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 enlarge | Director: Ted Kotcheff
Actors: Nick Nolte, Charles Durning, Mac Davis, Dayle Haddon, Bo Svenson
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $4.09
You Save: $5.89 (59%)
New (46) Used (28) Collectible (1) from $2.99
Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 13080
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0 x 0
MPN: TM2556
ISBN: 0792171306
UPC: 097360877342
EAN: 9780792171300
ASIN: B0000541AT
Theatrical Release Date: August 3, 1979
Release Date: January 30, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 25
 Great insight to the past??? February 25, 2006
GtheVike (Bedford, Bedfordshire United Kingdom)
Hi
Really enjoy this film (the book was good to). It was nice to find this on DVD. no real extras but it is a really good film with some nice performanaces). It was one of the first US football films I ever saw and it has remained a favourite ever since
 A better halftime show than Janet Jackson January 31, 2006
Jason A. Miller (New York, New York USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an unsparing, unsentimental look at pro football in which the players are alternately brutes, and slaves to management. Coaches shamelessly manipulate the players and then discard them the moment injury strikes; the players are drugged up in order to coax them onto the field, while at the same time the unpopular players are ensnared by drug charges in order to trap them at contract renegotiation time.
"North Dallas Forty" is probably one of my favorite sports movies, and definitely my favorite football movie. That's because of its defiant outsider approach -- "Ball Four", the baseball book that made Peter Gent's football novel possible, only ever wound up a lame sitcom; "North Dallas Forty" goes all the way. Even though the movie is based on the Dallas Cowboys of the 1960s, the instantly dated 1970s' filmmaking technique remains timeless (even if it's from the same director who made "Weekend at Bernie's", which is timeless for very different reasons).
Part of the movie's continuing appeal remains its cast. Nick Nolte is a brilliant lead, as the rebellious but honest-to-a-fault North Dallas wide receiver Phil Elliott. Phil tells it like it is and sees management for what they are, but doesn't realize he's being cheated out of his career until the third or fourth time he's been double-crossed by owners, coaches and friends alike.
Playing a riff on Dandy Don Meredith, country singer/songwriter Mac Davis plays sly quarterback Seth Maxwell. The rest of the football team is filled out with several ex-NFL players. John Matuszak's second acting career was launched by this movie, and Bo Svenson's football career should have been launched by this movie. The coaches, Charles Durning (as a cliche-spouting offensive coordinator) and the great G.D. Spradlin (playing a thinly veiled Tom Landry) both dominate their scenes. And yes, that's Dabney Coleman as an oil man and part owner who delivers one of the movie's best lines ("Do you speak Canadian?").
Dayle Haddon looks great as Phil's love interest, but otherwise gets overshadowed by the rest of the cast. She seems so disinterested in Phil throughout the movie that I was convinced their relationship wouldn't make it another week after the story ended.
Kotcheff directs his football scenes with an interesting approach that could never be duplicated today: there's not a single wide shot of a packed house, not a single closeup of a spectator in North Dallas face paint and a Maxwell jersey. Gone are the excesses of modern TV football coverage, and the only product endorsement I could spot was for xylocaine. Most of the early football action is shown in mute flashbacks, and the climactic game against Chicago is not joined until after the two-minute warning. Even with such minimal football, however, Kotcheff's action is so muddy, bloody and cruel that you can imagine the final game sequence was cued up in L.T.'s VCR the fateful Monday night he tangled with Joe Theismann's leg.
Always worth watching every late January, "North Dallas Forty" is one of those films you hope is never going to be remade, because the original has everything you need in a football movie.
North Dallas Forty, a sports classic! August 27, 2005
Randie L. May (USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Even though it is a little dated by the football equipment and clothes of the era, the message of Pro football is resounded honestly and comically. The whole cast is awesome scene to scene, and do a great job keeping you laughing.
America's Team? July 3, 2005
Douglas Doepke (Claremont, CA United States)
Fine sleeper film, very much a reflection of iconoclast 1970's. Seldom has corruptive nature of professional sports been on more vivid display than here. Pro football (and others?) comes across as supremely exploitative of players, with millionaire owners collecting the reflected glory. Sure, money is good as is lure of easy women, and adulation is hard to resist, but cost comes high as battered and bruised Nick Nolte finally figures out. Emphasis throughout is on obvious physical toll, but inner toll proves equally devastating. Team quarterback Mac Davis's sly character and coaching staff's slimy ploys illustrate that inner rot in sometimes subtle fashion. Davis's understated performance provides memorable glimpse of intelligent man trapped by own weaknesses. Also one of Nick Nolte's most natural performances in both a brilliant and unorthodox career. His Phil Elliot may not be as clever as Davis, but the love of the game is truer, helping him finally see through the clouds of hype. But where oh where was director Kotcheff when beleagured non-actress Dale Haddon so clearly needed help. Her one and only expression, paralyzed fear, almost brings down the entire film. Was the casting of this ex-Playboy playmate Hugh Hefner's price for assistance with the production? Thanks Peter Gent for the gutsy expose' and Frank Yablans for bringing it to the screen intact. (After all those Monday evenings on tv, who could ever think of Tom Landry, Don Meredith or straight-laced Roger Staubach the same way again.) (Then too, fans might check out 1949's "Easy Living", a less caustic but also revealing film on the earlier days of pro football.) All in all, the screenplay of North Dallas is one of the best from the period -- humorous, savvy, and richly ironic -- the final boardroom scene arguably among the most compelling of any on sports. It's also one of the best arguments for getting athletics out of all those cathedrals of cult worship and back into neighborhood sandlots where they belong.
A Film About Football, NOT A Football Film January 28, 2005
E. VANDERWOLF (Portland, Oregon United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I remember this coming out when I was a kid. I also remember I wasn't allowed to see it other than in its butchered form on Network Television. Now I know why.
This is a fantastic film. One thing that struck me is that for a football film, there is very little actual football in it. Which is the reason for the title of my review. This film is ABOUT football... not a football film. It's about the players in a time when the league was still young and, I dare say, corrupted by the use of pain killers and alochol. It was the hey dey of the Cowboys, the Raiders and the Steelers and football players were treated like Rock Stars.
It's the film "Any Given Sunday" wanted to be. But failed miserably at even being a cheap imitation.
If you loved 1970's films and 1970's football, this film is a must see.
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