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Title: Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Robert De Niro | ... | Bruce Pearson | |
| Michael Moriarty | ... | Henry 'Author' Wiggen | |
| Vincent Gardenia | ... | Dutch Schnell | |
| Phil Foster | ... | Joe Jaros | |
| Ann Wedgeworth | ... | Katie | |
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Patrick McVey | ... | Bruce's Father |
| Heather MacRae | ... | Holly Wiggen | |
| Selma Diamond | ... | Tootsie, Hotel Switchboard Operator | |
| Barbara Babcock | ... | Team Owner | |
|
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Maurice Rosenfield | ... | Team Owner |
| Tom Ligon | ... | Piney Woods | |
|
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Andy Jarrell | ... | Ugly |
| Marshall Efron | ... | Bradley | |
|
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Donny Burks | ... | Perry |
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Tom Signorelli | ... | Goose Williams |
Henry Wiggen (Author to his friends) and Bruce Pearson are members of the New York Mammoths major league baseball team - Author the star pitcher, Bruce the catcher who never quite lived up to his potential - friends, and roommates when they're on the road. During the off season, Bruce is diagnosed with a terminal case of Hodgkin's disease. Author is the only person on the team who knows of Bruce's illness, with neither planning on telling anyone. Author takes extraordinary measures to ensure that he is playing ball with Bruce during what will probably be Bruce's final season before he can no longer play. Author looks after Bruce in part because Bruce is mentally a simple man who can easily be taken advantage of, especially by his opportunistic girlfriend Katie. As the season progresses, the team isn't quite gelling, despite being the best team on paper. But as information comes to light, the dynamic on the team changes to make it a memorable end of the season especially for Bruce, who... Written by Huggo
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New York Mammoth star Pitcher Henry Wiggen (played by Michael Moriarty of future "Law and Order" fame) learns from that his friend and catcher Bruce Pearson (a young Robert De Niro) is terminally ill. Because Bruce is a marginal player and, more importantly, a vulnerable, simple soul, Henry sets out to protect his compadre from the wrath of his teammates, management, and the predators of Life. Upon learning of his friend's condition, Henry negotiates as part of his contract that Bruce will remain with the team for the entire season. He also strives (and this is perhaps the biggest crux of conflict of the film) to keep Bruce's condition their secret for reasons far greater than mere confidentiality. Henry doesn't know what the fallout would be from disclosure, and one of the best scenes in the film is a grilling he gets when the manager suspects that he is hiding something. Henry is also there as Bruce deals with the unsettling prospects of terminal illness. Although the setting is baseball (and writer Mark Harris is one of the best authors of baseball fiction) the story is really about friendship and what a man will do for a friend when he knows that more is at stake than winning games. Younger viewers might not relate to a number of things that date the film somewhat, such a a player negotiating his contract without an agent and Henry's offseason moonlighting as an insurance salesman (yes, players really did do that back before free agency). Any baseball fan will appreciate the footage of Old Yankee Stadium before it was renovated in 1974-75, drastically changing the character of the legendary old park. There is an eerie real-life foreshadowing of the fate of another New York catcher, also wearing Bruce's number 15. It must be said that the supporting roles, such as the team's salty old manager Dutch (Vincent Gardenia), and Bruce's gold digging girlfriend Katie (Ann Wedgeworth), are portrayed extremely well.