This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. For this second Thursday in July, the theme is female athletes, which isn't too difficult, especially if you watch more recent movies. As for me, however, being a blogger of old movies I came up with a bunch of movies that are all over 40 years old:
Pat and Mike (1952). Katharine Hepburn plays Pat, a golfer and tennis player who hires promoter Mike (Spencer Tracy) to help her get over the hump. Along the way, they fall in love despite the fact that Pat is already engaged to another man. Quite a few famous athletes of the day have cameos, and a young Charles Bronson plays another of Mike's clients.
Hard, Fast, and Beautiful (1951). Directed by Ida Lupino, this movie tells the story of a young tennis player (Sally Forrest) who's quite good but wants to settle down and marry, while her mother (Claire Trevor) keeps pushing her to the top. Of course, this was the days when tournaments like Wimbledon were strictly amateur, so continuing to play would be quite a financial sacrifice for the daughter who has a well-to-do boyfriend.
Ice Castles (1978). Lynn-Holly Johnson plays a girl from Iowa who's gotten quite good at figure skating; indeed, she's good enough to try to qualify for the Olympics. But instead of an interesting look at amateur sports and the way the athletes are exploited, we get a mawkish tragedy when Johnson crashes while skating for pleasure, losing most of her eyesight in the accident. Still she tries a comeback at the insistence of her washed-up hockey player boyfriend Robby Benson. Colleen Dewhurst plays the small-town coach who knows she can take her student only so far. Apparently it was remade about a decade ago, but this version is the disaster to watch.
