Technicolor33 Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 What the heck was Barbara Hershey character’s problem ? Why was she stalking and shooting baseball players with silver bullets ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricJ Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 Aside from the Portentious Metaphor, groupies and star-stalkers still existed in the 30's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fading Fast Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 While @EricJ makes a good point, Hershey's character and the huge gap in time it took Redford's character to return to baseball are the flaws in an otherwise outstanding movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sepiatone Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 Really? I mean, if YOU got shot by some nutjob woman because(as far as you knew) you said something about being or wanting to be the greatest at something, YOU wouldn't hesitate before getting back into whatever it was, especially after a likely long recovery period? And the fact WE never learn why she did what she did, and neither did Hobbs, puts on par with the main character and a willingness to root for him all the more. Sepiatone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fading Fast Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 37 minutes ago, Sepiatone said: Really? I mean, if YOU got shot by some nutjob woman because(as far as you knew) you said something about being or wanting to be the greatest at something, YOU wouldn't hesitate before getting back into whatever it was, especially after a likely long recovery period? And the fact WE never learn why she did what she did, and neither did Hobbs, puts on par with the main character and a willingness to root for him all the more. Sepiatone Like with @EricJ comment, your point is very valid, but at least for me, the movie, which I greatly enjoy, needed to show more of that than just assume we'll fill in a pretty big blank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scsu1975 Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 Hershey's character is based on Ruth Ann Steinhagen. In 1949, when she was 19, she shot Phillies player Eddie Waitkus in a hotel room in Chicago after luring him to her room with a note. She nevver could explain why she tried to kill him. Waitkus survived, and continued playing baseball. Steinhagen was judged insane and sent to a mental hospital, but was released three years later when doctors judged her sane. Waitkus never pressed charges. Steinhagen died of natural causes in 2012. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Proulx Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 6 hours ago, Fading Fast said: While @EricJ makes a good point, Hershey's character and the huge gap in time it took Redford's character to return to baseball are the flaws in an otherwise outstanding movie. I don't think Hobbs was recovering all those years. The assumption is that he'd just figured he'd missed his chance, then stayed away from the game, plus the scandal. Possibly my favorite sports movie, definitely my favorite baseball movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Proulx Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 11 hours ago, Technicolor33 said: What the heck was Barbara Hershey character’s problem ? Why was she stalking and shooting baseball players with silver bullets ? To be honest, I've wondered, because it was sloppily unexplained, but never dwelt on it much, because it was somewhat incidental to the main story of redemption and what's really important in life. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CinemaInternational Posted April 18, 2022 Share Posted April 18, 2022 Even with it still unexplained properly, it is still definitely the best film Barry Levinson ever directed. I do have a biography about Robert Redford, and it seems to indicate that the editing was rushed on the film just so it could fill in its early 1984 release date, preset even before the film was finished 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vautrin Posted April 19, 2022 Share Posted April 19, 2022 I think of it as an entertaining mythological interpretation of the real-life ball players who came out of the rural Midwest and had the special skill of playing baseball. Hobbs is just one of those players with supernatural abilities. His chronology is a little confusing. When he is shot he looks to be about twenty. When he comes back to the majors sixteen years later he is supposed to be in his early to mid forties, which doesn't add up, but that's a minor point in an overall good movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sepiatone Posted April 19, 2022 Share Posted April 19, 2022 It(to me) was never made clear how old Hobbs was when he struck out the "Whammer" early on in the movie. Maybe he was 20. And 16 years later would have made him 36, a ripe old age for an athlete in ANY sport. And at my age I can't really recall how old Hobbs was in the book. Sepiatone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vautrin Posted April 19, 2022 Share Posted April 19, 2022 I figured he had just left home and was around twenty, though no specific age is mentioned. When you've got Wonderboy as your bat, age doesn't seem to matter. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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