One on One (1977)

Excellent adaptation.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Naive Henry Steele (Robby Benson) is a basketball star player at his small Colorado high school. He gets a 4 year basketball scholarship at Western University in L.A. Janet Hays (Annette O'Toole) is hired as his tutor. He gets a job without any actual work. The alumni pays big bucks for his complimentary tickets. However, he doesn't fit the coach's style and everybody is much better than the players at home. The coach is furious with sinking $150k on the kid and asks him to surrender his scholarship but he refuses.First thing, a young Melanie Griffith has a small interesting role early in the movie. Robby Benson has enough charisma to lead but the biggest drawback is that he looks like a boy among men. I fear for his basketball skills. With passable moves and some movie magic, he plays almost believable college ball. The plot touches upon many of the darker aspects of college sports although it's not too deep. The ending has an abrupt turn which doesn't really fit. There are some good attempts at tackling college sports but it doesn't have the real edginess.

This is a great sports movie, and the beginning and the end both show kids playing basketball (the difference is seeing Henry (Robbie Benson) watching as opposed to actually playing at the end works). My favorite scene is with the Hitchhiker, because I am a huge Melanie Griffith fan (this is just one of 23 films I have seen of hers), so obviously seeing Melanie as the hitchhiker is a treat. The single biggest flaw is the Promo for the movie which is "There comes a time when love stops being a ball and becomes a woman." If you actually see the movie (Spoilers ahead). You see that he still loves basketball AND Janet (Annette O'Toole), and is able to have both. What the movie is about is really character growth. Henry has no idea how Big Time College's work (Athletically and especially Academically). Watch how he first meets Coach Moreland Smith G.D. Spradlin, who has no idea that he recruited him. Smith is a real piece of work, he basically uses his secretary as a prostitute for the team and when he wants Henry off the team, has another player beat him up, and tries to get him expelled from School. As bad as Smith is, the worst character is Malcolm (James G. Richardson), an arrogant teacher who is sleeping with his Graduate Student (Janet), and looking down on Henry because he plays basketball. The Henry/Janet relationship is complex, it goes from her looking down on him, to being a couple. There is about a 5 year difference between the two, but in my opinion, the reason it works, is because of not only the character growth in Henry, but Janet as well. She stops looking down on him, and learns that Henry works hard at everything, is not stupid, and he stands up for her, and treats her in a respectful way that no one else does. Obviously, we know in the end that Henry helps win the game, and is able to walk away from Smith, head held high (that is obvious right from the beginning). But for his future, watch the scene where he mocks talking to his father on the phone: He knows his dad will not approve of him being with an older woman, but it does not matter. Why? Because he made a choice (which is Janet), So wherever he goes in life (maybe even playing in the NBA one day), Janet will be with him side by side. 10/10 stars

*******Possible Spoilers********Who is the bad guy? The bad guy is the guy who tries to force Steele to renounce his scholarship through force,intimidation,financial, and physical harm. The bad guy is the guy who gets another player to bust Steele's nose, cut bloody Steele's face. Not one of the best movies. But one I've always liked. I just like the way that Henry didn't quit through all that adversity. Through the students telling him he wasn't smart enough and the jocks/coaches telling him he wasn't athletic enough. Henry takes all the punishment the coach throws at him and works to make himself better and stronger. The actor playing Steele pulls off the look of a young naive basketball player perfectly. Sure Henry wasn't perfect...taking a car to come there and trusting his roommate and taking that stuff to "pep him up" and then "hotdogging" after taking that stuff. But that just adds even more to his naivety. It's a really good movie if you don't take it too serious. A good underdog movie.

Henry Steele grows up playing basketball in small town USA, doing well at his high school he is soon signed by a college. There he enjoys easy money and special treatment in many ways. However when he begins to fall for Janet, who is teaching him extra classes, he loses his focus on the basketball. This causes his coach to regret his pick and ask Henry to resign his scholarship. When Henry refuses it begins a war of attrition between the two.At heart this is a tale of a little guy who overcomes obstacles in his attempt to do well in life and in sport. When I taped it all I knew was that it was a basketball movie, so I thought I'd give it a try. At the start I thought it was going to be all innocent as opposed to sports movies now that focus on the real side of it as well as the game (Any Given Sunday, Blue Chips etc), however this had layers of brutality, drugs, money being `given' to students etc. The story at core is one of Henry battling against his coach and it is quite good, but the added layers add more too.It may never be excellent but it is better than expected and was quite enjoyable (even if the basketball is played at a bit slower pace than now!). Benson is a bit too innocent and whiney at times as Steele but once you get used to him it's ok – he also co-wrote, not bad for a 21 year old! O'Toole is OK but isn't really anything other than a device for moving the plot on. Spradlin is good – but for the first 20 minutes I could hear his voice giving better lines in a better film – it bugged me until I placed him in Apocalypse Now. An almost unrecognisably young Melanie Griffith makes a brief appearance – but overall the cast is good enough to keep this just above the level of a TVM.Overall it may seem a little naive compared to modern college sports films but it's actually quite enjoyable, even if it won't change your life!