You are here
Home > Reviews > Entertainment > A Hockey Movie — Face Off Gets a Face Lift

A Hockey Movie — Face Off Gets a Face Lift

This hockey love story, a Canadian film, was made over 40 years ago and now it’s back on Blu-Ray (and a standard copy) thanks to VSC.

The music was consistent with the era (although too folksy for me) and the cars and hockey equipment; haircuts (Bobby Sherman-esque) are all fun to see. I was a youngster when this was released and it gave me some fun flashbacks.

Some of it was predictable but I give the original producer John F. Bassett and director George McCowan credit for developing a backdrop for a movie that had a lot of hockey stars and making it a story of sorts.

The non-hockey parts are a bit slow moving and the dialogue can be tedious at times.

The lead actor, Art Hindle (Billy Duke), was in Porky’s I and II and a lot of 1970’s television shows for an episode here and an episode there.

The Toronto-Boston game was fun seeing Bobby Orr, Derek Sanderson and Jacques Plante (he had his trademark towel wrapped around his neck). He was always cold yet he was one of the game greatest netminders. Orr looked great skating effortlessly on the ice like I remember him although I saw him at the tail end of his career.

The Leafs coach, John Vernon, another 70’s television regular played a solid part.

When Toronto played Chicago Bobby Hull was shown on the bench chewing gum a mile a minute.

Shots of the old “Maple Leaf Gardens” and the locker rooms are awesome to see.

Duke got into a fight and when his rocker girlfriend, Sherrie Lee Nelson played the part of (Trudy Young) saw her first game she was cringing because of the violence.

When the Leafs hit Detroit, at the old Olympia, Gordie Howe was on full display showing off some his moves at the age of 42!

When the Leafs played the Flyers you saw the old Spectrum one more time!

The Golden Seals were showed, wow, that was cool! The New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens were in there as well.

When they played the Kings they showed off their old hideous gold uniforms playing at “The Forum”.

In timely fashion Duke suffered a concussion!

Players got speaking parts and that’s always fun.

The SCTV parody was amazing seeing John Candy (playing for the Toronto Bay Leaves) knocking kids to the ground was awesome. Dave Thomas played the coach. This is the real “gold”. Rick Moranis is so funny and the soundtrack is hilarious. Eugene Levy is outstanding (loved his rendition of O’Canada) along with Catherine O’Hara. WOW!

VSC – has movies like this and more
http://videoservicecorp.com/

Russ_Cohen
I'm the author of 10 books. If you're looking for autographed copies just go to my Twitter @Sportsology and DM me.

Leave a Reply

Top