Hoosiers

Hoosiers
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	David Anspaugh
Produced by	Carter De Haven Angelo Pizzo
Written by	Angelo Pizzo
Starring	Gene Hackman Barbara Hershey Dennis Hopper
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	Fred Murphy
Edited by	C. Timothy O'Meara
Production company	Hemdale Pictures De Haven Productions
Distributed by	Orion Pictures
Release dates	November 14, 1986 (1986-11-14)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6 million[1]
Box office	$28.6 million[2]

Hoosiers is a 1986 sports film written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by David Anspaugh. It tells the story of a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that wins the state championship. It is loosely based on the Milan High School team that won the 1954 state championship.

Gene Hackman stars as Norman Dale, a new coach with a spotty past. The film co-stars Barbara Hershey and Dennis Hopper, whose role as the basketball-loving town drunk, earned him an Oscar nomination. Jerry Goldsmith was also nominated for an Academy Award for his score. In 2001, Hoosiers was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[3]

Plot

In 1951, Norman Dale arrives in the rural southeast Indiana town of Hickory to become a high school teacher and head basketball coach. He was hired by Cletus Summers, the principal and a longtime friend of Dale's. Dale, just out of the Navy, had been a champion collegiate coach until he struck one of his players. The coaching position in Hickory is a last chance for him.

Like much of the state, Hickory is passionate about basketball. The townspeople are aware that the best player in town, Jimmy Chitwood, does not intend to play on this season's team due to his attachment to the previous coach and the concern of hometown faculty member Myra Fleener, who has been looking after Jimmy since his mother's illness and warns Dale not to try to persuade Jimmy to change his mind.

The school enrollment is so small that Dale has only seven players on his squad. At his first practice, Dale quickly dismisses one, Buddy Walker, for not paying attention and talking while the coach is talking. Another, Whit Butcher, walks out in support of his friend, leaving Dale with only 5 players, the minimum needed to play. He then begins drilling the remaining five players (Rade Butcher, Merle Webb, Everett Flatch, Strap Purl, and equipment manager Ollie McLellan) with fundamentals and conditioning but no scrimmages or shooting, much to the players' dislike. Townsmen who have heard of the coach's non-traditional approach to working with the team intrude on a practice and demand to know what Dale is doing. However, Whit's father arrives with his son in tow and makes his son apologize to Dale for walking out and ask for another chance. Mr. Butcher then shows his support of Dale by ushering the townsmen out of the gym.

With the team having worked on a four-pass offense, Dale remains committed to this approach in the opening game of the season, even when Rade Butcher disobeys him and repeatedly shoots successfully without passing. Dale benches him and, when another player fouls out, refuses to let Rade return to the game, leaving his team with only four players on the floor to the jeers of the home crowd. In a subsequent game, when an opposing player pushes his finger into Dale's chest during an on-court argument during a timeout, Rade jumps to his defense and hits the player on the jaw. After the ensuing brawl, Cletus, who has been assisting Dale in coaching, suffers a mild heart attack.

The coach further alienates the community by having the team play with a slow, defensive style that does not immediately produce results and also by losing his temper, causing him to be ejected from multiple games.

With Cletus laid up, Dale invites knowledgeable local former star basketball player Wilbur "Shooter" Flatch, Everett's alcoholic father, to join him on the bench as a new assistant. This too confounds the town, including Everett. The coach has one major stipulation in order for Shooter to participate with the team: he must be sober at all times around the boys.

By the middle of the season, an emergency town meeting is called to vote on whether Dale should be dismissed. Fleener appreciates the coach's having stayed away from Jimmy and his efforts with Shooter and, despite having learned of Dale's past mistake and volatile behavioral pattern as a coach, she unexpectedly expresses support for him at the meeting. Just as the vote is being counted, Jimmy enters the meeting and asks permission to speak. He says he's ready to begin playing basketball again, but only if Dale remains as coach. The ballot count is reported and it has gone against Dale, but Fleener's mother jumps up and calls for a re-vote. Mr. Butcher calls for a voice vote from the assembly, and the townspeople overwhelmingly vote for Dale to stay as coach.

