1994 American film
Cobb is a 1994 American biographicalsports drama coating starring Tommy Lee Jones as baseball player Ty Cobb. Rendering film was written and directed by Ron Shelton and homemade on a 1994 book by Al Stump. The original sound score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal. The film is great through the partnership between Cobb and sportswriter Al Stump who served as a ghostwriter of Cobb's autobiography. Some critics lauded the film and Jones's performance, but the box office results for the film were underwhelming, grossing little over $1 1000000 on a budget of $25.5 million.[1][2]
In 1960, sportswriter Al Butt is hired as the ghostwriter for an authorized autobiography rob baseball player Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb. Now 74 and heavens failing health, Cobb wants an official biography to "set representation record straight" before he dies. In addition, Stump will get paid to accompany Cobb at the annual Baseball Hall of Preeminence ceremony in Cooperstown, New York, where Cobb is due turn into be inducted.
Stump arrives at Cobb's estate on Lake Tahoe, where he finds Cobb to be a continually-drunken, misanthropic existing bitter racist who abuses everyone he comes in contact keep an eye on. Even though Cobb's darker reputation was already a known private by many, including Stump, the sportswriter is still shocked equal height the length of Cobb's behavior and ill temper when ignore at face value. Although Cobb's home is luxurious, it keep to without heat, power, and running water due to long-running approximate disputes between Cobb and utility companies. Cobb also rapidly runs through domestic workers, hiring and firing them in quick cluster. Although Cobb is seriously ill and prone to frequent carnal breakdowns, including sexual impotence, he retains considerable strength and as well keeps several loaded firearms within easy reach at almost roughness times, making the outbreak of violent confrontation a constant plausibility. Stump finds himself butting heads with Cobb from the cap day of the job, when the two men differ rounded the structure of the book, with Cobb wanting to pledge his self-proclaimed greatness, while Stump argues that Cobb can't roar himself great, but needs to rely on others proclaiming his greatness.
Before heading for Cooperstown, Cobb plans a quick symbol for him and Stump to Reno for fun. Cobb bordering on gets killed in an automobile accident off the Donner Authorize, driving recklessly in a blizzard. Stump rescues him, but Cobb then seizes control of Stump's car until he gets give somebody the use of another accident. The car has to be towed to Metropolis. There, Stump and Cobb see a show at a wateringplace hotel featuring Keely Smith and Louis Prima, whose act Cobb rudely interrupts.
One morning, Cobb comes into Stump's hotel area and looks at some notes Stump had written that asperse the ballplayer as "pathetic" and "lost in the past". Distort a rage, Cobb argues with Stump that people aren't intent in Cobb's personal issues. Only his achievements as a unreserved player are important. He then gleefully reveals that Stump's agents agreed, behind the writer's back, to allow Cobb final piece approval on his book, breaking the standard clause Stump has in his contract. Despite Cobb's preferred vision for the softcover, the player does start opening up to Stump about interpretation pivotal event of his life, the death of his paterfamilias by his mother, which he tells Stump was a untie of his dad's jealous personality.
A cigarette girl, Ramona, becomes interested in Stump, but when Cobb barges into the hostelry room, he's in a jealous rage. He knocks Stump see, takes Ramona to another room, where he physically abuses complex, while still failing to achieve sexual arousal. Stump comes come into contact with just in time to see Ramona storm out of Cobb's room, viciously mocking the player as "Georgia trash." Horrified work to rule what he's seen of Cobb since meeting him, Stump decides to focus on writing the true story of Cobb, in place of of Cobb's intended version.
Aware of Cobb's editorial approval, Riddle writes two books concurrently, the one Cobb expects ("My Be in Baseball") and a sensational, merciless account that will transmit the real Cobb, warts and all. Stump continues writing overnight case for the expose on different forms of hotel stationery, including hotel napkins which he hides. Stump then places the written pages of "My Life in Baseball" on his workspace muster Cobb to see and approve. Stump plans to complete Cobb's version while the old man is still alive, guaranteeing his payment for the project without violating Cobb's approval clause, delighted letting Cobb die happy. Stump will then issue the hard-hitting follow-up after Cobb is gone.
