The Longest Yard [Blu-ray]

Director: Robert Aldrich, Peter Segal, Jack Giarraputo Robert Aldrich

Overview

Ex-football star Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) ends up in a prison run by sadistic sports-nut Warden Hazen (Eddie Albert). Strong-armed into forming an inmate football team, Crewe manages to instill an esprit de corps previously lacking in the prisoners' lives. Besides, they now have the chance to beat the guards' football team, headed by the hissable Capt. Knauer (Ed Lauter). Hazen orders Crewe to throw the match; otherwise, Crewe will never get the pardon he's been promised. The football game that follows consumes nearly a third of the picture.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/16/2023
UPC:	0738329262754
Original Release:	1974
Rating:	R
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Language:	English
Time:	2:01:00
Sales rank:	18,612

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Burt Reynolds	Paul Crewe
Eddie Albert	Warden Rudolph Hazen
Ed Lauter	Capt. Wilhelm Knauer
Michael Conrad	Nate Scarboro,Actor
James Hampton	`Caretaker' Farrell
Harry Caesar	Granville
John Steadman	Pop
Charles Tyner	Unger
Mike Henry	Rassmeusen
Jim Nicholson	Ice Man
Bernadette Peters	Warden's Secretary
Pervis Atkins	Mawabe
Tony Cacciotti	Rotka
Anitra Ford	Melissa,Announcer,Announcer
Joe Kapp	Walking Boss
Richard Kiel	Samson
Pepper Martin	Shop Steward
Mort Marshall	Assistant Warden
Ray Nitschke	Bogdanski
Sonny Sixkiller	Indian
Dino Washington	Mason
Ernie Wheelwright	Spooner
Joe Dorsey	Bartender
Gus Carlucci	Team Doctor
Jack Rockwell	Trainer
Sonny Shroyer	Tannen
Ray Ogden	Schmidt
Don Ferguson	Referee
Chuck Hayward	Trooper
Alfie Wise	Trooper
Robert Tessier	Shokner
Tony Reese	Levitt
Steve Wilder	J.J.
George Jones	Big George
Wilbur Gillan	Big Wilbur
Wilson Warren	Buttercup
Joe Jackson	Little Joe
Howard Silverstein	Howie
Donald Hixon	Donny
Adam Sandler	Actor
Chris Rock	Actor
James Cromwell	Actor
William Fichtner	Actor
Nicholas Turturro	Actor
Terry Crews	Actor
Michael Irvin	Actor
Michael J. Fox	Actor
Walter Williamson	Actor
Bill Goldberg	Actor
Cloris Leachman	Actor
Brian Bosworth	Actor
Tracy Morgan	Actor
David Patrick Kelly	Actor
Rob Schneider	Actor
Steve Austin	Actor
Lobo Sebastian	Actor
Kevin Nash	Actor
Bob Sapp	Actor
Edward Bunker	Actor
Dan Patrick	Actor
Dalip Singh	Actor
Bill Romanowski	Actor
Malcolm Atterbury	Actor
Frank De Vol	Composer

Technical Credits

Albert S. Ruddy

Tracy Keenan Wynn

Sheldon Turner

Robert Aldrich	Director
Albert S. Ruddy	Producer,Screenwriter,Screenwriter
Peter Segal	Director
Jack Giarraputo	Director
Tracy Keenan Wynn	Screenwriter
Sheldon Turner	Screenwriter
John Wilkinson	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

When it comes to football, good-old-boy comedy, a grand confrontation with self-esteem, and some great don't-blink character turns, The Longest Yard scores on every down. Burt Reynolds, having established his big-screen credibility as a bow-and-arrow-toting macho man two years earlier in Deliverance, went back to his roots as a football player (he'd played at Florida State) in this comedy-cum-morality play from director Robert Aldrich (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Dirty Dozen). Reynolds plays a former professional quarterback who's now riding the bench in a state penitentiary, where the evil, conniving warden (Eddie Albert) pressures him into organizing a team of inmates to play against the prison's beefy guards. The guards moonlight as the warden's organized semipro team, so Reynolds's ragtag bunch shouldn't have a chance, but... Reynolds confronts the title's moral equivalent when the warden offers him an early release in exchange for throwing the big game. Film buffs can look for the ever-present Reynolds crony James Hampton as Caretaker; Bond's future "Jaws," Richard Kiel as Samson, and a charming beehive-haired turn by Bernadette Peters as the warden's secretary. While there are other powerful pigskin tales -- Brian's Song, Rudy -- the uneven playing field confronting Reynolds makes The Longest Yard a particularly satisfying tale.

Barnes & Noble - Charles Salzberg

In keeping with Hollywood's shifting values in the early '70s, the protagonists of this prison comedy are inmates, and not the guards and wardens who oversee them. As in The Last Detail or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the film's representatives of mainstream society are evil or banal, while its rebellious heroes are irreverent and vital. And, as in those films, a charismatic leader helps the audience to identify with the counter-culture heroes -- a role ably filled here by Burt Reynolds. An accomplished football player in college, Reynolds scored his first post-Deliverance hit with The Longest Yard, cementing his status as a Hollywood sex symbol. Filmed on location at a prison in Georgia, the picture has the naturalistic look and "experimental" editing common to films of the time. Michael Luciano was nominated for an Oscar primarily for his energetic editing of the climactic football game, which takes up a full half-hour.

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