Why You Never Saw the Original "Fever Pitch"

(Kirk Anderson 4/15/05)

I really like the movie, "High Fidelity". It was based (loosely) on the book by Nick Hornby.

When "About a Boy" came out, I ran out to see it because it was based on a book by Nick Hornby also. I was suitably pleased.

Now, I'd never read a book by Nick Hornby, but the two movies I'd seen convinced me that I'd like his writing if I ever got around to reading a book. So when I found out that there was another movie based on his book "Fever Pitch", I decided to track it down.

This was several years ago, before this new version came out.

When my wife, Sara, and I found it in the video store, I had to beg her to rent it. Why?

Because this is the cover of the U.S. video release:

Now do you see why you never saw the original? Sara's favorite actor in the whole world is Colin Firth. She loved "High Fidelity" too. But I still had to convince her that this movie wasn't a teen-sex comedy in the mode of "Spring Break" or "Porky's".

Some American marketing director decided that the way to sell this intelligent comedy about a man's attempt to grow up and allow sports into their proper place in life was to put a cover on it that suggested you might see a woman's breasts.

Here's the original poster:

Here's the video cover in the rest of the world:

Even the current "Fever Pitch" has better taste in artwork. And It's directed by the Farrelly Brothers!

And by the way, none of this looks very much like any of the covers of Nick Hornby's book.

By the way, don't confuse either of the "Fever Pitch" movies based on Nick Hornby's book with these other two "Fever Pitch" movies, that aren't.

This is a small independent documentary about the movie business. Michael Moore shows up in it.	This is a thriller from 1985 that stars Ryan O'Neal. Apparently the "Pitch" in this title is also a pun on the pitch from baseball, because O'Neal plays a sports writer.