The Foursome

Grade: C
Teacher’s Comments: The Big Chill, it ain’t

In The Foursome, four college buddies and their wives meet for the first time in years at a college reunion. The husbands play a couple of rounds of golf, the wives gossip, and they all get drunk at the evening dances. Most of the movie takes place on the golf course, where the guys catch up on their lives since last they met. An out of control bet on the match provides a bit of dramatic tension.

The characters are pretty stock. There’s the millionaire with the trophy wife, the salesman with a stale marriage, the guy who never grew up and never married, and the fat goofy guy. Of the group, only the goofy guy was original—he and his wife have an overactive sex life and a pile of kids.

During the course of the film, we learn about their business dealings, college era flings with a girl who now is one of the foursome’s wives (she refers to herself as the college slut), one character’s sterility, another’s love child, the problems of a stale marriage, the details of a lively one, and much more. Then there’s a wild party, sex at the water hazard, and an affair that almost happens.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Most of this ground has already been covered—with much better acting, direction and production values—in The Big Chill. In fact, I’ll bet the producers thought that what they had on their hands was a latter day version of that classic. There’s even a scene or two of the characters singing along to a rock anthem.

Unfortunately, the movie pales on comparison to The Big Chill. It’s more like a made-for-television movie, except for some bad language and one nude scene with a slightly overweight middle aged woman. In spite of the presence of B list star Kevin Dillon, the film skipped the theatres and went straight to DVD.

The golf scenes aren’t anything special, consisting mostly of a guy taking a swing, while another announces the result. Weirdly for a “golf movie,” the audience almost never sees the ball land. There’s just Kevin Dillon saying: “That’s eight feet from the pin,” or “That’s in the trap.

Aside from tees and a couple of traps, the movie shows virtually nothing of the course. In fact, at times, it was hard to tell that they were actually one one.

Of course, the movie isn’t really about the golf. Golf is just the vehicle through which the characters are revealed. It could just as easily have been about bowling, or ice fishing.

The Foursome apparently is based loosely on a stage play by the same name, written by Canadian playwright Norm Foster. In the stage version, there are just four actors, and consists of 18 scenes—each at a different hole’s tee during a single round of golf. The play sounds neat, and I’m going to keep my eye open for a performance in my area.

As for the movie, I think it’s worth a watch if—like me—you catch it on cable.

Every guy of a certain age remembers the thrill of watching Steve McQueen evade his Nazi pursuers on a motorcycle in the classic movie “The Great Escape.” Based on the real-life mass escape of prisoners from Stalag Luft III during World War II, the movie had an all star, all-testosterone cast that included not only ultimate-guy Steve McQueen, but also James Coburn, James Garner, Charles Bronson, Richard Attenborough and Donald Pleasance.

It turns out that digging tunnels was not the only thing the prisoners did, and that their ingenuity was not all focused on making fake passports and other gear. They also made golf equipment and constructed a golf course with the permission of the commandant.

There’s an article in the Birmingham Mail about one of the surviving hand made golf balls from Stalag Luft III. It’s in a case in a course in England.

Happpy Birthday to Randolph Scott!

Scott (1898 - 1987) has long been my favorite western actor, especially in the films that he made from 1956 to 1960 with director Budd Boetticher. In those films, Scott, at an age when most leading men were winding down their careers, managed to revive his—and cement his place in cinema history. The Scott-Boetticher films are edgy, especially for the 1950s. Scott’s characters are not-quite-heroes; the villains are evil, but complex.

Quentin Tarantino says that acknowledged the influence of the Boetticher films on his own work by naming one of the characters in Kill Bill, Budd.sa

With a screenplay by Detroit native Elmore Leonard, The Tall T is my favorite Randolph Scott film. It’s what you might expect from Leonard—dark and complex, with interesting characters. In The Tall T, Scott is captured—along with the other passengers on a stagecoach—by a group of outlaws led by Richard Boone. Some of the gang members are homicidal maniacs, but Scott and Boone recognize in each other kindred spirits who, but for the kidnapping, might have been friends.

There are appreciations of some of those films here, and here.

Scott retired from film in 1962, after making Ride The High Country, a film by Sam Peckinpah. It was the director’s first feature film, and a tribute to the passing of the old west. In it, Scott and Joel McCrae play a pair of over-the-hill gunfighters who are hired to escort a shipment of gold. Scott plans to doublecross his friend McCrae and steal the gold, but in the end does the right thing. The ending of Ride The High Country is quite emotional and always leaves me with a tear in my eye.

Scott was a good golfer—a six handicapper—who played in the first Crosby Clambake in 1937 at the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club near San Diego. He also was a course designer, having laid out the Creste Verde Golf club in 1927.

The photo above shows Scott in 1962. I believe that the woman in the cart is his wife—I’ve seen her in other photos. (photo from Flickr) I’ve also seen—but have not been able to find—a couple of photos of Scott in golf attire and one with Gene Littler at the Crosby. I’d like to have copies of those for my wall.

Scott’s reputation has taken a bit of a beating in recent years as he has become sort of a gay icon. The rumors stem from the ten years that he shared a beach house with Cary Grant— a place known as Bachelor Hall. If you run a search, you’ll find plenty of photos of Scott and Grant originating from alternative lifestyle websites. Grant and Scott, however, always denied the rumors—and certainly had more than their share of romantic trysts with leading starlets. Scott friend and director Budd Boetticher has this to say about the rumors: “Bullshit.”

But it doesn’t matter. Scott’s legacy is in his film, not his social life. And his films are timeless.

There’s a new golf movie out: Who’s Your Caddy.

It looks horrible. You can see the trailer below:

There are few things in golf worse than a slice. And the term is about to become a little more horrifying.

Coming Soon To A Theatre Near You (or direct to DVD, as the case may be): Slice: The Movie

From the website:

Seven years after the free and easy days of high school, four friends meet up at the “Wide Open” - a wild,
after dark, golf tournament. The foursome made up of Ben, Fast, Nick and Jack - now men with separate
lives and separate perspectives - reunites in the thick woods of Virginia at Woody Hole Golf Club, which
just so happens to reopen just in time to host their annual golf outing. But when a stranger stumbles onto
the remote course and into their lives, chaos explodes. Soon, these friends are plunged into a horrifying
struggle with hideous creatures determined to destroy them.

It’s a wonder no one has thought of this before. But I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to make my list of favorite golf movies.