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 - Deep Impact (1998):

Deep Impact

directed by Mimi Leder,

written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin,

was released in the United States on May 8, 1998.
Music by James Horner.

Cast:

Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Morgan Freeman, Maximilian Schell, James Cromwell, Ron Eldard, Jon Favreau, Laura Innes, Mary McCormack, Richard Schiff, Leelee Sobieski, Blair Underwood, Dougray Scott, Gary Werntz, Bruce Weitz, Betsy Brantley, O'Neal Compton, Rya Kihlstedt, Aleksandr Baluev, Caitlin Fein, Amanda Fein, Joe Urla, Una Damon, Mark Moses, Derek de Lint, Charles Dumas, Suzy Nakamura, Alimi Ballard, Charles Martin Smith, Katie Hagan, Denise Crosby, Frank Whiteman, Jason Dohring, Jasmine Harrison, Rahi Azizi, Hannah Leder, Tucker Smallwood, Merrin Dungey, Kimberly Huie, William Fair, Francis X. McCarthy, Ellen Bry, Lisa Ann Grant, Leslie Dilley, Concetta Tomei, Mike O'Malley, Kurtwood Smith, Gerry Griffin, Charlie Hartsock, Jennifer Jostyn, Don Handfield, Jason Frasca, Cynthia Ettinger, Benjamin Stralka, Stephanie Patton, Michael Winters, John Ducey, Christopher Darga, Joshua Colwell, Cornelius Lewis, Kevin LaRosa.

On this day in movie history – M*A*S*H (1970 movie & book):

M*A*S*H

directed by Robert Altman,

written by Ring Lardner Jr.,

based on the novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard Hooker,

was released in the United States on March 18, 1970.

Music by Johnny Mandel.

Cast:

Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen, Rene Auberjonois, David Arkin, Jo Ann Pflug, Gary Burghoff, Fred Williamson, Michael Murphy, Indus Arthur, Ken Prymus, Bobby Troup, Kim Atwood, Timothy Brown, John Schuck, Dawne Damon, Carl Gottlieb, Tamara Wilcox-Smith, G. Wood, Bud Cort, Danny Goldman, Corey Fischer.

Recommended reading:

MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors

By Richard Hooker.

Filmed as M*A*S*H (1970), directed by Robert Altman.

Published by William Morrow Paperbacks.

First published 1968.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0688149553

ISBN-13: 978-0688149550

Description:

Before the movie, this is the novel that gave life to Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John, Hot Lips Houlihan, Frank Burns, Radar O'Reilly, and the rest of the gang that made the 4077th MASH like no other place in Korea or on earth. The doctors who worked in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) during the Korean War were well trained but, like most soldiers sent to fight a war, too young for the job. In the words of the author, "a few flipped their lids, but most of them just raised hell, in a variety of ways and degrees."

For fans of the movie and the series alike, here is the original version of that perfectly corrupt football game, those martini-laced mornings and sexual escapades, and that unforgettable foray into assisted if incompleted suicide – all as funny and poignant now as they were before they became a part of America's culture and heart.