North Dallas Forty

Plot synopsis:
Wide receiver Phil Elliott (Nolte) plays for a late 1960s era professional football team based in Dallas, Texas named the North Dallas Bulls, which closely resembles the Dallas Cowboys.
Though considered to possess "the best hands in the game", the aging Elliott has been benched and relies heavily on painkillers. Elliott and popular quarterback Seth Maxwell (Davis) are outstanding players, but they also characterize the drug-, sex-, and alcohol-fueled party atmosphere of that era. Elliott wants only to play the game, retire, and live on a horse farm with his girlfriend Charlotte (Dayle Haddon), who appears to be financially independent, and has no interest whatsoever in football.
The Bulls play for an iconic coach (Spradlin) who turns a blind eye to anything that his players may be doing off the field or anything that his assistant coaches and trainers condone to keep those players in the game. The Coach is focused on player "tendencies", a quantitative measurement of their performance, and seems less concerned about the human aspect of the game and the players. As one player (John Matuszak) finally erupts to a coach (Charles Durning): "Every time I call it a game, you call it a business. And every time I call it a business, you call it a game." The coaches manipulate Elliott to convince a younger, injured rookie on the team to start using painkillers.
Elliott's non-conformist attitude incurs the coach's wrath more than once, and at one point the Coach informs Elliott that his continuing attitude could affect his future with the Bulls. After the Bulls lose their final game of the season in Chicago, Elliott learns that a Dallas detective has been hired by the Bulls to follow him. They turn up proof of his marijuana use and a sexual relationship with a woman who intends to marry team executive Emmett Hunter (Dabney Coleman), brother of owner Conrad Hunter (Steve Forrest). Though the detective witnessed Quarterback Seth Maxwell engaging in similar behavior, he pretends not to have recognized him.After they tell him he is to be suspended without pay pending a league hearing, Elliott, convinced that the entire investigation is merely a pretext to allow the team to save money on his contract, quits the game of football for good.

Tags: satire, flashback

Review:
North Dallas Forty rates as one of the all-time best sports movies ever made and is probably the best football film ever.
Nick Nolte gives one of his best performances as a world weary receiver facing the end of his playing days and still not wanting to become a full-fledged adult.
written by pete gent, a former dallas cowboy in the 60's, it gives a great look inside the mentality of professional football ...
i enjoyed this film because i played ball at the college level in the early 70's, and i feel it's the most realistic portrayal of the emotional seesaw that a football player goes through.the film shows what happens in a society where professional athletes are idolized, and the things they can get away with ...
the problem is that each high gives way to when you either make a mistake on the field, or come down from the "off-the-field" high.if you were a football fan in the 60's-70's, you can just see the dallas cowboys in this film!
This movie was ahead of its time in its depiction since no other movie on professional football had ventured into this area exposing drug use, both off the field casual usage and to get players on the field, and indifference of ownership and coaching staff to players feelings and thoughts.Nick Nolte was exceptional as Phil Elliot, the wide receiver whose character was based on Pete Gent, a wide receiver with the Dallas Cowboys who authored the book (North Dallas Forty) the movie was based on.
Mac Davis was great as quarterback Seth Maxwell, the jaded athlete who knows how to "bend" the rules to remain in good standing with the team.Supporting cast, especially GD Spradlin as the coach modeled after Dallas Cowboys coaching genius Tom Landry, was excellent.
It's both a dark and funny look at professional football, succeeding on both levels, with special emphasis put on the way the pro machinery chews up players and spits them out.
Mac Davis plays the fun-loving quarterback who is serious about keeping his position both with the team and the ladies, and knows all the tricks, whether it's before, during, or after the game.
And Bo Svenson and former pro player John Matuszak are a couple of linemen who play by the same rules on the field and off.It's a complex movie with so much going on in some scenes (just like a football game) that it deserves to be seen more than once.
The coach actually has to tell the team to put out their cigarettes five minutes before the big game!On substance, the movie is still right on the mark.
