And this is the year they all begin to pour down the chute, a veritable torrent of Caan. James Caan Film Festival time, folks! And about time too. He's earned it. Cinderella Liberty, Freebie and the Bean, The Gambler, Funny Lady and, of course, the ripe royal biggie, Rollerball.
There's almost as much scratch riding on this Harrison-Jewison movie as on The Godfather a few years back. At $8,000,000 it's one of the most expensive projects on any movie lot this side of James Bond's right profile and the sequel of what Variety prefers to call Godpop. Sport apart, it spins an intriguing/frightening account of life just around the next century, when politicians (at last!) are replaced by a skilled executive management class who logically organise all human endeavour under the control of six major corporations: energy, luxury, food, housing, communications and transportation. (The globe is shared between them all; Houston, Cairo, Caracas, for example, are in Energy; Madrid, Chicago, Brisbane among Food; New York, Rio, Kobe in Transport; Denver, Frisco, Leningrad belong to Luxury; Moscow, Rome, Los Angelos, Tel-Aviv are in Housing; London, Washington, Paris, Ankara feature in Communications).
Hunger is a mere relic word from the past, and man is "blessed" with a three day working week - and a lot of boredom. His diversions, however, are many, but the game is all. The most brutalising sport devised by man since Nero matched his lions with the Christians.
The game is an earth-shaker, and there are plans to actually set up a real version of it around premiere time at the Houston Astrodome. If they get enough ambulances on stand-by. As Caan said betwen takes at the Munich Olympic Stadium: "It wouldn't be too difficult to get yourself killed on this set." Waiting for Jimmy at Pinewood Studios in London, I saw director Jewison calmly signing a batch of letters his secretary had brough him. "Who's this!" he said, indicating the address. "He's the guy who broke his leg." "Oh Christ yeah ... oh boy! Never met him. Poor fella ... Now who's this one?" "He busted his ankle." "Right! Had a pin in it. Oh Christ!" You'll understand why when you catch the flick.
The Rollerball game - game they call it! - is a combination of hockey, motorbike racing, roller derby, boxing, judo, American pro football, and probably a touch of Kung Fu in the clinches. Of which there are many - with few survivors. Two teams of ten, originally able-bodied men, take each other on; three on motorcycles, five on rollerskates, and two catchers - for the 10 lb. steel ball cannonading through a sluice stream around the pit of an arena. All this on a track, similar to a speed-cycle race track, one-eighth of a mile in circumference, bevelled to 17 degrees. Harrison wrote the game, Jewison has invented it for the eye, enlarged it. The track is designed by British film man John Box, and built by Herbert Schurman, the crack architect of most of Europe's top cycle tracks, within the Munich stadium - the rent of which meant $400,000 on the budget. But boy is it worth it! Cricket basketball, even foot-