SS or Single-sided insert movie poster
that has printing on the front side only.
This movie art item is an authentic original piece - the same item
that is used in actual movie theaters. Original movie art items are valued by
collectors worldwide and can increase in value over time.
Cast: Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close,
Kim Basinger, Barbara Hershey;
Director: Barry Levinson
Synopsis:
The film version of The Natural pulls off
the neat trick of conveying the spirit of the Bernard Malamud novel upon which
it is based, even while changing both the outcome and the meaning of Malamud's
closing chapters. In his first film appearance in four years, Robert Redford
plays Roy Hobbs, a farm boy with a hankering to be a great baseball player. With
his faithful homemade bat "Wonderboy" in hand, Roy heads to the big city. En
route, he arouses the fascination of the mysterious Harriet Bird (Barbara
Hershey). Luring the boy to a hotel room, Harriet asks Roy what he wants out of
life. Roy brashly responds he wants to be "the best there is," whereupon Harriet
whips out a gun and shoots Roy down. Sixteen years later, a humbler Roy Hobbs
emerges from the bush leagues to become a 35-year-old "rookie" on the 1939
lineup of the New York Knights. He soon becomes the team's star player, and in
so doing once more attracts enigmatic woman Memo Paris (Kim Basinger), the
glamorous niece of the Knights' manager Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley) and the
mistress of Rothstein-like gambler Gus Sands (a curiously unbilled Darren
McGavin). Roy's fascination with Memo compromises his ability to play, but this
time he finds salvation in the form the angelic Iris Gaines (Glenn Close), his
childhood sweetheart. From this point forward, the script for The Natural bears
very little resemblance to the Malamud original. Without giving anything away,
it can be said that Roy Hobbs is given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
compensate for the mistakes of his youth, despite the demonic intrusion of
inexplicably spiteful sports writer Max Mercy (Robert Duvall). The Natural
elevates the art of slow-motion photography to new heights; while this technique
would become precious and boring in later baseball films, it works beautifully
here, as does the decision by director Barry Levinson and cinematographer Caleb
Deschanel to convey the symbolism inherent in the story in purely visual rather
than blatantly verbal terms. (If the characters told you that the story was a
retelling of the Camelot legend in baseball terms, would you have watched?)
Another plus is the pastoral theme music by Randy Newman, which has been well
utilized on sports broadcasts and "human interest" TV documentaries ever since.
The baseball scenes in The Natural were staged at War Memorial Stadium in
Buffalo, New York.