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It is hard to review or even watch this film without the memory of HOOP DREAMS coming to mind. Where that groundbreaking documentary blazed trails in uncovering the inner city push for children to strive for NBA stardom as the way out of poverty, this film has shades of that larger social issue, but mainly serves as a look at one coach and one great player and what happens along the way as they strive to win a state championship. My memories of HOOP DREAMS always fall back to the people and their struggles while HEART OF THE GAME just plays out like a great sports flick.

Bill Resler takes over the girls’ team at Roosevelt High School with the plan to run the full court press the whole game. He trains the players to be in better shape than their opponents. In his first season, he wins coach of the year, leading the girls to an undefeated season. At this time, Darnellia Russell was making waves across town playing ball in junior high. With pressure from her family, the tough-minded and confident African-American girl decides to travel across Seattle to attend the majority white Roosevelt in an effort to receive a better education.

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I have a fascination with carnivals and circuses. Many filmmakers have as well Fellini, Bergman both made films set in the circus. So when I first read about this long forgotten film noir gem, I was hooked by the combination of a dark seedy crime story set in the carnival world. Surprisingly what I got was more than that — a thoughtful drama on the psychic con game.

Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power, THE MARK OF ZORRO) is a streetwise hustler who finds a home working as the talker at a carnival. He warms the crowd for low rent psychic Zeena Krumbein (Joan Blondell, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN), who use to be in the big time until her partner/husband Pete (Ian Keith, QUEEN CHRISTINA) became lost in the bottle. Zeena and Pete’s legendary act was based on an intricate code, which allowed one person in the crowd to hold up objects obtained from the spectators and relate covertly what they were to the blindfolded “psychic” on stage. The code is worth a fortune and Stanton works his charms on Zeena to learn it. Now with the code, Stanton teams with the beautiful carnie girl Molly (Coleen Gray, RED RIVER) to go legit on the nightclub scene. But as his career skyrockets, Stanton gets greedy and hooks up with the cool and beautiful psychiatrist Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker, CALL NORTHSIDE 777) to turn his mentalist act into a medium.

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