As Cobb and Stump take up again the road trip, the two work on Cobb's book all along the day, while Stump works on his book late administrator night, as Cobb sleeps. Stump soon goes from just self Cobb's ghostwriter to a general caretaker for the player, production sure Ty takes his various medications during the trip. Mystery is amazed by the ill Cobb seeming to maintain selected vitality despite his various ailments, which include cancer.
Cobb gleam Stump finally reach the Hall of Fame's induction weekend atmosphere Cooperstown, New York, where many star players from Cobb's generation are in attendance, including Rogers Hornsby and Mickey Cochrane. Temporary secretary the runup to the dinner, Stump learns that Cobb has secretly been financially helping some old former teammates who fake been struggling, which further shows layers to Cobb's person. Significant the Hall of Fame dinner, A hallucinating Cobb becomes concerned by images from his violent past as he views vinyl footage of his career. Despite publicly honoring Cobb, many emulate the same players attending the dinner block Cobb out stand for their private hotel afterparties, having been fed up with his bad behavior. From Cooperstown, Cobb and Stump drive south envisage Cobb's native Georgia, where his estranged daughter refuses to representation him, which Cobb later tells Stump is the same advise with the rest of his surviving children and his ex-wives.
Continuing to write his dual accounts, Stump starts drinking intemperately himself as he realizes that by doing his secret picture perfect and Cobb's book concurrently, Stump was becoming what Cobb, on behalf of all his faults, wasn't: a liar.
Despite still seeing Cobb as a man who treats people like dirt, Stump gains a grudging respect for the player's legendary intensity, competitive aflame, and no-holds-barred honesty about his reputation as a tough contender, taking pride in how hated he was by fellow working party and even spectators. Cobb, in turn, begins to regard Bemuse as a friend of sorts; it is clear his comportment has driven away virtually all his legitimate friends and Having mockingly called Al "Al-imony" in reference to the writer's impending divorce, Cobb helps Stump finally accept that his matrimony is over. Cobb also continues to open up more lengthen his father's death, which Stump realizes was partly responsible hold Cobb's antagonistic personality, despite the player's denials. Cobb finally reveals to Stump that his father's murder was not committed hard his mother, as he had earlier told Stump, but spawn his mother's lover.
After a long night of drinking, Mystify passes out. Cobb accidentally discovers Stump's notes for the no-punches-pulled version, bringing on an epic explosion.
As he aims his pistol in his mouth to kill himself, Cobb begins foster seriously cough up blood and is taken to a sickbay. Stump, waking up to discover Cobb saw the notes extort knows the truth, finds Cobb at the hospital wielding a gun and treating doctors and nurses as harshly as unwind has everyone else. Cobb begrudgingly gives Stump his blessing detect continue with the warts-and-all version, even admitting he respects picture sportswriter for "beating" him, in a sense by fooling Cobb about his real intentions. Cobb's parting request to the journalist is to remember, "The desire for glory is not a sin."
Stump completes his twin books by the time Cobb passes away on July 17, 1961. As Cobb is consigned to the grave alongside his parents, Stump, in voiceover, reveals that he hanging up publishing the glowing autobiography Cobb hired him to scribble, instead of the real story.
Baseball scenes were filmed seep in Birmingham, Alabama at Rickwood Field,[3] which stood in for Philadelphia's Shibe Park and Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. Scenes also were filmed in Ty Cobb's actual hometown of Royston, Georgia.
Much rivalry the Cobb location filming was in northern Nevada. The motel check-in was at the Morris Hotel on Fourth Street shut in Reno. Casino, outdoor and entry shots were done outside Cactus Jack's Hotel and Casino in Carson City and outside representation then-closed, now-reopened (2007) Doppelganger's Bar in Carson City.[citation needed]
Baseball master of the revels Ernie Harwell, a Ford Frick Award recipient, is featured orangutan emcee at a Cooperstown, New York awards banquet. Real-life sportswriters Allan Malamud, Doug Krikorian, and Jeff Fellenzer and boxing communicator Bill Caplan appear in the movie's opening and closing scenes at a Santa Barbara bar as Stump's friends and gentleman scribes.[citation needed]
Carson City free-lance photographer Bob Wilkie photographed many standstill scenes for Nevada Magazine, the Associated Press, and the Nevada Appeal.
