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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: TCM is doing an evening of made-for-tv movies
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 17:02:50 -0000 (UTC)
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Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 23 Mar 2024 01:00:28 -0000 (UTC) Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

>>Brian's Song
>>Vinnie in the Plastic Bubble
>>Duel
>>The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

>I've never seen the first two but the latter two were both excellent
>films, well worth seeing again. I might even watch Brian's song since
>I've heard it is excellent. I have no interest in seeing Travolta in
>the plastic bubble though.

That was the year he became a breakout star on Welcome Back, Kotter, and
the same year he did Carrie. I don't know which movie was produced
first. I watched the end of it on TCM. I'd never seen it all the way
through. From what I've read, it's heavily fictionalized and took lots
of liberties with the real story. The real person criticized the
"astronaut suit" he used toward the end because there's no way to clean
the outside of the suit so it didn't introduce pathogens deadly enough
to him, carried into the bubble room where he had to take it off. He'd
have needed some sort of sterile robing/disrobing room before he entered
the bubble.

They made Billy Dee Williams look a lot like Gayle Sayers. James Caan
had played high school and some college football before studying
theater.

The practice sessions didn't look tough enough, so I suspect some of the
"players" were actors and not football players, but there were genuine
Chicago Bears as extras in the movie.

I read a little about what Piccolo went through with the cancer. It was
far more gruesome than what was shown on television. It was in his lung
but it wasn't lung cancer. The first surgery was treating cancers that
had already metasticized throughout his body. He had a series of major
surgeries and, essentially, didn't benefit from any of them.

The movie wasn't terribly clear on the passage of time but a couple of
months had passed between several of the hospital scenes.

For a football player, Piccolo really was a little guy, even before the
weight loss due to the cancer.