Even Robert De Niro fans don’t know about this movie

Fans of Robert De Niro’s career, many of you haven’t seen The Last Game (1973), the baseball movie he starred in just months before Martin Scorsese’s Mean Street. He has the second lead role and – already – has been preparing intensively for his role.

The story follows Henry Wiggen (Michael Moriarty), a star baseball pitcher, and his friendship with Bruce Pearson (De Niro), a fairly average player who is somewhat in his own world. When Bruce learns that he has a disease that threatens his imminent death, he hides from his team and Henry hires him as a receiver.

a remake

At the time of its release, The Last Game was not new at all. It is a 52-minute remake of the 1956 episode of The United States Steel Hour, Bang the Drum Slowly, starring Paul Newman (Henry) and Albert Salm (Bruce).

The film version is credited to John D. Hancock, who recently made a name for himself with a horror film, let’s scare Jessica to death. De Niro auditioned for the role of Bruce and passed seven auditions. After the selection, he prepares very seriously.

De Niro overprepared

The actor attends baseball practices and tries to reproduce the accent of Georgian residents by listening to recorded conversations. He also learns the basics of baseball with his actor friend Danny Aiello, who will be seen again in The Godfather 2 (Tony Rosato) and Once Upon a Time in America (Police Chief).

FYI, if you’ve seen the offer or are familiar with The Godfather Genesis, you may know that Al Pacino was supposed to play Bruce in the final game and that Coppola insisted on hiring him. Play Michael Corleone that he finally left the project.

Endgame is a candidly canned drama that explores De Niro’s acting, which has already evolved since his debut in Greetings (1968) or Hi Mom! (1970). We feel more mature and even though we are not much on screen for the second lead role, we only remember him after the movie is over.

The feature film, released in August 1973 in New York, has not been distributed nationally. It would not be shown in France until 1978, a few months before Voyage au bout de l’enfer and a few months later in New York, New York by Martin Scorsese.

It’s largely forgotten today, but deserves to be rediscovered, if only for the thrill of seeing one of the best actors of his generation begin to prove himself.