Reeling Backward: "Brian's Song" (1971)

We're going back to television! In writing last week's column on "Too Young a Hero," I was looking over the filmography of director Buzz Kulik and saw that among his credits is one of the most iconic television movies ever, "Brian's Song," which also gets mentioned as among the best sports flicks, too. It's universally regarded as the one movie that can get grown men to weeping.

The TV drama was so successful, in fact, that according to its Wikipedia page it actually enjoyed a theatrical run after its broadcast -- a feat I've never heard of another show replicating.

"Brian's Song" had become one of those objects that I knew more through its pop culture reputation than any first-hand experience with it. So I decided to extend my foray into TV movies for one more week.

I was mildly disappointed in "Brian's Song." Its production values and dialogue, while certainly good by the standards of 1971 television, have not held up well with the years. Seen in modern lights, the movie has an undeniable hammy tinge. And at 74 minutes minus commercials, the story of the friendship between two professional football players feels short-shrifted and hurried.

The teleplay by William Blinn is much overpraised, in my humble opinion, despite its Emmy and Peabody award wins. It follows a pretty standard and predictable three-act format: the meeting and initial rivalry between Chicago Bears running backs Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo; their deepening friendship as emnity gives way to comradely affection; and Piccolo's diagnosis and death from a rare form of cancer.

I'd use the term "television movie-of-the-week" as a put-down to describe the material, except that's exactly what "Brian's Song" is.

What saves the movie is the tremendous acting, with all due credit to Kulik's direction. It helped that the three main roles were all helmed by big-screen veterans: James Caan as Piccolo, Billy Dee Williams as Sayers and Jack Warden as crusty coach George Halas. Even the supporting parts, including the men's wives and fellow players, feel solidly rooted and authentic.

Caan had a corner on insouciant charm, and milks it for everything it's worth with his twinkly smile and easygoing grace. Williams has the harder role as the more internal Sayers, a man who had to be coaxed into uttering more than a few words in a row, and uses his facial expression and mannerisms to convey his character's almost timid reserve.

I feel compelled to point out that Caan and Williams were in their early- and mid-30s, respectively, when the movie was made, playing men who age from 22 to 26 -- the latter being when Piccolo tragically passed away.

What's notable is that Kulik and Blinn don't go for big, maudlin sentimental moments. The relationship between Sayers and Piccolo is kept distinctly masculine -- lots of teasing and joshing, but with a deep undercurrent of respect and ardor.

"I love Brian Piccolo, and I'd like all of you to love him to," Sayers says in the movie's most oft-quoted line, apparently a direct quote from a speech he gave.

The filmmakers play up the racial aspect of a black man and a white man bonding in 1965, and one memorable scene has Piccolo trying to motivate Sayers' rehabilitation from a dreadful knee injury by calling him the n-word, which is so ham-fisted and ridiculous that it only provokes peals of laughter.

In the talent department, Piccolo perennially plays second fiddle to the highly-regarded Sayers, who ended up having a terrific though injury-shortened career, becoming the youngest person ever inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. Something the movie doesn't show is that Piccolo actually didn't even make the Bears team the first year both men joined the Bears, being relegated to the modern equivalent of the practice team.

I confess that I did not tear up while watching "Brian's Song," or even come close to doing so. It's a well-done TV  movie, with splendid acting you don't normally see in that medium. But I found its reputation overinflated.

2.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Too Young the Hero" (1988)

I've occasionally made exceptions to the Reeling Backward column to include television movies, and I'm doing so again for a little-known drama from 1988 called "Too Young The Hero." I'm doing so not because it's particularly well done, but because the subject material is so compelling.

Rick Schroder stars as an underage seaman serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. What makes the story of Calvin Graham so astonishing is that he had just turned 12 when he enlisted, fabricating a notarized letter from his mother stating that he was 17. Graham served honorably -- including earning two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for heroic actions during the Battle of Guadalcanal -- before he was discovered, imprisoned and eventually discharged shortly after his 13th birthday.

He was quite possibly the youngest person to see combat in post-Civil War U.S. military history.

The TV movie shined a light on a not-too-well hidden secret of the American military during WWII: Many of the soldiers who fought and died in defense of their country were underage. We pride ourselves upon being a "civilized" nation when it comes to war -- as if there is such a thing -- but as a people we were more than happy to turn a blind eye to mere boys fighting and dying in uniform.

With a little research, I learn that estimates are that about 300 Americans age 16 or under died in the military during the war. With that, we can extrapolate approximately how many total boy soldiers there were.

Given that about 416,800 servicemen died out of nearly 16.6 million who served, the mortality rate for soldiers during the conflict was 2.5 percent. If the death rate was the same for underage soldiers, then that 300 dead indicates something like 12,000 enlisted men were secretly too young to serve.

In other words, about one out of every 1,385 soldiers who served during the war was concealing their age.

Even that excludes 17-year-old recruits, an age that still seems pretty appalling by modern standards. You can actually still enlist in some branches of the American military at age 17 with parental consent, although newer rules prohibit them from being stationed overseas. Nonetheless, approximately 60 17-year-old soldiers were believed to have served in Iraq and Afghanistan during 2003-04.

Schroder was a good choice to play Calvin, being about 17 at the time they started filming. Director Buzz Kulik shoots him in different ways so that he seems convincing as both a 12-year-old and as a 17-year-old. In uniform, he certainly looks like a pretty baby-faced seaman, but there were also probably a lot of 18-year-old recruits who looked much younger than they were. The officers and petty officers give him an extra look, but don't ask too many questions as he performs his duties well.

The story is told in flashback as Calvin sits and rots in a military brig, awaiting some sort of dispensation on his case, and he relates his tale to various fellow prisoners. The story concentrates largely on his efforts to get into the Navy, which are primarily economic in reason -- forced out of his mother's house by his abusive stepfather, Calvin lives with his brother on the streets for awhile until his sibling joins the Navy at age 14.

The teleplay by David J. Kinghorn is based on an unpublished manuscript by Graham and a ghost author, and contains a mix of factual events and Hollywood corn. The guards at the military prison are pretty brutal to Calvin, which seems suspicious as he tells everyone he meets that he's only 12. I don't know about you, but if a very young-looking prisoner claimed they were a kid, I'd probably spare the rod a bit  more than they do.

One scene is interesting, and probably authentic. Calvin sees the base dentist, who takes one look in his mouth and announces that he's only 12 -- because his adult molars haven't come in yet. "You've still got your baby teeth, kid!" The dentist orders him to take his file and report to the commander for discharge. Instead, while the guy's back is turned Calvin simply drops his file in the pile of other processed recruits. It's one of those ridiculously simplistic ploys that probably would have actually worked back then.

The battle scenes aboard the battleship U.S.S. South Dakota are about what you'd expect of a TV movie -- cheap-looking recreations paired together with grainy stock footage of actual WWII combat.

The last half-hour or so of the movie stumbles and fumbles, as Calvin grows more morose and attempts to contact his sister to help get him out, a strategy that eventually succeeds after she goes to the newspapers and blares out his story to the world. A very young Mary-Louise Parker plays the sister.

The TV movie actually played a role in Graham's real life. He rejoined the military as a Marine, but suffered serious injuries in a fall and was discharged. He spent decades fighting to have his dishonorable discharge from the Navy changed to an honorable one, something President Jimmy Carter did in 1978, restoring some of his medals in the process.

A few months after "Too Young the Hero" was televised, President Ronald Reagan restored the rest of Graham's medals and disability pay amounting to just under $5,000. That's a rather cheap price for the extraordinary story of someone who served so young.

2.5 stars out of four