Product Description

An incredible true story that unfolds like a ripping good yarn... With an uproarious, impossible Hollywood ending (Andrew O Hehir, Salon.com), Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 is filmmaker Kevin Rafferty s (The Atomic Cafe) acclaimed documentary depicting one of the most legendary games in the history of sports. Harvard Stadium November 23, 1968. With Vietnam raging, Nixon in the White House, and issues from civil rights to women's lib dividing the country, Harvard and Yale, both teams undefeated for the first time since 1909, meet for the annual climax of the Ivy League football season. On the blue-blooded Yale campus, gridiron fever has made local celebrities out of a Yale team led by quarterback Brian Dowling, who hadn t lost a game that he finished since the 7th grade, and who was the role model for Doonesbury s B.D. At civil unrest scarred Harvard, a melting pot team of working class players, antiwar activists, and a decorated Vietnam vet set aside their differences for the Big Game. Together, Yale and Harvard stage an unforgettable football contest that baffled even their own coaches. Using vintage game footage and bracingly honest contemporary interviews with the players from both sides, including Harvard lineman and future Oscar® winner Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men), Rafferty crafts an alternately suspenseful, hilarious, and poignant portrait of American lives, American sports, and American ideals both tested on the playing field and transformed by turbulent times.

Special Features:
- Bonus Interviews (73 min.) Additional interview excerpts not included in the film, the players provide a deeper look at the season, the game, and its aftermath.
- Theatrical Trailer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2983 in DVD
• Brand: Kino Video
• Released on: 2009-08-04
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 104 minutes

Features

• Harvard Stadium November 23, 1968. With Vietnam raging, Nixon in theWhite House, and issues from civil rights to women's lib dividing thecountry, Harvard and Yale, both teams undefeated for the first time since1909, meet for the annual climax of the Ivy League football season. On theblue-blooded Yale campus, gridiron fever has made local celebrities out of aYale team led by quarterback Brian Dowli

Review
WONDERFUL... An Irresistible Human Story And As Fine A Documentary About Football As HOOP DREAMS Was On Basketball. --Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Review
Preposterously Entertaining... Pulses with the Artful, exciting beats of a Thriller. --Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Review
The Best Football Movie I've Ever Seen. --J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

Customer Reviews

Not just for alumni
I was in high school in 1968 and remember the game and its legend well. My wife knew nothing of the game. We both loved the movie. Rafferty skillfully weaves interviews with players with footage of the game and narration in an insightful and entertaining fashion. He also has a remarkably wry sense of humor. It's not a comedy but I found the audience erupting into laughter more often than at most mainstream comedies.
I saw it at a movie theater but I think it should be great on DVD at home.

Delightful, Captivating Film
I know very little about football. My girlfriend knows even less. Yet we were both captivated and delighted by this film.

Aside from getting caught up in the unfolding action of a football game that is more incredible than any fictionalized game I've seen, we really enjoyed the experience of the 60's that the film evoked through the stories told by the players. These are the most thoughtful, witty football players imaginable, and they drew us in with their frankness, insights, humor, and the reflectiveness that the 40 years of life-experience since the game have given them.

No matter who speaks in the movie, whether it's the guy who keeps wanting to hurt people to get them out of the game, the "aloof," introspective second string quarterback who can throw the ball 50 yards with either hand, Tommy Lee Jones, who was roommates with Al Gore and is about to hang up his helmet for good and move to Hollywood, or the Jewish player whose father tells him to play on the Sabbath, all the personal stories are beautifully edited together by the filmmaker to make an engrossing tale that's as much about interesting people living through a dramatic time as it is about a football game.

I think this film will continue to be around for a long time to come.

Only if you're comfortable with the oxymoron "Ivy-League Football"
Kevin Rafferty has done a masterful job in recreating the last time ever that Harvard and Yale played "The Game" to a tie in 1968. (Overtime now ensures that there will be no more ties.) The film consists entirely of three elements: (1) footage from the television broadcast, (2) interviews with the players, and (3) minimal graphics to tie the story together. Just the players - no coaches, no officials, no people in the stands, no commentariat. Of course, this is being recalled forty years after the fact, and some memories don't entirely jive with those of others or with the television clips. Watching the hour-plus of outtake interviews gives an even fuller picture, while making one grateful that Rafferty was judicious in his final cut. Probably best not to watch both the film and the bonus in one sitting.

If you think the only football games worthy of attention are professional and BCS caliber teams, you won't be interested in this movie. If you have nothing but antipathy (or worse) for the Ivy League, don't bother. If you are interested in a historical re-creation of an event that profoundly affected 40+ men who were coming of age in a time of considerable outside stress (the military draft at the height of the Vietnam war) and hearing their reactions to something that happened two-thirds of their lives ago, you could do a lot worse. If you're a Doonesbury fan from way back, you will also find it of interest.

The answer to the question why Calvin Hill was not featured more is that he declined to talk to Rafferty.