In Bed and Dreaming: Basketball Jones and Janet

By way of a preface, let's make one thing crystal clear. Hoosiers is far and away the greatest film about basketball ever made. I don't see this fact ever changing

There are other fine basketball films.  Teen Wolf, for example.  J/K.  If you count that one, you’d be compelled to include Porky’s Revenge, where Meat Tuperello was modeling Bill Laimbeer 30+ years before the Pistons’ Bad Boys were en vogue.  But I digress.  

In the mid-1970s, Robby Benson screen-tested for the role of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.  He not only lost the part but in doing so, assisted in making twerpy Mark Hamill both a one-hit wonder and a household name.  Instead of starring in Star Wars, Benson co-wrote a screenplay with his father about a basketball player.  It became One on One, which he sold to Warner Brothers when he was 18.  Unfortunately in terms of popularity, it was in a galaxy far, far away from Star Wars.

Maybe it wasn’t a hit, but at least it wasn’t about laser guns, droids, and spaceships.  Nor did it keep grown men in a state of suspended adolescence for forty-years years and counting.  Instead, One on One is an intrepid look into the darkening world of big-time college athletics nested in a story about never giving up, and, yes, love. The tagline is, “There comes a time when love stops being a ball and starts being a woman.”  Not what I would’ve written, but nobody asked.  

Despite the fact One on One has existed largely in anonymity, the 1977 basketball-centric love story was one of my father’s favorite films.  This made perfect sense.  A scrawny, small-town white kid who could hit the jumper from anywhere on the court and dribble through a subway platform during rush hour had to have struck a chord with Mr. Wilson.  Had Benson’s character only done so with a Winston dangling from his lips and Grey Goose in his Gatorade bottle, it would’ve been a letter-perfect portrayal.

A staple for years as "Saturday Afternoon at the Movies" feature presentations on podunk UHF stations, I’d seen bits of the film but never in its entirety.  When I was a teenager, my father decided I needed to.  His purpose was both for entertainment and as a teaching tool about persistence and sticking with something you love.  We drove to every video rental store in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma one evening looking for a copy.  Only one store had any record of the film. It had been purged from the store’s offerings as it had only been rented twice in the store’s five-year existence.  I laughed.  

Years later, I finally watched One on One.  My sister and I found a VHS copy that we gifted our dad for Father’s Day.  Rarely had we seen him so pleased as he pried open the unwieldy plastic folding casing that held the cassette tape.  

A year or so back, I wanted to show my daughter One on One. Like my father, I thought it might be instructional in dealing with a situation she was navigating with her volleyball team. Like that evening in Broken Arrow, I couldn’t find a streaming service and the idea was placed on the backburner indefinitely.

Recently, the notion got lodged in my head once again, and this time I was able to find the film on a streaming platform we have.  Excited, I ran to my daughter’s room to share the news. She was watching a kid with a bad haircut on YouTube making fun of other people on YouTube.  To my surprise, she accepted my invitation.  To my further surprise, she stayed for the entire movie.

Benson plays Henry Steele, the aforementioned scrawny white kid with a deadly jumper and otherworldly ball-handling and passing skills. I assume the character to be based at least partially on Pete Maravich–given the flashy style of play and haircut.  Pistol was another of my father’s idols and I’m sure he noticed the resemblance as well.  Steele is a classic gym rat living Bear’s Clit, Colorado, where he is the star of his high school team and earned a letterman's jacket full of all-state honors.  His prowess and staggering statistics attract the attention of Moreland Smith, lauded coach of the mighty Western University–uh, Westies?  

Coach Smith wines and dines Steele, offering him a full, no-cut scholarship.  Henry also receives a new red Datsun sports car under the ruse that it is a graduation gift from his parents.

A naive and academically deficient Henry drives to Los Angeles where he is immediately extorted by a young but still annoying Melanie Griffith.  Upon arrival on the campus of Western, Henry is clearly out of his depth, though I suppose his latent naivety doe-y eyes are endearing. 

Western is a powerhouse, but one with corruption issues.  Not Fulmer Cup contenders, mind you, but still, for the mid-70s this was pretty inscrutable stuff.  In addition to the new Datsun, Henry, upon arriving on campus receives an envelope of game tickets to sell to boosters.  The players go to parties where the pot is smoked. There is academic fraud, greenies in the locker room, and the coach’s secretary is a nympho cougar (her name is BJ Rudolph--I see what you did there, you clever Benson boys!). The players get paid for jobs that require no actual work–Henry pulls down four bucks an hour to turn the football field sprinklers on and off.  Of course, the sprinklers are automatic and on a timer.  In an amusing parade of horribles, he uses his complimentary tickets to the Notre Dame game to bribe a police officer.  

However, Henry hits the jock-perk jackpot when he is assigned Janet Hays (Annette O’Toole) as his tutor.  Janet is intelligent, feisty, and an absolute smokeshow that Henry takes a shine to immediately.  Unfortunately, she is involved with a professor named Malcolm who is played by James G. Richardson.  Richardson appeared on three episodes of Emergency! where his character was also a dick.  Janet is his TA (mmm-hmm), assisting him with his Master’s thesis on the dangers of capitalism, lace-up shoes, sports, and all forms of humor.

But then my homework was never quite like this.

Henry and Malcolm butt heads immediately.  Malcolm views Henry as a dumb jock (he’s not far off) and Henry sees Malcolm as a holdover hippie asshat (spot-on).  Eventually, Malcolm makes one too many churlish, elitist comments and Henry calls him out.  In a moment of clarity, Janet realizes Malcolm is a douche and gives him the heave.  She then demonstrates her first outward signs of affection for Henry.

On the court, Henry is stuck on the struggle bus. His flamboyant, improvisational style of play is at odds with Coach Smith’s traditional (old fashioned?) system and Henry finds himself buried on the bench.  After he takes a pill given to him by his roommate that happens to be speed, Henry goes nutters at practice.  A frustrated Coach Smith asks Henry to renounce his scholarship, which Henry, of course, refuses to do.  As a result, Henry’s perks are rescinded and he’s forced to get a job as a doorman at a nightclub.  The moonlighting only makes his situation worse.  

The moose is loose.

Upon learning of Henry's predicament, Janet falls ass over teakettle for him and pledges her assistance.  She waives her tutoring fee and provides Henry with a place to stay.  At practice, Henry becomes the team whipping boy and is put through hell in an effort by Coach Smith to make him quit, plying Steele with a cubic shit ton of physical and emotional abuse.

In a nationally televised game, Western struggles through most of the contest.  They are thin in the backcourt due to injuries and another starter fouls out early in the second half.  Trailing late in the game with the team’s perfect season on the line, Coach Smith is left with no option other than to put Henry on the floor with stern instructions not to touch the ball.  

This is next to impossible for a guard, and after a shaky start, Henry shifts into full-on beast mode, sinking jumpers, dishing dimes, and demonstrating more moves than Ex-Lax, as the tune goes.  Western comes back to pull off a dramatic victory with Henry heralded as the hero of the day.

The next day, Henry is summoned to Coach Smith’s office.  After chiding Henry for disobeying instructions, he agrees that Henry played his ass off and was responsible for the team’s win.  He’s contrite and informs Henry that he will not be hassled about his scholarship again.  

Henry, aware that his stock has risen nationwide (and likely that Janet is graduating) turns Coach Smith’s phrase from earlier in the film against him.

The credits roll to the music of Seals and Crofts while Henry and Janet take on a gaggle of school children at a playground basketball court.

Of note is the fact that Robby Benson was quite the athlete and baller and was able to perform all the basketball-related scenes for himself. That's pretty badass.