Watch Fear Strikes Out For Free

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

i found this inspired by true events movie based on the life of Jimmy Piersall,baseball player for the Boston Red Sox to be quite compelling.it charts his life(briefly)as a boy with a love for baseball and dreams of making the big leagues.he plays the game from high school league up,all the while being criticized by his Father for not being good enough and having it drilled into his head that nothing he does is good enough.even making the big leagues doesn't solves his problems. Anthony Perkins plays young Jimmy Piersall as an adult and Karl Malden plays his father.Perkins puts in a terrific performance.for me,Fear Strikes Out is an 8/10

Even though I have noted this to be a spoiler review, I will mark the few spoilers within the comment.In reality, Jimmy Piersall was a gifted outfielder who battled bipolar disorder throughout his life, especially during his playing days in a time when lithium had not yet been discovered as a drug treatment for the disorder. (If anyone wonders, that treatment began in 1958.) That's not the character the film portrays. Instead, this Jim Piersall (Who is oddly never called "Jimmy," considering that he is almost exclusively known as "Jimmy" in reality.) is a kid (presumably only 23 years old at the film's close, based on his real-life history) pushed too hard, too far, and too fast by his father, resulting in a mental breakdown that requires him to face his true feelings about his father. However, as long as one does not expect to see the lifelong bipolar disorder struggle portrayed, this film does easily merit the viewing.The easiest part of the film to appreciate is the excellent acting, especially by the always-excellent Anthony Perkins. Perkins manages to convey such varying emotions and degrees of emotion that it boggles the mind. He ranges everywhere from an insane anger to a subtle feeling of pain hidden under a look of beaming happiness and does so with a dexterity rarely found in any actor. Karl Malden also deserves some credit for an excellent performance as the driving, overbearing-but-loving father. He never needs any dialogue to tell us how he feels about his son or why he pushes Jim the way he does, because his face tells it all. No other characters in the film really gave the actor the opportunity to show tremendous ability.However, the direction is also excellent. Robert Mulligan reinforces his film's themes with constant images showing Jim behind or between bars, as though he is trapped in his path (until of course the mental hospital, where such visual entrapment never occurs). He even goes so far as to show John Piersall handing his son a letter saying that scouts from the Boston Red Sox are coming to town to see him, a scene that would seem to bring the two together as they have nearly accomplished their shared goal, with a fence separating them. The scene is one of the most poignant in all of film history. Even the ending of the film is shot with a particular eye to detail that rewards the careful viewer.*Note: This paragraph is about hints from close viewing, so there are some small spoilers. None should hinder enjoyment of the film, but one should be warned.* There are also a number of subtle hints that seem to suggest that Piersall's problem is more than a temporary breakdown. First of all, his father at one point tells his mother, "I don't want you going away again," suggesting that perhaps she has the same issues Jim does. Secondly, the conclusion of the film is ambiguous, showing a beaming Jim Piersall headed onto the field of play bathed in a heroic, heavenly bright overhead light, but doing so from such a distance as to suggest that perhaps this ending isn't assured. These elements may have been to suggest the bipolar disorder from which Piersall actually suffered while presenting his case as it would have appeared at the time it occurred. The original Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders appeared in 1952, so certainly bipolar disorder's existence was already established (and the term was coined around the turn of the century, by Emil Kreiplin if memory serves) and could have been incorporated into the film. It's an interesting close viewing element of the film, at least. *Spoilers over* Overall, "Fear Strikes Out" may have been something of a distortion of reality (and obviously Jimmy Piersall himself thought so) and it probably oversimplifies Piersall's psychological problems, but it does tell its own story beautifully and artfully with incredible performances and spot-on direction. The only real issue I have with the film is the score, which was so over-dramatic as to undercut the real emotion of the film. It is definitely recommended.

FEAR STRIKES OUT dealt with a theme not often portrayed in films of the '50s--mental illness--and is a shattering example of how a father's insistence on perfection can have a significant effect on the well being of a sensitive individual unable to meet his father"s expectations. Marketed at time of release as a baseball movie, it's really a relationship movie about a father and son--that is the real heart and soul of the story.Based on the real life story of Jim Piersall, a well known American sports figure for the Boston Red Sox, as taken from his own account of his life. Slowly the picture emerges of the kind of stress he was under to achieve his goal of playing in the majors, the kind of guilt he felt whenever he did something that aggravated his father--as in simple disobedience when he didn't come straight home after work and then broke his ankle at an ice skating rink.Even in the midst of achievements, his father finds flaws to criticize. "Wish me luck," he pleads with his father when the Red Sox signs him. "No, luck won't do it. You've got to be thinking and planning all the time."And later on in the film, after his breakdown and he lands in a mental asylum, he defends his father to his psychiatrist with, "If it hadn't been for him pushing me and driving me, I wouldn't be where I am today!" Chilling words and the scene is the turning point in Piersall's progress toward recovery and the root cause of his problems.It's the sort of film everyone can relate to, sports minded or not, because it does reveal the danger of parents who expect too much from their children, with tragic results. The scene where Malden tries to take him from the hospital before he's ready to go, is a chiller.Both ANTHONY PERKINS and KARL MALDEN give the kind of performances that merited at least Oscar nominations--solid and superb.Summing up: A satisfying, mature drama that takes a penetrating look at the danger of pressure-driven father/son relationships in the sports world where winning is the only thing that counts.

I read part of Karl Malden's recent (in the past five years or so) autobiography, "When Do I Start?". Actually the first thing I did was look up this movie in the book's index! To my amazement, he wrote specifically about the scene that affected me the most, when father & son are in the empty stands, and his son is telling him he's the 2nd best at some position, and father says, "Well, you're not the best." HE WAS SO COLD. In the book, Mr. Malden says he "channeled" (my word, not his) his own father for that scene. I saw this movie for the first time in the past 10 years. It completely freaks me out that Mr. Malden would write about this particular scene FORTY years later. I highly recommend the autobiography, he is so under-appreciated, I think.