by Mark Harris was adapted from his own novel of the same name, published in 1956.
Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
cinema
My Review
“Bang the Drum Slowly” is a baseball action film telling the story of a young catcher trying to finish the season after being diagnosed with a terminal illness and his friendship with one of the team’s pitchers. Director John Hancock (“Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” 1971) does an excellent job of pacing the drama, and staging enough of the movie in baseball stadiums, like Yankee & Shea, to give the project an authentic baseball feel.
The stars of the show are Michael Moriarity as the pitcher and Robert De Niro as the catcher. This early role of De Niro shot him to superstardom. The supporting cast includes Vincent Gardenia as the team manager, a flamboyant Tom Lasorda-type, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and Barbara Babcock as the team owner, as well as Selma Diamond, Danny Aiello, Phil Foster, Ann Wedgeworth, Tom Ligen, Patrick McVey, Marshall Efron, and Heather MacRae, daughter of Gordon & Sheila MacRae and sister of Meredith MacRae.
“Bang the Drum Slowly” was a modest success in theaters for Paramount Pictures. The excellent screenplay by Mark Harris was adapted from his own novel of the same name, published in 1956.