Freep Film Festival: Paper Lion, George Plimpton back on big screen
Detroit Lions fans and those who would enjoy seeing what became a football cult classic movie a half century ago will have another opportunity at the Redford Theatre on Sunday when Paper Lion is screened as part of the Freep Film Festival.
Loosely based upon writer George Plimpton’s 1966 bestselling book "Paper Lion," which chronicled his quarterback tryout at the Detroit Lions’ 1963 training camp while on assignment for Sports Illustrated, the movie stars Alan Alda as Plimpton, Vogue model Lauren Hutton in her film debut, and the 1967 Detroit Lions, including starring roles for head coach Joe Schmidt and players Alex Karras, John Gordy, Mike Lucci, Pat Studstill and Roger Brown.
Football legends Vince Lombardi and Frank Gifford had cameo roles, and, in an opening touch football scene set in New York’s Central Park, you can recognize actor Roy Scheider, who is not credited.
Although the movie was released on videotape thirty years ago, it has never been released on DVD and has rarely been shown on classic movie channels. (Although it is available for online streaming via Amazon.) The Redford Theatre was able to locate a rare original 35-mm print of the film. This likely is the first time it has been shown on a large movie screen in 50 years.
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Directed by Alex March, the United Artists feature catapulted Karras into a film and television career (Blazing Saddles, Victor/Victoria, ABC’s Webster) and earned Alda a 1969 Golden Globe nomination, helping him land a star-making TV role as Hawkeye Pierce in "M*A*S*H*."
The film features nearly twenty minutes of close-up, odd-angle shots with miked players and coaches from an exhibition game between the Lions and the then-St. Louis Cardinals. Shot by NFL Films pioneer Steve Sabol, the movie captures bone-crunching hits, trash talking and a few uncensored obscenities.
When the film was released in October of 1968, film critic Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, writing: “I don’t know what to make of “Paper Lion” as a movie — it will not be immortal, I guess — but as wish fulfillment, it’s crackerjack.”
Free Press amusement writer Harvey Taylor wrote:
“I loved Paper Lion. Not because of the silly story about George Plimpton who would never have lasted two minutes on the same field with these pros but because of the backstage glimpses of fine athletes in action, in practice and at leisure. Paper Lion is synthetic just as the title points out and is to be enjoyed for the thoroughly entertaining movie that it is. “
His colleague Susan Stark, however, wrote, “Paper Lion amounts to a pretty dull and pointless movie.”
Just as the Lions in 1963 gave George Plimpton the opportunity to participate in the training camp at Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, the movie producers convinced Lions owner William Clay Ford and general manager Russ Thomas to put the 1967 Detroit Lions in the movie.
Lions icon and Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Schmidt had just completed his first year as Detroit’s head coach when he was told that the six-week production reproducing scenes from training camp would start in February of 1968 at St. Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, Fla. According to a 1968 article published by the Cincinnati Post and Times Star, the Lions players made between $350 and $1,500 a week.
“It was kind of fun to do it but it was also a pain in the ass to tell you the truth,” said Schmidt, now 86. “I was worried about preparing game plans for the next season and I’m thinking what the hell is the season going to bring when we’re jacking around in Florida. It took a long time to get the players’ minds off the damn movie and concentrate on football. Everyone thought they would be movie stars.”
A notable scene features All-Pro defensive tackle Alex Karras poking fun at Schmidt in a team talent show by walking out on stage in a Nazi uniform alongside a German shepherd, drawing loud laughs from his teammates. Cracking a whip, he yells, “Tonight I want to talk a little bit about discipline. I want discipline, Bill Ford wants discipline, my assistants want discipline and I’m going to get discipline.”
“Alex said he was going to do something about me but I didn’t know exactly what they were going to do but knew it was something goofy," Schmidt said “I thought it was kind of funny. I guess Alex had secret aspirations of being a movie star.”
Linebacker Mike Lucci appeared in several scenes and was featured in United Artists' promotional pieces.
“We weren’t making very much money back then so it was an opportunity to go to Florida and make a few bucks,“ Lucci, 78, said. “Everyone was kind of excited to do it.”
“Alan Alda really got into it, but we made sure we didn’t hit him too hard, but a couple of times we bounced him around,” Lucci said. "Deep down inside I think he thought that he could really play. He was a good guy and it ended up being a lot of fun.”
Lucci said the players challenged Alda to chug some beer before shooting a bar scene.
“It kind of backfired on us because we were sitting around for what seemed like three hours trying to sober him up for the shoot.”
The movie received a Detroit premiere on Oct. 3, 1968, at the Adams Theatre downtown (located across from Grand Circus Park near The Fillmore Detroit) as a fundraiser for the Merrill-Palmer Institute. With spotlights beaming into the sky, 44 enthusiastic cheerleaders from Denby, Cooley, and Finney high schools and the 100-piece Royal Oak Kimball band (playing “Gridiron Heroes” and college fight songs) welcomed attendees into the theater. The crowd, which included Alda, Hutton, Lions players and several Detroit socialites, was already in a festive mood because earlier in the day, in St. Louis, Tiger left-hander Mickey Lolich had evened the World Series at 1 game apiece with a complete game 8-1 victory.
“I can’t believe it was 50 years ago,” Schmidt says. “I thought the movie was pretty good. It was entertaining and sort of different. I think most everybody did a nice job especially considering no one had any experience doing that kind of thing.”
The "Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself" and "Paper Lion" double feature begins at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Redford Theatre. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Admission includes both films.
Between the films: Free Press Lions beat writer Dave Birkett talks to Tom Nowatzke, a Lions fullback from 1965 to 1969 who is in "Paper Lion"; Mike Lucci a longtime Detroit Lions linebacker; Toby Barlow, an executive producer of “Plimpton!”; and sports historian and Free Press sports contributor Bill Dow, who co-organized the 2003 “Paper Lion” reunion.
In the documentary “Plimpton!,” directors Tom Bean and Luke Poling trace the writer’s years at Harvard, his cofounding of the Paris Review and his many forays into professions that he documented as a participatory journalist, including photographing Playboy models, playing goalie for the Boston Bruins and performing with the New York Philharmonic.