On this day in movie history - The Natural (1984 movie & novel):

The Natural

directed by Barry Levinson,

written by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry,

based on the novel by Bernard Malamud,

was released in the United States on May 11, 1984.
Music by Randy Newman.

Cast:

Robert Redford, Paul Sullivan Jr., Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Rachel Hall, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley, Barbara Hershey, Robert Prosky, Richard Farnsworth, Joe Don Baker, Darren McGavin, Michael Madsen, John Finnegan, Alan Fudge, Ken Grassano, Mike Starr, Mickey Treanor, Jon Van Ness, Anthony J. Ferrara, George Wilkosz, Robert Rich III, Sibby Sisti.

Recommended reading:

The Natural

By Bernard Malamud.

Filmed as The Natural (1984), directed by Barry Levinson.

Paperback.

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

First published 1952.

ISBN: 9780374502003

ISBN 10: 0374502005

ASIN: 0374502005

Description:

The Natural, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first – and some would say still the best – novel ever written about baseball. In it, Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material – the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era – and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: "Malamud has done something which – now that he has done it! – looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology."

On this day in movie history - The Survivor (2021):

The Survivor

directed by Barry Levinson,

written by Justine Juel Gillmer,

was released in the United States on April 27, 2022.
Based on the book Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano, by Alan Scott Haft.
Also, the graphic novel The Boxer: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Harry Haft, by Reinhard Kleist.
Music by Hans Zimmer.

Cast:

Ben Foster, Billy Magnussen, Vicky Krieps, Peter Sarsgaard, Saro Emirze, Danny DeVito, John Leguizamo, Dar Zuzovsky, Laurent Papot, Paul Bates, Svetlana Kundish, Sonya Cullingford, Michael Epp, Erik Contzius, Kingston Vernes, Sophie Knapp, Zachary Golinger, Charles Brice, Scott Alexander Young, John Guerrasio, Pablo Raybould, Amalina Ace, Bálint Magyar, Márk Szekulesz, Aaron Serotsky, Miklós Kapácsy, Andrew Hefler, Kristóf Widder, Patrick McCullough, Peter Linka, Hans Peterson, Katia Bokor, Stephen Saracco, Björn Freiberg, Nikos Brisco, Alan Jouban, Adam Zambryzcki, András Kovács, Gábor Czap, Anthony Molinari, Zsolt Erdei, Zach Anderson, Árpád Antolik, Attila Arpa, Marc Alan Austen, Jeff Burhans, Sandy Burhans, Christian Carrigan, Jim Cleary, Karim Ghajji, Emerson Henley, Roderick Hill, Ken Holmes, Zámbó István, Colton Langan, Perla Middleton, Robert Myers, Cailyn Peddle, Peter Schueller, Marc Schöttner, Ferenc Iván Szabó, Balázs Veres, Conor William Wright, Lauren Yaffe.