Films make it a festival for Blazer fans

Films make it a festival for Blazer fans

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Nov 11, 2008, Updated Nov 11, 2008

There is plenty of good stuff in the film “Mania,” a reflective on the Trail Blazers that premiers at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Whitsell Auditorium in the Portland Art Museum as part of the 35th Northwest Film and Video Festival.

Director Dan Schaefer, a Portland native, put together a couple of years of interviews and research as a video narrative of the franchise’s 38-year history and its love (and occasional hate) affair with the city.

It’s an enjoyable piece of work that, in tandem with a film that runs after it at 9 p.m., “Fast Break,” will work well for Blazermaniacs.

“Mania” could have used some tweaking here and there. All that was needed to tidy things up was a project consultant such as ... well, myself.

Schaefer, 43, is a Molalla High grad and life-long Blazer fan who has been involved in movie-making for 22 years.

“I meant this to be a positive documentary about the Blazers,” says Schaefer, who began interviewing for the film in 2006 and didn’t complete the project until last month. “It’s coming from a fan’s point of view.”

Schaefer starts at Day One, when promoter Harry Glickman pushed the envelope with the NBA and landed an expansion franchise in 1970. There are excerpts of interviews with Glickman and the late Stu Inman, the team’s first scout and director of player personnel; with Jack Ramsay, coach of the 1977 championship team, legendary radio voice Bill Schonely and Rick Adelman, a guard on the original Blazer team and later coach of the teams that reached the NBA finals in 1990 and ‘92.

Glickman reveals that the Blazers paid Cleveland $250,000 to take Austin Carr with the first pick in the 1971 draft, leaving Sidney Wicks to Portland — a story I had not heard.

Dozens of ex-players are interviewed, including Maurice Lucas, Lloyd Neal, Dave Twardzik, Lionel Hollins, Larry Steele, Bobby Gross, Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey and the late Kevin Duckworth. There is a nice tribute to Inman and Duckworth in the credits at film’s end.

I most enjoyed, though, the insight provided by long-time trainer Ron Culp, who delivers inside stories that true fans will appreciate, such as the psychology of Hall of Fame coaches Lenny Wilkens and Ramsay. Culp was honest when he said of Bill Walton, “He didn’t alienate the city of Portland, but he certainly had people scratching their heads.”

Wilkens, who coached the Blazers for two years leading into the championship season, reveals some lingering bitterness at being fired when he says, “instead of trading Wicks, they let me go.”

There is some vintage footage — though not enough — such as Walton walking in what appears to be Forest Park, Walton riding a bicycle, the ‘77 Blazers greeting large crowds of fans at the airport, Twardzik teaching at a summer kids’ camp. There’s precious film of Walton and Lucas celebrating after winning the title. There’s part of an interview with the media-shy Walton by a lake, and at the Oregon Coast. And there is audio of Schonely calling the closing seconds of a Blazer-Laker playoff series in ‘77.

Schaefer takes us through the current Blazer era, but other than the teams of the early ‘90s, it’s a bit of a rush. That’s understandable — because the film runs long (two hours, five minutes) — but disappointing. There are tales to be told in other years, too.

The format features mostly interviews with talking heads and very little game footage, or any kind of film from the good old days. There was no interview with Walton or Geoff Petrie, the Blazers’ first superstar. The team’s first coach, Rolland Todd, takes a bit of a pounding — perhaps deserved — but it would have been nice to hear what “Mod Todd” had to say.

Ramsay’s name is misspelled in the opening credits. Practice footage from the 1977-78 team — with Tom Owens taking part — is passed off as from the championship season. Culp offers observations on the ‘92 team, though he was long gone from Portland by then.

There’s too much from an interview with Art Alexakis, the Everclear front man who had very little of anything to offer.

The film is without narration, which at times leaves holes for the viewers, such as when Glickman refers to “the Scotts.” The reference is to Jack and Mickie Scott, social activists who befriended and lived with Walton and later were involved in the Patty Hearst drama.

There is no mention of the Blazers’ second coach, Jack McCloskey, or of Moses Malone, traded just before the championship season began. Nobody interviewed could quite remember details of the Lucas-Darryl Dawkins scrum that was so pivotal to the ‘77 championship series — even Lucas. Film evidence of the incident would have been priceless.

“Fast Break” is a documentary of the championship season shot by Portlander Don Zavin, who died in 1998. Glickman granted Zavin inside access to the team, and the 107-minute film shows about an even split of on-court, off-court footage of the players, according to Zavin’s widow, Northwest Film Center education director Ellen Thomas.

The film went to final edit just as Walton was leaving town under a cloud of controversy involving the injuries that ended his Blazer career. It premiered at the Fox Theater in 1979 but never got national distribution and was stored at the Oregon Historical Society until now.

Thomas makes “Fast Break” sounds like a winner. I’m hoping it ties up some loose ends left in viewing “Mania.”