# The Natural (film)

The Natural is a 1984 film about an unknown who comes out of seemingly nowhere to become a legendary baseball player with almost divine talent.
    Directed by Barry Levinson. Written by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry, based on the novel by Bernard Malamud.

## Roy Hobbs

* Some mistakes I guess we never stop paying for.
* [after his hand-made bat breaks] Pick me out a winner Bobby.

## Pop Fisher

* People don't start playing ball at your age, they retire!
* I wanted to win that pennant worse than I wanted any goddamned thing in my life. You'd think I could just this once, wouldn't you? I didn't care nothing about the Series. Win or lose, I would have been satisfied.

## Ed Hobbs

* You've got a gift Roy... but it's not enough - you've got to develop yourself. If you rely too much on your own gift... then... you'll fail.

## Dialogue

    Pop Fisher: My ma urged me to get out of this game. When I was a kid, she pleaded with me. And I meant to, you know what I mean? But she died.
    Red Blow: Tough.
    Pop Fisher: Now look at me. I'm wet nurse to a last-place, dead-to-the-neck-up ball club, and I'm choking to death!
    Roy Hobbs: Red, it took me sixteen years to get here. You play me, and I'll give ya the best I got.
    Red Blow: I believe ya.
    Pop Fisher: Hobbs. I'm sending you down Hobbs, Class B ball. Tomorrow you go to the Great Lakes Association.
    Roy Hobbs: All right. You make the rules.
    Pop Fisher: That's right, that's right and you ain't been playing by 'em. Don't you remember signing a contract!
    Roy Hobbs: I remember signing a contract, to play ball not to be put to sleep by some two bit carney hypnotist! I won't do that Pop! I can't.
    Pop Fisher: Batting practice tomorrow, be there!
    Roy Hobbs: I have been. Every day.
    Pop Fisher: I'd have walked away from baseball and I'd have bought a farm.
    Roy Hobbs: Nothing like a farm. Nothing like being around animals, fixing things. There's nothing like being in the field with the corn and the winter wheat. The greenest stuff you ever saw.
    Pop Fisher: You know my mama wanted me to be a farmer.
    Roy Hobbs: My dad wanted me to be a baseball player.
    Pop Fisher: Well you're better than any player I ever had. And you're the best God damn hitter I ever saw. Suit up.
    Max Mercy: You read my mind.
    Roy Hobbs: That takes all of three seconds.
    Gus Sands: [trying to pay off Hobbs to tank] If it isn't enough, tell us what you had in mind.
    Roy Hobbs: To hit away.
    The Judge: I thought I could rely on your honor, Hobbs?
    Roy Hobbs: You're about to.
    Roy Hobbs: I coulda been better. I coulda broke every record in the book.
    Iris Gaines: And then?
    Roy Hobbs: And then? And then when I walked down the street people would've looked and they would've said there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game.
    Iris Gaines: You know, I believe we have two lives.
    Roy Hobbs: How... what do you mean?
    Iris Gaines: The life we learn with and the life we live with after that.

## Taglines

* The best there was!
* Boyhood dreams, a bat made from a tree struck by lightning and most importantly, a never-ending passion for the game.
* He lived for a dream that wouldn't die.
* From an age of innocence comes a hero for today.

## Cast

* Robert Redford - Roy Hobbs
* Glenn Close - Iris Gaines
* Michael Madsen - Bartholomew 'Bump' Bailey
* Kim Basinger - Memo Paris
* Wilford Brimley - Pop Fisher
* Barbara Hershey - Harriet Bird
* Robert Prosky - The Judge
* Richard Farnsworth - Red Blow
* Joe Don Baker - The Whammer
* Robert Duvall - Max Mercy
* Darren McGavin - Gus Sands
* Alan Fudge - Ed Hobbs

## External links

* The Natural quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* The Natural at Rotten Tomatoes
* The Natural at Mojo