Although we try to unsuccessfully bury some of those problems today, they sneak out anyway in Bret Favre's pain killers or OJ Simpson's arthritis.One problem: if Nolte really is the best receiver on the team with the best hands in the league, why isn't he playing?
Interrupting this scene's quiet, almost meditative atmosphere are Elliot's loudmouth friends, clearly intoxicated, who want to go out and cause a ruckus with their shotguns.What we see in the first few minutes of North Dallas Forty are what we never see in sports - the morning after the game.
Because we see the lead character in such a vulnerable, often powerless light despite being a very good football player is why North Dallas Forty is so skilled on its feet as a film.
Written by a trio of thoughtful and thoroughly ambitious people - Peter Gent, Kotcheff, and Frank Yablans - the film manages to be less entertaining and sensational, like a typical sports film, and more heartbreaking and an often immersing watch.We set our sights on Elliot, who is becoming greatly dissatisfied with the way the NFL operates (his team is the fictional North Dallas Bulls, which mirror the Dallas Cowboys, FYI).
All for a game that will be out of the immediate mindset of even the most heartened-fans in no more than two weeks or so.On a final note, the promotional poster/home video release images for North Dallas Forty are criminally misleading ones, showing two football players, one dousing himself with water, the other hoisting his helmet while they both lounge in two cowboy boots with two woman grappling to get at them on both sides of the boots.
Seen this movie a few times on TV and it is a superb football film.
Good, fun all round film with great thought put into the story especially when entering Nolte's problems with team management/owners.
Pete Gent was a maverick in his NFL career, but it would seem his alter-ego, Phil (Nick Nolte), while possessing this same nature, is significantly more accomplished in his pro career (even if on the coach's "secondary list" in the film).
The primary "athletes" in the film - played by Nolte, Davis, Matuszak and Svenson are realistic, interesting, tough and bawdy.
Phil Elliott (Nick Nolte) is a worn out wide receiver for the North Dallas Bulls professional football team in the 70s.
People unfamiliar with this movie will note that there's not necessarily a lot of game action; the concentration is on the action taking place off the playing field.The pivotal character is Phillip Elliott (Nick Nolte), a weary seen-it-all veteran of the game, a top notch receiver conscious of all the punishment that his body has taken over the years.
Phillip knows the game very well, but he's not too interested in playing a different sort of game, with the hard-driving coaches (G.D. Spradlin and Charles Durning) and the greedy team owner (Steve Forrest).
Fortunately, he does have one good friend: star quarterback Seth Maxwell (singer Mac Davis).This is scripted by director Ted Kotcheff ("First Blood"), producer Frank Yablans, and author Peter Gent, who wrote the semi-fictional novel on which the movie is based.
Based on the Dallas Cowboys team of the early 1970s, it takes its time telling the story, contrasting the more philosophical and low key nature of Phillip with gung-ho defensive players like O.W. Shaddock (real life football star John Matuszak) and Jo Bob Priddy (amusing live wire Bo Svenson).
The coaches want 100% to win games and win the season, but do the owners see the people inside the uniforms?Written by ex-player Peter Gent this film wanders between love for the game and admiration for the players and the flip side where the players are overpaid little boys in men's bodies who are seen as disposable by club owners.
The players are clearly childish and irresponsible, violent men but yet the film weakens on that point after hinting at it, likewise the film condemns part of the game but then happily indulges in big game action near the end of the film.Nolte is pretty good, but he also seems a little unsure about whether his character loves the sport or hates everything about it except the game.
The reason for Haddon's love interest is beyond me but Durning and Spradlin give good support as coaches.Overall this is an interesting film, which is strongest at the start and end, the middle section lacking structure and focus.
Though they should be forgiven due to his great contributions to film.The movie is about a receiver in the NFL and his conflicts with people and the team he plays for.
Pete Gent's North Dallas Forty was a great book about the fear and desperation of being a marginal football player in the NFL, even if it's outlook on sex, drug use and authority seems rather sophomoric and dated now.
Nolte captures the rebelliousness of wide receiver Elliott/Gent, while Mac Davis, in a true casting coup and career performance, does a great turn as the Dallas quarterback Maxwell/Meredith.
