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

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 (1952):

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."

Born on this day – Bernard Malamud:

Bernard Malamud

Writer

April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986

Credits:

Books:

A Malamud Reader (1967); A New Life (1961); A World of Fiction (1983); Baseball: a Literary Anthology (2002); Best of Science Fiction: No. 10 (1964); Dubin's Lives (1977); First Fiction: An Anthology of the First Published Stories by Famous Writers (1994); God's Grace (1982); Great Baseball Stories (1990); Great Tales of Mystery and Suspense (1981); Idiots First (1963); Penguin Modern Stories 1 (1969); Pictures of Fidelman (1969); Prize Stories 1970: The O. Henry Awards (1970); Prize Stories 1973: The O. Henry Awards (1973); Rembrandt's Hat (1973); Selected Stories (1950); Talking Horse (1980); The Assistant (1957); The Best American Short Stories 1964 (1964); The Best American Short Stories of the Century (2000); The Complete Stories (1997); The Fixer (1966); The Magic Barrel (1950); The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950 (1999); The Natural (1952); The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales (1993); The People (1989); The Stories of Bernard Malamud (1983); The Tenants (1971); Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction (1973); Winter's Tales 15 (1969); Wonderful Town (2000); Writing New York (1998).

Awards:

National Jewish Book Award: The Assistant (1958); National Book Award for Fiction: The Magic Barrel (1959); National Book Award for Fiction: The Fixer (1967); Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: The Fixer (1967); O. Henry Award: Man in the Drawer, published in the April 1968 edition of The Atlantic Monthly (1969); PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the runner-up award for The Stories (1984).

Movies and television:

Der Gehilfe (1978); Shoestring Theatre (1959); Storyboard (1961); Take Pity (1996); The Angel Levine (1970); The Assistant (1997); The Book Programme (1980); The First Seven Years (1998); The Fixer (1968); The Matchmaker (1984); The Model (1994); The Natural (1984); The Tenants (2005); Writers and Places (1980).