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Semi-Tough is a 1977 American sports comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Robert Preston, Lotte Lenya, and Bert Convy. It is set in the world of American professional football.
The film is based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Dan Jenkins. It was adapted for the screen by writer Walter Bernstein and director Ritchie, who added a new storyline that included a satire of the self-help movement and new religions.The film includes a parody of Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training ( est), depicted in the film as an organization called "B.E.A.T.".
Semi-Tough follows the story of pro football friends Billy Clyde Puckett and Marvin "Shake" Tiller, who have a third roommate, Barbara Jane Bookman. A romance develops between Shake and Barbara Jane when he becomes self-confidence after completing a self awareness course called "B.E.A.T.", at which point Billy Clyde slyly makes a play to win her for himself.
The film received mixed receptions. Some reviewers praised its parodies of the est training, Erhard and other new age movements such as Rolfing. Others criticized the script and direction, noting that some of director Ritchie's previous films had more of a personal tone. Still other reviews lamented the film's departure from the novel Semi-Tough, which dealt with football rather than the new age movement.
Barbara Jane is not a follower of B.E.A.T., and Shake is warned by his leader Bismark that "mixed marriages don't work". Barbara Jane is determined to make it work, so she attends B.E.A.T. in an effort to "get it". At the end of the long training session, she is worn out from Bismark's "sadistic abuse, pious drivel, and sheer double talk". She also feels guilty that she did not "get it". Shake is insistent that the training has had proven results for him, noting that he has not dropped a football pass since completing B.E.A.T.
Billy Clyde also has feelings for Barbara Jane and, without telling Shake or Barbara Jean beforehand, enrolls in the same B.E.A.T. training session as Barbara Jane in order to understand what she is going through. In the training, Billy Clyde is shown coping successfully with the seminar rules that prohibit going to the bathroom or talking to other trainees. When the trainees are encouraged to express their most repressed feelings, he exhibits the strongest, most primal display of them all. Shake is surprised to see Billy Clyde emerge from Barbara Jane's B.E.A.T. training session. Billy Clyde "confesses" to Shake that he took the training so that he'd be able to mock it more effectively afterwards, but says that he actually "got it". For a time, he pretends he underwent a conversion to Bismark's way of thinking, often using B.E.A.T. terminology and clichés in everyday conversation.
Shake worries that Barbara Jane hasn't "gotten it", and Billy Clyde tries to reassure Shake that it doesn't matter, but Shake remains dubious. During the wedding, as Big Ed escorts Barbara Jane to the altar, the minister turns to Bismark and gives him some advice on how he can avoid capital gains tax in his business. When the minister asks Shake if he takes Barbara Jane to be his wife, he hesitates and finally says "no". An outraged Big Ed vows to trade Shake to the worst team in the league, then tells Bismark to "experience this" as he punches him in the face, starting a general brawl. Billy Clyde makes a disparaging remark about Bismark to Barbara Jane, causing her to realize that he had been sandbagging all along about having "gotten it" from B.E.A.T. The two of them leave in the commotion, and reveal their feelings about each other as they walk along the beach in their wedding attire.
The film includes a parody with B.E.A.T. as a stand-in for est. In American Film Now, Friedrich Bismark is simply described as "the Werner Erhard character". The Grove Book of Hollywood describes Bert Convy as a "Werner Erhard-lookalike", in his portrayal of Friedrich Bismark. Barbara Jane Bookman (Jill Clayburgh)'s guilty feelings for not "getting it" after completing her B.E.A.T. seminar are seen as a reference to: "how creeds like est put nonbelievers on the defensive". The book also notes: "The film captures the peculiar mixture of spirituality and pragmatism that surrounded est", and also describes the minister's capital gains tax advice to Friedrich Bismark at Shake's wedding as "sardonic". A 1977 review in TIME refers to Friedrich Bismark's B.E.A.T. as "an est-like movement", and notes: "the Ritchie-Bernstein version of an est seminar is done with marvelous malice". Psychiatry and the Cinema characterizes the film as a "devastating parody" of the est training.
After Semi-Tough's release in 1977, Bert Convy was contacted by a number of est followers, as well as by Werner Erhard. After Convy appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and discussed his experiences attending Erhard Seminars Training in preparation for his role as Friedrich Bismark, he received a letter from Erhard stating: "it would be great for us to get together". Of the est seminar itself, Convy recalled that when another attendee complained of a headache during the course, the group leader told him to "experience it", and when another attendee wet his pants, he was told to "experience the warmth". In a scene from the film, a woman exclaims to Friedrich Bismark in the middle of a seminar: "I peed in my pants and it felt good." During actual filming on Semi-Tough, Convy received a late-night phone call from actress Valerie Harper, known in Hollywood as a devoted student of Werner Erhard. She related to Convy that Erhard was "pleased" with the role, and she wished him success in the film. Convy suspected that her real reason for calling was to subtly pressure him to go easy on his parody of Erhard in the film. Harper is mentioned by name in the completed film.
/ref> The film has since been released in both VHS and DVD formats.
The film did not receive a positive review in Variety, where the reviewer commented: " Semi-Tough begins as a bawdy and lively romantic comedy about slap-happy pro football players, then slows down to a too-inside putdown of contemporary self-help programs." Variety noted that stars Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh were "excellent" within the "zigzag" script and poor direction they were given. Michael Costello of AllMovie also criticized the script, and wrote: "While much of this is quite predictable, a number of the jokes score, Burt Reynolds works his charm overtime, and Jill Clayburgh and Kris Kristofferson are effective as comic foils." In American Film Now, author James Monaco commented on director Michael Ritchie's directing style in Semi-Tough, stating that in the film Ritchie was "speaking in a professional voice". Monaco noted that Ritchie's prior films evoked a more personal tone, and had more of a sense of wonder than Semi-Tough.
Chapman's In Search of Stupidity characterized the film as: "Possibly one of the best movies ever made by Burt Reynolds", and described the film's parody of est as accurate and amusing. Leonard Maltin criticized parts of the script, stating that Reynolds' charm filled in for the film's other deficiencies. I. Moyer Hunsberger criticized Ritchie's screenplay adaptation in his work The Quintessential Dictionary, complaining that the game of football should have supported the film as a plot device, but was instead left to the side in favor of other stories.
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