Stealing Home (1988)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Directors:

Steven Kampmann
William Porter

Writers:

Steven Kampmann (written by) &
William Porter (written by)

Release Date:

26 August 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Stealing hearts, stealing laughs, stealing memories

Plot:

Mark Harmon is a washed-up baseball player who is call back home to handle the ashes of his childhood sweetheart/ first love who had committed suicide...

Plot Keywords:

Friend | One Night Stand | First Love | Baseball | Suicide

Cast

Mark Harmon	...	Billy Wyatt
Blair Brown	...	Ginny Wyatt
Jonathan Silverman	...	Teenage Alan Appleby
Harold Ramis	...	Alan Appleby
William McNamara	...	Teenage Billy Wyatt
Richard Jenkins	...	Hank Chandler
John Shea	...	Sam Wyatt
Jodie Foster	...	Katie Chandler
Christine Jones	...	Grace Chandler
Beth Broderick	...	Lesley
Jane Brucker	...	Sheryl
Ted Ross	...	Bud Scott
Thacher Goodwin	...	Young Billy Wyatt
Yvette Croskey	...	Young Robin Parks
Ollie Davidson	...	Robin Parks

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | Iceland:L | UK:15 | USA:PG-13 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Camden, New Jersey, USA

Company:

The Mount Company

Trivia:

This movie was reportedly based on the real-life experiences of its writers, former Second City troupe members and WKRP in Cincinnati writers Steven Kampmann and William Porter.

Quotes:

Katie Chandler: See that's all I want to do Billy-Boy. I want to leap of this pier and fly high in the air with hang with the wind and drift through the clouds, and at night, with the Moon full and the sea wild, I meet my lover high on a cliff and we'd swoop down into the ocean and swim all the way touch the bottom up through the dark water and break the surface. Then we'd fly to Jamaica for Pina Colatas... God, I wish I could do that.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Here's Looking at You, Warner Bros. (1991) (TV)

Bravo! (spoilers)

This was a surprisingly good late romantic drama, although given the potential cast, I should've expected good things in the first place. It is a nice little love story, an inspiring one, I suppose, that comes from a story with sad circumstances.

Filmed in Pennsylvania is the story of Billy Wyatt (Mark Harmon), a washed up minor league ballplayer living in some rundown town out West. He gets a call from his mother that a close childhood friend (Kate Chandler played by Jodi Foster) of his committed suicide the previous week and left in her will that he was to be responsible for her cremated remains. Wyatt is understandably reluctant to fulfill the obligation in part because he can't understand why he was the one she left her remains to, and he doesn't want to deal with the loss of a friend. So, the story is told in flashback as Wyatt travels home to deal with the situation and the loss of the slightly flaky, but daring girl he was once in love with.

William MacNamara (hubba! hubba!) is great as young Billy Wyatt, although everyone does a fine job. Jonathan Silverman, as teen Wyatt's best friend Appleby, plays his typical eager virgin role common to many of his mid/late 80s material, and adds a nice comic touch (and Harold Ramis continues the charm as the older Appleby). If you enjoy this cast, you should likely be pleased with the film. It's quite a wonderful, underrated drama, and was one of the few movies that I have rented recently and watched more than once.