Eight Men Out (1988)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

John Sayles

Writers (WGA):

Eliot Asinof (book)
John Sayles (screenplay)

Release Date:

2 September 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | Sport

Tagline:

1919. The year America saw major league baseball played a whole new way...underhanded.

Plot:

A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series.

Plot Keywords:

World Series | Chicago White Sox | Scandal | Gambler | Baseball

Cast

John Cusack	...	George 'Buck' Weaver
Clifton James	...	Charles 'Commie' Comiskey
Michael Lerner	...	Arnold Rothstein
Christopher Lloyd	...	'Sleepy' Bill Burns
John Mahoney	...	William 'Kid' Gleason
Charlie Sheen	...	Oscar 'Hap' Felsch
David Strathairn	...	Eddie Cicotte
D.B. Sweeney	...	Joseph 'Shoeless Joe' Jackson
Michael Rooker	...	Arnold 'Chick' Gandil
Don Harvey	...	Charles 'Swede' Risberg
James Read	...	Claude 'Lefty' Williams
Perry Lang	...	Fred McMullin
Gordon Clapp	...	Ray Schalk
Jace Alexander	...	Dickie Kerr
Bill Irwin	...	Eddie Collins

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Iceland:L | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Singapore:PG | Finland:S | USA:PG | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Bush Stadium - 1501 W. 16th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Company:

Orion Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

In an early scene, Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn) walks by a Chicago storefront with the name Oppenheimer's in the window. In the movie Day One (1989) (TV), Strathairn plays Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the Manhattan Project, the program that eventually developed the atomic bomb.

Goofs:

Factual errors: During the first game of the series, the scoreboard is shown in the bottom of the 4th inning with the score being Reds 1, White Sox 0. The actual box score shows that the Reds scored one run in the bottom of the 1st inning and the White Sox scored one run in the top of the 2nd inning. The score should have been tied 1-1 at the bottom of the 4th inning.

Quotes:

[about their opponents]
1st Cincinnati Reds Player: These guys don't look so tough.
2nd Cincinnati Reds Player: Yeah, that's what Custer said when the Indians took the field.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in "Married with Children: The Unnatural (#5.4)" (1990)

Soundtrack:

After You've Gone

Dear God, I love this movie!

John Sayles is always, always honest with his audiences, never resorting to cheap tricks or unwarranted sentiment; and this period drama about the "Black Sox" scandal of 1919 may be his finest hour. Incredibly handsome and lavish-looking for a low-budget indie, it's a meticulous re-creation of the first huge scandal in American professional sports, and the beginning of the loss of innocence in pro baseball (and American popular culture by extension). If that makes it sound a bit dry, let it be said that the characterizations are vivid, the characters multilayered, the costumes gorgeous, and the staging of the baseball games unusually convincing. (Ever notice how movie stars can't really fake pro-athlete moves? Watch John Cusack charge an outfield fly, or Charlie Sheen slide into third--they had me convinced.) In a uniformly excellent cast, David Strathairn's morally tortured star pitcher is especially impressive, as is John Mahoney's manager, alternately loving and despising his players, his eroding trust etched on his expressive face. And what a wonderful touch having Studs Terkel play a cynical sportswriter: He's the essence of Chicago style.

Some of the facts of the story are necessarily simplified or omitted to keep the movie under two hours, but there's not a moment of dishonesty or "Field of Dreams"-type goo. By the time the kid is looking Joe Jackson in the eye and pleading, "Say it ain't so," you'll probably be sniffling.

A high-water mark in the career of a great, versatile, underappreciated moviemaker.