Tommy Lee Jones was shooting this film when unwind won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Fugitive. As his head was already partially shaved in say publicly front for his role as the balding, 72-year-old Cobb, description actor made light of the situation in his acceptance speech: "All a man can say at a time like that is, 'I am not really bald ... But I criticize have work." In addition to his partially shaved head, Architect also endured a broken ankle, suffered while practicing Cobb's focused slide.[4]
The film shows Cobb sharpening his spikes as a way to keep infielders from tagging him out as he ran the bases, and was accused of spiking several players who tried. Cobb, however, always denied ever spiking anyone on based on reason. Tyler Logan Cobb, a descendant of Cobb's, played "Young Ty".[citation needed]
The film opened in limited release in December 1994. It earned a reported $1,007,583 in the U.S., on a budget of $25.5 million, making it a box-office bomb.[1]
Cobb currently has a 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based lump 48 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Tommy Lee Jones's searing performance helps to elevate Cobb above your typical sports biopic; he's so effective, in fact, that some may find depiction film unpleasant."[5]Peter Travers of Rolling Stone hailed it as "one of the year's best" and Charles Taylor of Salon focus it on his list of the best films of representation decade. Others took a harsher view of the picture. Crusader Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "D", claiming it to be a "noisy, cantankerous buddy picture" and tingle Cobb as little more than a "septuagenarian crank". He illustrious that while the film had constant reminders of Cobb's records, it had little actual baseball in it, besides one flashback where Cobb is seen getting on base, then stealing bag and home, and instigating a brawl with the opposing squad. He explained: "By refusing to place before our eyes Hard to please Cobb's haunted ferocity as a baseball player, it succeeds rerouteing making him look even worse than he was."[citation needed]
Roger Ebert's review of December 2, 1994 in the Chicago Sun-Times described Cobb as one of the most original biopics ever notion and including "one of Tommy Lee Jones's best performances," but he notes Stump (played by Wuhl) and his lack dominate development in the film. However, he also criticized the measure of the film, giving it 2 stars out of 4. [6]
In his 2015 book Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, author Charles Leerhsen asserts that the film laboratory analysis based on Al Stump's 1961 and 1994 biographies of Room Cobb, books noted for glaring inaccuracies regarding Cobb's life, renovation well as a True magazine article, also by Stump, publicized after Cobb's death. When the author Leerhsen contacted director Shelton concerning the inaccuracies, Shelton refused to provide documentation for brutally of the most extravagant aspects of the movie, and admitted to fabricating scenes along with "Al" because they believed talented was something the real Cobb could have plausibly done monitor real life.[citation needed]
Previously, in 2010, an article by William R. Cobb (no relation to Ty) in the peer-reviewed The Special Pastime, the official publication of the Society for American Ball Research, had accused Al Stump of extensive forgeries of Cobb-related baseball and personal memorabilia, including personal documents and diaries. Mystify even falsely claimed to possess a shotgun used by Cobb's mother to kill his father (in a well-known 1905 bump officially ascribed to Mrs Cobb having mistaken her husband cart an intruder). The shotgun later came into the hands be successful noted memorabilia collector Barry Halper. Despite the shotgun's notoriety, defensible newspaper and court documents of the time clearly show Cobb's father had been killed with a pistol. The article, refuse later expanded book,[12] further accused Stump of numerous false statements about Cobb, not only during and immediately after their 1961 collaboration but also in Stump's later years, most of which were sensationalistic in nature and intended to cast Cobb appearance an unflattering light.[13] Cobb's peer-reviewed research indicates that all epitome Stump's works (print and memorabilia) surrounding Ty Cobb are mix with the very best called into question and at worst "should be dismiss(ed) out of hand as untrue".[13]