From this point, Hickory becomes a nearly unstoppable team. Along the way, Dale proves Shooter's value to the townspeople (and to Shooter himself) by intentionally getting himself ejected from a game and forcing Shooter to show his coaching ability. Shooter does just that by diagramming a play by which Hickory wins the game on a last-second shot. Despite a setback in which Shooter arrives drunk to a game and ends up in a hospital, the team advances through tournament play with contributions from unsung players, such as the pint-sized Ollie and devoutly religious Strap.

Hickory shocks the state by reaching the championship game in Indianapolis. In a large arena and before a crowd bigger than any they've seen, the Hickory players face long odds to defeat the defending state champions from South Bend, whose players are taller and more athletic. But with Chitwood scoring at the last second, tiny Hickory takes home the 1952 Indiana state championship.

Cast

• Gene Hackman as Norman Dale
• Barbara Hershey as Myra Fleener
• Dennis Hopper as Shooter Flatch
• Sheb Wooley as Cletus Summers
• Maris Valainis as Jimmy Chitwood
• Brad Long as Buddy Walker
• Steve Hollar as Rade Butcher
• David Neidorf as Everett Flatch
• Kent Poole as Merle Webb
• Brad Boyle as Whit Butcher
• Scott Summers as Strap Purl
• Wade Schenck as Ollie McLellan
• Fern Persons as Opal Fleener
• Robert Swan as Rollin Butcher
• Hiliard Gates as State Championship Announcer (he announced the 1954 Milan championship game)
• Tom Carnegie as State Championship Stadium Announcer (longtime IHSAA and Indianapolis Motor Speedway Public Address Announcer)

Basis

Milan High School Basketball Team, 1954.

The film is very loosely based on the story of the 1954 Indiana state champions, Milan High School (/ˈmaɪlən/ MY-lən), but the term "inspired by a true story" may be more appropriate, as there was little the two teams had in common.^[4]

In most U.S. states, high school athletic teams are divided into different classes, usually based on the number of enrolled students, with separate state championship tournaments held for each classification. At the time, Indiana conducted a single state basketball championship for all of its high schools and continued to do so until 1997.^[4]

Some elements of the film do match closely with those of Milan's real story. Like the movie's fictional "Hickory High School", Milan was a very small high school in a rural, southern Indiana town. Both schools had undersized teams. Both Hickory and Milan won the state finals by two points: Hickory won 42–40, and Milan won 32–30. The final seconds of the Hoosiers state final hold fairly closely to the details of Milan's 1954 final; the final shot in the movie was taken from virtually the same spot on the floor as Bobby Plump's actual game-winner. The movie's final game was shot in the same building that hosted the 1954 Indiana final, Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse (called Butler Fieldhouse in 1954) in Indianapolis.^[4]

However, unlike the movie's plot, the 1954 Milan High School basketball team came into the season as heavy favorites and finished the '53-'54 regular season at 19-2. In addition, the previous 1952-1953 team went to the state semi-finals and were considered a powerhouse going into the championship season despite the school's small enrollment.^[4]

Production

Hickory's gymnasium

During filming in the Autumn of 1985, on location at Hinkle Fieldhouse, directors were unable to secure enough extras for shooting the final scenes even after casting calls through the Indianapolis media. To help fill the stands, they invited two local high schools to move a game to the Fieldhouse. Broad Ripple and Chatard, the alma mater of Maris Valainis who played the role of Jimmy Chitwood, obliged, and crowd shots were filmed during their actual game. Fans of both schools came out in period costumes to serve as extras and to supplement the hundreds of locals who had answered the call. At halftime and following the game, actors took to the court to shoot footage of the state championship scenes, including the game-winning shot by Hickory.

The film's producers chose New Richmond to serve as the fictional town of Hickory and recorded most of the film's location shots in and around the community. Signs on the roads into New Richmond still recall its role in the film. In addition, the old schoolhouse in Nineveh was used for the majority of the classroom scenes and many other scenes throughout the movie.

The home court of Hickory is located in Knightstown and is now known as the "Hoosier Gym."