So ND40 basically plays like a voyeuristic behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in a professional football team.
BTW, it's nice to see that Nick Nolte looks as bad in this 1979 film as he does (25 years later) today..
"Better football through chemistry" is a line of Nick Nolte's as he's being shot up with painkillers before the big game.
The new findings that NFL teams sent injured players into games full of drugs gives this film new meaning.
So, like a lot of fans of 'America's Team' in Texas, and across the country, I was extremely angered and offended when I first heard that a major Hollywood movie was released that was a scathing indictment of not only the Dallas Cowboy's, but professional football as well.
And, I vowed then, to never ever watch that blasphemous film that dared criticized the sacred sport of football and its most important team.I guess, I was in a rather sacrilegious mood one day when I decided to watch 'North Dallas Forty' on cable 15 years after the movies original theatrical release.
Like Mac Davis's colorful character Seth Maxell/Don Meredith for example closed sometime in the mid-late 80's.Therefore, I'm recommending a 'North Dallas Forty' reboot that's based on ex-Cowboy player Thomas Henderson's '87 autobiographical novel "Out of Control: Confessions of an NFL Casualty" as the main source material for a sequel to 'North Dallas Forty'.For those of you who don't know?
Then wound up playing in only a few games with other NFL teams until retiring after a career ending neck injury in '81.So, in other words, he was at the pinnacle of success in the NFL just 7 months prior to North Dallas Forty's original release in August of '79, and at its lowest depths just 3 months afterwards.And, let me tell you, the stuff Thomas Henderson covers in his personal account of his experience in the NFL, makes 'North Dallas Forty' controversial indictment of the Cowboy's organization and professional football as a whole, look like a white wash by comparison.Most of the events in Thomas Henderson's book take place during the mid-late 70's, just before the over-the-top deifying worship of football players and professional athletes in general began in the 80's by means of new cable channels like ESPN and HBO for example.
That is if the modern mass-media actually had an interest in educating the public about the people and the sports organizations that they worship?(which, apparently they don't) So, to sum up, I think you could still have a sequel to North Dallas Forty by staying true to the overall theme of the movies scathing indictment of the NFL, its players, coaches and the owners directly involved in putting on the weekly gladiatorial show.
Then I imagine the movie beginning with an over middle aged ex-NFL star who played for a franchise in Dallas, TX as the main character.
(After all those Monday evenings on TV, who could ever think of Tom Landry, Don Meredith or straight-laced Roger Staubach the same way again.) (Then too, fans might check out 1949's "Easy Living", a less caustic but also revealing film on the earlier days of pro football.) All in all, the screenplay of North Dallas is one of the best from the period -- humorous, savvy, and richly ironic -- the final boardroom scene arguably among the most compelling of any on sports.
The movie is overall a pretty scathing look at pro sports, showing in one scene how they give a player a shot so that he can keep playing even while injured.
Bush would probably own the team and everything would thus be connected to the oil industry - although it might have been even back then.Anyway, this is a very good sports movie, even better than "All the Right Moves".
NORTH DALLAS FORTY is often billed as one of the all-time great sports films (and the best to do with football).
NORTH DALLAS FORTY is a decent film with decent performances, with a beat-up Nick Nolte and holier-than-thou Mac Davis leading the way.
Released in 1979, "North Dallas Forty" stars Nick Nolte and Mac Davis as receiver and quarterback for the fictitious North Dallas Bulls professional football team.
Various NFL players are on hand, such as Bo Svenson and John Matuszak.The film plays like a docudrama and attempts to show the grim reality of professional football and what it takes to be a champion team.
Moreover, the characters aren't all that interesting, although Spradlin shines as the coach and Nolte's good as the cynical and burning out protagonist.The film runs 119 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles, CA.GRADE: C+.
The film really tries to belabor the point that playing professional football is hard on the body, with Nolte wincing in pain with almost every movement he makes.
