Cobb (film)

Cobb
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ron Shelton
Written by	Al Stump (Book and Article) Ron Shelton (Screenplay)
Produced by	David V. Lester
Starring	Tommy Lee Jones Robert Wuhl Lolita Davidovich
Cinematography	Russell Boyd
Edited by	Kimberly Ray Paul Seydor
Music by	Elliot Goldenthal
Production companies	Regency Enterprises Alcor Films
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release dates	December 2, 1994
Running time	128 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$1,007,600

Cobb is a 1994 baseball film starring Tommy Lee Jones as baseball player Ty Cobb. It was written and directed by Ron Shelton, and Al Stump wrote the book on which the movie was based. The original music score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal.

Plot

Based on a true story, Robert Wuhl plays sportswriter Al Stump who is hired to write an authorized "autobiography" of Cobb. Stump arrives at the Tahoe home of the dying Cobb to write the official life story of the first baseball player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He finds a drunken, misanthropic, bitter racist who abuses his biographer as well as everyone else. A Hall of Fame induction weekend, with many old players attending, is featured. After spending time with Cobb, Stump is torn between writing the book that Cobb wants and writing the truth.

Cast

• Tommy Lee Jones as Ty Cobb
• Robert Wuhl as Al Stump
• Lolita Davidovich as Ramona
• Lou Myers as Willie
• Rhoda Griffis as Amanda Chitwood Cobb

Trivia

Baseball scenes in the movie were filmed at Birmingham's Rickwood Field, which stood in for Philadelphia's Shibe Park and Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. The movie was also filmed in Cobb's actual hometown of Royston, Georgia. Major League pitcher Roger Clemens has a very brief cameo as an opposing pitcher who trades insults with Cobb on the field. Cobb doubles off him, steals third and then home. Many Cobb shots were done in Northern Nevada. The snowy Reno hotel check in shots were taken at the Morrison Hotel in Reno, an older brick weekly hotel on Fourth Street in Reno. Casino outdoor and the casino entry way shots were done outside Cactus Jack's in Carson City, and outside the then closed, but now reopened((2007)) Doppelganger's in Carson City, Nevada.

Singer/Songwriter Jimmy Buffett makes a cameo as a one-armed heckler in the stands. Lawrence "Crash" Davis, the namesake for the main character in Shelton's earlier movie Bull Durham, also has a bit part in the film.

Baseball announcer Ernie Harwell is featured as the emcee at a Cooperstown awards banquet. Real-life sportswriters Allan Malamud, Doug Krikorian, Jeff Fellenzer and boxing publicist Bill Caplan appear in the movie's opening and closing scenes as Stump's friends and fellow scribes. Carson City free lance photographer Bob Wilkie photographed many still scenes for Nevada Magazine, the Associated Press and the Nevada Appeal

Tommy Lee Jones was shooting this film when he won the Academy Award for The Fugitive. Since his head was shaved for his role as Cobb, the actor made light of the situation in his acceptance speech, saying. "All a man can say at a time like this is, 'I am not really bald.'" Jones said. He added, "But I do have work". In addition to his shaved head, Jones also endured a broken ankle during the film's production, suffered while practicing Cobb's distinctive slide.

Tyler Logan Cobb, a descendant of Cobb's, played "Young Ty."

Reception

Criticism

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone hailed it as "one of the year's best" and Charles Taylor of Salon included it on his list of the best films of the decade. Others took a harsher view of the picture. Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a 'D', claiming it to be a "noisy, cantankerous buddy picture." He explained: "By refusing to place before our eyes Ty Cobb's haunted ferocity as a baseball player, it succeeds in making him look even worse than he was."

Box Office

The film opened in limited release in December 1994. It earned a reported $1,007,583 at the U.S. box office.

See also

• List of American films of 1994
• Cobb (soundtrack)

External links

• Cobb at IMDb
• Cobb at AllMovie
• Cobb: A Review