Bang the Drum Slowly

Sep 26, 1956

0h 57m

★ 6.3

Overview

A pitcher of a major-league baseball team finds out that his teammate and pal is desperately trying to hide that he is dying of a terminal disease so the owner won't find out and fire him.

Genres

Drama

TV Movie

Production Companies

Theatre Guild

Bang the Drum Slowly Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Henry "Author" Wiggen

Paul Newman

Bruce Pierson

Albert Salmi

Dutch

Rudy Bond

Coker

Clu Gulager

Goose

Arch Johnson

Holly

Georgann Johnson

Mick

Allen Leaf

Mr. Moors

John McGovern

Piney Woods

George Peppard

Horse

Bert Remsen

Telephone Operator

Ann Thomas

Barbara Babcock

This omnibus release consists of three playlets filmed and aired during television's Golden Age, and starring some of the legends of film and television. The collection originally ran as a two-hour segment on December 14, 1959, on the anthology series The Play of the Week, broadcast locally in New York City via the independent radio station WNTA. Each "tale" in the anthology was adapted from a single tale by the inimitable Sholom Aleichem, regarded by many as the "Yiddish Mark Twain". Included are: "A Tale of Chelm" starring Zero Mostel and Nancy Walker in the story of a bookseller attempting to buy a goat; "Bontche Schweig" about a poor man (Jack Gilford) whose recent arrival in Heaven makes the angels cry; and "The High School" about a Jewish merchant (Morris Carnovsky) persuaded by his wife (Gertrude Berg) to let their son attend a particular high school despite the enforcement of quotas for Jewish students.

8.0

Ababooned

Aug 23, 2024

Set in the Faubourg à mélasse district of Montreal, Quebec, in the 1950s, the film centres on a conflict between the Roman Catholic Church and a young team of baseball players.

7.2

Big

Jun 3, 1988

When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big—he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight. But he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.

6.1

Lullaby

Jun 13, 2014

Estranged from his family, Jonathan (Hedlund) discovers his father has decided to take himself off life support in forty-eight hours’ time. During this intensely condensed period, a lifetime of drama plays out. Robert (Jenkins) fights a zero sum game to reclaim all that his illness stole from his family. A debate rages on patients’ rights and what it truly means to be free. Jonathan reconciles with his father, reconnects with his mother (Archer), sister (Brown-Findlay), and his love (Adams) and reclaims his voice through two unlikely catalysts – a young, wise-beyond-her-years patient (Barden) and a no-nonsense nurse (Hudson). Through this intensely life affirming prism, an unexpected and powerful journey of love, laughter, and forgiveness unfolds.

6.1

The Midwife

Mar 22, 2017

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

6.6

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

Nov 8, 2002

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

6.2

The Elementary Particles

Feb 10, 2006

Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.

7.7

Cléo from 5 to 7

Apr 11, 1962

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

7.0

Kano

Feb 27, 2014

A Taiwanese high school baseball team travels to Japan in 1931 to compete in a national tournament.

0.0

Birthday Girl

Dec 22, 2002

A woman decides to celebrate her recovery from leukaemia by throwing a party. But before the big night, she discovers that the illness has returned. She decides to postpone telling everyone until the aprty is over, but during the evening she discovers that she is not the only one with a secret.

6.5

1984

Mar 6, 1956

In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

7.0

The Constant Gardener

Aug 31, 2005

Justin Quayle is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.

7.3

Kiss and Cry

Feb 10, 2017

A romantic drama based on the story of Carley Allison, a promising 18 year old figure skater and singer who made medical history in her fight against a rare 1 in 3.5 billion type of sarcoma.