The Longest Yard

Cast: Burt Reynolds, Eddie Albert, Ed Lauter, Mike Conrad

Director: Robert Aldrich (1974)

This is the original movie and the one with the most memorable moments. Really funny moments like the prisoner’s star quarterback throwing the ball right into a linebacker’s groin several times. This is a very funny film and the football scenes are very well-shot.

Paul Crewe, a former All-Pro Quarterback, who was kicked out of the game for illegal gambling, is going to prison for stealing his girlfriend’s car. Once he’s behind bars, Crewe meets Warden Hazen, a sadistic control freak, who originally wants Crewe to help the guards who play in their own Guard League. But once he sees how things are in prison, he takes up the Warden’s idea of having a game with the guards and the inmates. At first the prison population wasn’t keen on having the game, but Crewe won them over with some help from some influential inmates. With better food and real football uniforms and equipment, the prisoner’s gel as a team, much to the concern of the warden, who pressures Crewe to throw the first half of the game. At halftime Crewe asks an old inmate who, 30 years earlier punched the warden when he was a guard? “yup” said the inmate.   was all Crewe needed to hear? He would rally his team to victory.

Fun Facts:

With a production budget of under 5-Million dollars and a gross almost $50,000,000, This is the film that solidified Burt Reynolds as a major movie star.

As a second banana on various TV series in the 1960’s and 70’s, Reynolds broke through on the big screen in the action classic, “Deliverance” in 1972. “The Longest Yard” showed that he also showed he had a sense of humor about himself on film and on television talk shows. Along with Clint Eastwood,Reynolds would become one of the biggest film stars of the 1970’s and ’80’s.