Pizzo and Anspaugh shopped the script for two years before they finally found investment for the project. Despite this seeming approval, the financiers only approved a production budget of $6 million, forcing the crew to hire most of the cast playing the Hickory basketball team and many of the extras from the local community around New Richmond. Gene Hackman also predicted that the movie was going to be a "career killer." Despite the small budget, dire predictions, and little help from distributor Orion Pictures, Hoosiers grossed over $28 million and received two Oscar nominations (Dennis Hopper for Best Supporting Actor and Jerry Goldsmith for Best Original Score).^[5]

Soundtrack

The music to Hoosiers was written by veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith used a hybrid of orchestral and electronic elements in juxtaposition to the 1950s setting to score the film. He also helped tie the music to the movie by using recorded hits of basketballs on a gymnasium floor to serve as additional percussion sounds.^[6] Washington Post film critic Paul Attanasio praised the soundtrack, writing, "And it's marvelously (and innovatively) scored (by composer Jerry Goldsmith), who weaves together electronics with symphonic effects to create a sense of the rhythmic energy of basketball within a traditional setting."^[7]

The score would go on to garner Goldsmith an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score, though he ultimately lost to Herbie Hancock for Round Midnight. Goldsmith would later work with filmmakers Angelo Pizzo and David Anspaugh again on their successful 1993 sports film Rudy.

Until 2012, the soundtrack was primarily available under the European title Best Shot, with several of the film's cues not included on the album.

Track listing (1987 release):

1. "Best Shot (Theme from Hoosiers)" - 4:25
2. "You Did Good" - 7:02
3. "The Coach Stays" - 2:42
4. "The Pivot" - 3:29
5. "Get the Ball" - 1:49
6. "Town Meeting" - 4:47
7. "Finals" - 15:19

In 2012, Intrada Records released Goldsmith's complete score, marking the first time the soundtrack has been released on CD in the United States.^[8]

Track listing (2012 release):

1. Theme From Hoosiers - 4:24
2. Main Title - Welcome To Hickory - 3:49
3. Chester - 1:25
4. First Workout - 1:55
5. Get It Up - 2:18
6. You Did Good - 7:01
7. No More Basketball - 1:33
8. Town Meeting - 4:44
9. The Coach Stays - 2:41
10. The Pivot - 3:28
11. Get The Ball - 1:46
12. Last Foul - :45
13. Free Shot - 1:12
14. Someone I Know - 2:20
15. Empty Inside - 1:43
16. The Gym - 2:42
17. The Finals - 15:19

Reception

Critical response

Hoosiers received positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 88% based on reviews from 43 critics, with an average score of 7.5/10. The critical consensus is that "it may adhere to the sports underdog formula, but Hoosiers has been made with such loving craft, and features such excellent performances, that it's hard to resist."^[9]

Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert praised the film, writing:

Ebert closed his review with the comment, "It's a movie that is all heart."^[10]

The New York Times' Janet Maslin echoed Ebert's sentiments, writing,

Washington Post critics Rita Kempley and Paul Attanasio both enjoyed the film, despite its perceived sentimentalism and lack of originality. Kempley wrote,

Attanasio pointed out some problems with the film:

Time magazine's Richard Schickel praised the performance of Gene Hackman, writing that he was

Variety wrote that the

Pat Graham of the Chicago Reader was the rare dissenter, writing of the film that

Awards and honors

Hoosiers has been listed by many publications as one of the best sports movies ever made.^{[4][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]}

Hoosiers was ranked number 13 by the American Film Institute on its 100 Years... 100 Cheers list of most inspirational films.^[24] The film was the choice of the readers of USA Today as the best sports movie of all time. In 2001, Hoosiers was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[3]

In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten" — the best ten films in ten classic American film genres — after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Hoosiers was acknowledged as the fourth best film in the sports genre.^[23][25]

A museum to commemorate the real life achievements of the 1954 Milan team has been established.^[26]

In July 2015, MGM partnered with the Indiana Pacers, and together, they revealed that the Pacers will wear Hickory uniforms inspired by the film during select games in the 2015-16 NBA regular season in honor of the film's 30th anniversary.^[27]

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - Nominated^[28]
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers - #13
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated^[29]
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - #4 Sports Film

See also

• Hoosier Hysteria
• Hoosier Gym
• Inspirational/motivational instructors/mentors portrayed in films

References

External links

• Hoosiers at the Internet Movie Database
• Hoosiers at the TCM Movie Database
• The Hoosiers Archive