Racquet (1979)

Excellent adaptation.

As Good As It Gets

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

After some lively credits featuring helicopter shots and a promising opening sketch focused by delightfully fast editing, all this goodwill is quickly nullified by director David Winters' unmercifully mundane and totally irritating television style direction, complete with incessantly clumsy and wholly unnecessary close-ups. I'll admit there were also a large number of zoom shots that I assume were carefully planned to emphasize (1) the total inadequacy of everyone involved in this production, including the producers, the directors and all the players, particularly the star, Bert Convy; and (2) the movie's extremely limited production values. What I saw of the screenplay seemed to me to be a rip-off of "Shampoo". I didn't stay long enough to find out for sure.

My older brother and I talked our father into taking us to see this movie when we were very young. At the time, I was 8 yrs old and my brother was 14. We had no idea that they were showing a double feature that day. The first movie was one we had never even heard of before - Cheech and Chong's Up InSmoke. We laughed so hard I thought we were going to die. What a gem we stumbled onto. Then, Racquet started and I think we made it through about 45 minutes before leaving. The only memorable scene for me was one of two people having sex in a small hatch-back type of car and of the man's naked butt smashing up against the back (rear) window. Oh, and I think there was something about tennis to the movie. That's about the best I can do. So you see, if it wasn't for this horrible film, I never would have seen Up In Smoke on the big screen.

This "film" is actually too lovably bad to actually hate. But that doesn't mean I could watch it without being bound to a couch with a rope. If you've seen the mediocre-to-bad "Lifeguard" starring Sam Elliott, replace the world of lifeguarding with the ultra-competitive lifestyle of club tennis-pros and replace Elliott with Bert Convy (of TV's "Tattletales" fame). The sight of Convy jumping over the net in too-white and too-small tennis shorts to congratulate Bjorn Borg on a game well-played is an image I have never been able to shake.

I played this movie when I managed a theatre in Tucson, Az. I believed it opened on Friday and closed on Wednesday. It's not even bad enough to be good. I've always felt bad for Phil Silvers. Thank God nobody saw this abomination!