“You’ve never seen Slap Shot?” This was the response I recently received from my good friend when we were discussing ice hockey movies (a ‘genre’ that I am unfamiliar with). As a Brit, ice hockey is not a sport that is highly popular here. All I know about ice hockey comes from the Disney movie “The Mighty Ducks”. I’ve never been particularly interested in sports movies, as I am not really a fan of watching sport matches on TV (I much prefer to be actually participating in the activity rather than be watching it). I had never heard of “Slap Shot” before but it instantly appealed to me, ticking several of my boxes. It starred Paul Newman (one of my favorite film stars), it had been made in the 1970s (one of my favorite eras of cinema) and was supposedly very funny.
Released in 1977, “Slap Shot” was directed by George Roy Hill, who had won the Academy Award for Best Director for the 1973 film “The Sting” which had also starred Paul Newman. Hill had also directed Newman in the 1969 Buddy Western film, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. “Slap Shit” was written by screenwriter Nancy Dowd, who had based much of the script, as well as several of the characters, on her brother Ned Dowd's experience playing in the minor league of professional hockey. The film focuses on a minor league ice hockey team known as the Charlestown Chiefs that resorts to violent play to gain popularity in a declining factory town. As Dan Epstein writes for the_ Rolling Stone_, “No other sports film of the 1970s so brilliantly captures the downbeat look and feel of its era, while also realistically rendering the lives of its subjects, both on the field (or ice, in this case) and off.”
Realism was a key element to the film, and Hill insisted on hiring actors who could ice skate. According to Mental Floss, Al Pacino originally wanted the role of Reggie Dunlop, the Chief’s coach/player. Pacino was reportedly pretty gutted about losing out on the role to Newman, Stating the following, ““But because George Roy Hill was doing it, I couldn’t do it. I should have made that movie. That was my kind of character—the hockey player. Paul Newman is a great actor, it’s not a matter of that. I read that script and passed it on to George Roy Hill that I wanted to talk to him about it, and all he said was, ‘Can he ice skate?’ That’s all he was interested in, whether I could ice skate or not. That was a certain kind of comment. He didn’t want to talk about anything else. It was like he was saying, 'What the hell, it could work with anybody.’ The way in which he responded said to me he wasn’t interested”. Newman did most of his own ice skating, however he did have help from professional hockey player Rod Bloomfield who served as his on-ice stunt double in many sequences.
Paul Newman is perfectly cast in this film. On paper the character comes across as unlikeable. Dunlop is a washed up ‘star’ of sorts. He’s a big fish in a small pond, who drinks too much and sleeps around with anything that has legs (or at least tries to). Dunlop even tries to ‘seduce’ the wife of the Chief’s star player Ned Braden (Michael Ontkean). Throughout the film, Dunlop makes lame attempts to get back with his wife Francine (Jennifer Warren) but the film ends bitterly sweet with Dunlop and the Chief’s winning the league’s championship but Francine leaves Charlestown to pursue her career.
Like many of the films from the New Hollywood era (that ran from 1969 until 1980), “Slap Shot” ends with a downbeat tone, and the film has an interesting commentary on the state of the rising divorce rates and the decline gender norms. In a lot of ways, the male boorish behaviour depicted in “Slap Shot” feels like a reaction to the second-wave feminist movement and women’s lib. However, the transformation of Lily Braden (Lindsay Crouse) from slob to ‘stepford’ wife is a reminder that women were still expected to conform. As Dan Epstein writes, many of the characters in “Slap Shot” “clearly reflect how Americans were grappling issues of personal identity and self-fulfillment in the wake of the sexual revolution, the feminist movement and the psychedelic awakening of the 1960s”.
What “Slap Shot” manages to do so successfully is capture the ‘locker room’ environment. Nowadays, ‘locker room talk’ has become extremely taboo and perceived as an example of toxic masculinity, so the locker room scenes contained within the film act as a time capsule to a time pre-third-wave feminism. According to Mental Floss much of the dialogue featured in the locker room scenes were based on real conversations that took place in actual locker rooms. “While Ned was still playing for the Jets, Nancy gave him a tape recorder and asked him to document some of the colorful banter that his teammates tossed around; Dowd’s fellow players didn’t seem to mind. “He carried it everywhere and he just recorded all of this sh*t that went on,” said longtime Jet John Gofton. “He would send the tapes to Nancy, and Nancy in turn would write.””
By today’s standards, much of the comedy in “Slap Shot” is very politically incorrect. The word Fa*got is used frequently, along with the word pu*sy as a way to insult people. In order to mess with a rival goalkeeper, Dunlop informs the man about his estranged wife being a lesbian, “Hey Hanrahan! Hanrahan! Hanrahan - Suzanne sucks pussy! Hey Hanrahan she's a dyke! I know, I know! She's a lesbian, a lesbian, a lesbian!” The insult works and the Chief’s end up scoring a goal. However, such a scene wouldn’t take place in a film from 2022, and it’s hard to decide whether I should be laughing along with this scene or cringing (I did both). The film contained such colorful language that the taglines for the film boasted of this attribute, stating the following “Slap Shot out slaps... out swears... out laughs..” and another tagline made it explicitly clear that the film featured “Certain Language [which] May Be Too Strong For Children”
Despite it’s colorful language, it’s violence and politically incorrect dialogue, “Slap Shot” still remains such a riot to watch. Each character seems larger than life and that’s what makes the film so magically. Of course, people mostly associate the film with the infamous Hanson brothers, consisting of Jeff (Jeff Carlson), Steve (Steve Carlson) and Jack Hanson (David Hanson).
The Hanson brothers were based on the real-life Carlson brothers, and as Jacob Shelton wrote for Groovy History, “With their coke bottle glasses, toy car sets, and knuckle dragging brand of on-ice enforcement, this trio of gangly goons are the heart and soul of Slap Shot.” As Shelton goes on to write, “Much of the fun of Slap Shot is watching the Hanson brothers wreck shop on the opposing teams through a creative means of beating in their skulls.” And, I have to agree. Much of the fun of watching the film, solely belongs to the crazy exploits of the Hanson brothers. Do I recommend people checking out “Slap Shot”? Hell yeah! But, just bare in mind that it certainly isn’t no “Mighty Ducks.”
Sources used:
https://groovyhistory.com/slap-shot-hanson-brothers
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/90968/12-fun-facts-about-slap-shot
Photos from IMDB