They looked great, you know the drawings of the guys playing looked great and bits of string around their necks. So it didn't seem to be that difficult a thing to do, or that inaccessible.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
They were so clever finding ways to get me the ball. They had to do more than just give up open shots. They had to avoid fouls and pass me the ball in traffic.
These guys were the best. They were the best at their positions and made playing the game easier. And at the same time it made it so much more enjoyable.
I wanted the players to feel like they were part of a family, to be conscious of that controlled togetherness as they made that slow entrance onto the field. It had a great psychological effect on the opposing team, too. They'd never seen anything like it.
It was a fine cast and lots of fun to make, but they did the damn thing on the cheap. The backdrops had holes in them, and it was shot on the worst film stock.
I think the players, I put in the book for example that we should go back to wood rackets, probably they laughed at me, I'm a dinosaur, but I think that you see these great players, have even more variety and you see more strategy, there'd be more subtlety.
They played so good it was frightening. And I, of course, being young, was in awe of everything that was going on and rightly so. I mean, it was too good to believe.
I really loved what the guys were doing more than anything, how high they jumped, how effortless it was.
We did many of our own stunts. We had our hands full. In fact, the roles were physically demanding.
What I got, unconsciously, from admiring Fred Astaire was that he didn't want what he was doing to look difficult. What was difficult, in my opinion, was making it look so genuine, so effortless. I equally have tried to remain unseen on the screen.
They weren't great pictures, but they were fun, and they really represented that period of time well.