The Bad News Bears Go to Japan

Tony Curtis in his memoirs said he was not pleased with the results of The Bad News Bears Go To Japan. Probably he thought when signing on for this film in the first place he was going to be part of a hit series like James Bond. Unfortunately this film came up way short and The Bad New Bears ground to a halt.

Try as I might I could not wrap my mind around the concept that the parents of this club would send their kids unchaperoned to Japan with an unregenerate conman like Tony Curtis. Not like Curtis hasn't played hustlers on the big screen, he has and quite successfully. But that character he has done is jarringly out of place in a family type film.

Curtis is a down and out promoter who has the idea to promote the Bad News Bears to play the champion team of Japan. That's roughly like getting the Harlem Globetrotters to play the NBA champions, the Bears play in a style like the Globetrotters.

When it proves successful all kinds of people want to cash in and Curtis has to reexamine his own life.

Couldn't buy it and I doubt audiences in 1978 were buying it.