The ending of the book was also considered real shocking along with some of the characters that made it up which was all Hollywood's doing I am sure, and the Delma Huddle/ Bob Hayes character was also played down except where it was necessary with his injuries and the drama leading up to Nolte's quitting speech "B.A., B.A., you, the owners the coaches, you're the team...
Franchises in the NFL, which had reportedly originally cost $100.00, now hovered in the Million$, as teams played their schedules in increasingly modern facilities.The story/screenplay of NORTH DALLAS FORTY(1979) is by Pertr Gent, former Pro Footballer with the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants.
And as for the names of the various teams, we have ones like 'North Dallas Bulls' and 'Chicago Maurauders', but when a game is portrayed in the film, we all know who'w who in the real life counterpart.The whole drama unfolds in the space of a little better than about 2 weeks time.
We are shown the life of a pro athlete, how they want for nothing, but crave everything intangible, like Love, Security, Respect and Home.The relationships of players as "friends" and the intricate construction of the Pro Sports Team "Office Politics" are given a thoroughly complete, through the microscope examination.It is in the end, that we and our story's protagonist are suddenly made aware of what we really are to the public and the Ownership.The point of view is of Author Peter Gent, who did go through several seasons on the rosters of both Dallas and N.Y.Giants.
He did a great job in this movie.I'd recommend it, but if you REALLY want this story, read the book for more drinking, drugs, sex, and on-field FOOTBALL ACTION..
The North Dallas Bulls are the ultimate "corporate whores", aptly observed by Seth Maxwell, who justifies their fate by stating:  "We may as well be the best."  One of the nicest surprises of 1979 was Mac Davis' performance as Seth Maxwell, who along with Nick Nolte's stellar performance in the lead, give an already gritty film that much more depth.
When I watched this movie again I did not realize how little football is actually in this film.
This film shows the reality of the football business, and price one pays both physical and mentally in pro sports.
Story is about a fictional football team from Dallas, Texas where we see cold hearted management and players that must endure incredible amounts of pain to be able to play.
Phillip Elliott (Nick Nolte) is a veteran wide receiver who has gone through many operations and walks with a limp and must take assorted pain killers not to play football but to just be able to get through the day.
Finally after a star player gets injured Elliott is told that he is going to start in an important game but come game time coach Strothers has changed his mind.
During the game Elliott gets to play and does very good but a few days later management has decided his future with the team.This film is directed by Ted Kotcheff who was a pretty good director during the 1970's but he couldn't hold on to his success and has basically directed television ever since.
The film works on two levels and the first is the way that it shows how players are used by both coaches and management.
Mac Davis wasn't known as a good actor when this was made but he's good here as the quarterback who knows how to play the game (Not football) and keeping his players cool.
Nolte's performance I think is one of his most underrated and while he physically may not exactly look like a player he perfectly embodies an individual who has sacrificed his own body to play the game.
The scene where his girlfriend wakes up in the middle of the night and catches him trying to crack and twist his pain ridden body back into place has become a near classic and if anyone wants to know what it's like to be a football player than they can watch that scene.
Very entertaining film has only a few minutes of actual game playing because it's emphasis is on the players and their manipulation and that in itself is an achievement but none of that would matter without Nolte's rock solid performance..
Ted Kotcheff's version of Peter Gent's book casts Nick Nolte as a not quite over the hill pro football player struggling through the morass of corporate politics, crazy team- mates and myriad injuries.
It's a great performance and he's well matched with Mac Davis as team quarterback and best friend.
It stars Nick Nolte, the star before he did "48 Hrs." is in his excellent performance as a football star in "North Dallas Forty".
His character is Phil Elliot who is a football player.
Jo Bob is a major one, because he always seems to pick a fight.But in all, this film is not such a big film, but with Nick Nolte and Mac Davis, this film is one of my favorites to watch for a long time.
It's worth watching if you like football films..
Charlton Heston played a similar role in the much better "Will Penny," as an aging cowboy realistically reduced to a life of three baths a year.Nick Nolte has some good scenes in this one.
He's a laid-back football player for the North Dallas Bulls.