In 1998, Phil Tuckett ran across an unprocessed negative from the 1964 preseason. Knowing he had a time capsule in his hands, Phil Tuckett suggested to NFL Films president Steve Sabol that they could produce an entire series filled with nothing but unused NFL Films footage. Thus Steve Sabol re-traces the beginning years of NFL Films (originally Blair Motion Pictures). Ed Sabol, Steve's (and NFL Films') father, recalls the drudgery of his first project: the 1962 NFL Championship. Despite several spoiled reels, he and Dan Endy were able to produce a 28-minute highlight film that impressed NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle immensely. With that, Ed and the rest of his camera crew were ready to shoot every game for every team, starting in 1964. Players from the mid-1960s are profiled, among them ""The Catawba Claw,"" alias Bucky Pope.
Steve Sabol recalls the haphazard beginnings of interviewing players for NFL Films. Features outtakes of interviews done with Willie Davis, Jerry Kramer, Ray Nitschke, and Bob Hayes. Toward the end of the program, Steve points out the dramatic upturn NFL Films took in 1966, when a film editor walked in, unannounced, and demonstrated film-editing breakthroughs that went into the film They Call It Pro Football.
Early player sound was not synchronized, demonstrating the novice nature of NFL Films in the mid-1960s. One breakthrough came when a rock-concert soundman came to the 1967 Baltimore Colts' training camp. Highlighting the never-before-seen footage in this program are shots taken from a Rams-Saints exhibition at Anaheim on August 2, 1967. It was the first time the New Orleans Saints took the field. Other new sound bytes include games filmed in Miami and Green Bay.
Steve Sabol brings to light old-style AFL highlight films, with a simplistic style that matched the early days of the struggling league. But the AFL successfully challenged the NFL in every respect. Beginning in 1968, NFL Films sent its crews (disguised in bright red ""AFL Films"" jackets) to cover every AFL game.
As the 1960s played itself out, the NFL measured change with a new breed of player, playing on newly-installed artificial turf. But there was still room for the established veterans, as unseen shots of Lou Saban and Bill Glass (among others) will attest. The program ends with the NFL Films crew in full swing, ready to cover the action, with a voice to match the drama of the game.
A new decade brought a new spirit and flavor to pro football. New fashions met old coaches; halftime music became truly contemporary; the multi-purpose stadium was introduced. And the new decade demanded new players with a new flair, such as the Steelers' John ""Frenchy"" Fuqua.
If there is one film that is among Steve Sabol's favorites, it was Pro Football, Pottstown, Pa. Phil Tuckett had asked to shoot a piece on minor-league football and some of its characters. The ""short piece"" expanded into a 60-minute special. This special two-hour Lost Treasures episode begins with a re-airing of Pro Football, Pottstown, Pa. (a more accurate description can be found at www.movietome.com, keyword ""Pottstown""). Then, NFL Films travels back to Pottstown and gets in touch with some of the minor players on this special minor-league team. The program concludes with the Pottstown Firebirds' 30-year reunion.
Personalities who shaped the NFL of 1969-1979 are heard in lost NFL Films' sound recordings. Features shots of Joe Kapp, Lyle Alzado, and Bill Bergey.
NFL Films developed stars in the field of covering football as the 1970s progressed. This program documents the development of personalities who became famous with The NFL Today on CBS. Features interviews with Phyllis George and Jayne Kennedy.
Steve Sabol believed he had seen everything about all the Super Bowls. Still, he and his staff unearthed a great deal of unused footage. Recount the barrenness of Super Bowl I, the chaos of the Super Bowl IV halftime, Baltimore's almost casual sideline during Super Bowl V (which the Colts won), and the staunchness of the Redskins' sideline at Super Bowl VII.
A few profiles demonstrate that football was only part of a man's life. The best example was of Mike Reid, a musician first and defensive tackle second.
NFL Films was witness to the implosion of Three Rivers Stadium on February 11, 2001. They also filmed some demolition shots of Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. Ex-players, fans, a bandleader, and grounds crew recall their memories of how these stadiums were perfectly suited to the Baltimore Colts and the Pittsburgh Steeler dynasty.
Through the years, NFL Films has filmed selected teams intently for an entire week. These have aired several times under various titles, among them Six Days to Sunday and Countdown to Kickoff. The prototype for all this was a film intended for theatrical release, according to Ed Sabol. From November 1 to November 7, 1976, NFL Films kept its eye on the New Orleans Saints as they struggled to find the winning ways. This project, however, was shot down after the Saints fired head coach Hank Stram after the 1977 season. After 25 years, NFL Films finally presents the ultimate Lost Treasure: the original Six Days to Sunday, featuring the 1976 Saints.
Expansion teams of the 1960s and 1970s had no edge when they started play. No team exemplified this better than the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They finished their inaugural season with an 0-14 record, unique in NFL history. At the time, NFL Films followed the Bucs every step of their troubled training camp, exhibitions, and regular season. The result was Birth of the Bucs, which, according to Steve Sabol, consisted of nothing but football follies. Because the Buccaneers' management made no attempt to honor the original Tampa Bay squad, this Lost Treasures episode was the only recognition the 1976 Bucs received. Interviews with former players and assistant coaches who toiled for head coach John McKay, who had died in June 2001, vividly retell the worst season in NFL history.
For a year and a half, the World Football League represented opportunity to a few hundred men who loved the game. For the first time, NFL Films devotes a show to the WFL, interviewing its principal architects, players, and fans. Includes rare film and TV footage of WFL games and teams that are largely forgotten.
The listless waters of Washington sports were stirred up in 1971 as George Allen took over as coach of the Washington Redskins. His trades for familiar players and spending large sums for a first-rate training complex, were part of a true rebuilding program. The result: Washington made the playoffs for the first time since 1945. In shooting an hour-long film called Three Cheers for the Redskins, NFL Films was with George Allen every step of the rebuidling. Now, after 30 years, members of the 1971 Redskins are interviewed for this program. Steve Sabol chips in, explaining that some of George Allen's habits–labeling the trees just outside the Redskins' camp, for example–rubbed off on him. There was a certain eccentricity to Allen that Steve Sabol thinks about all the time.
Unused footage from the Super Bowls of the mid- to late-1970s is unearthed. Shots of the last all-daylight Super Bowl (Number XI, played Jan. 9, 1977) are a stark contrast to the first Super Bowl in a dome (Number XII).
If there's one thing the players and the coaches in the NFL share, it is fear and loathing of the press corps. Ray Didinger, former sports reporter of the Philadelphia Daily News, talks about the changes that have evolved over the last three decades of NFL reporting.
Steve Sabol now introduces the show from Music Scoring Studio A of the new NFL Films facility to talk about how NFL Films developed their style over time. It began as an extension of the newsreel, but in short order evolved into the standard by which others are judged. Key to their growth were a narrator named John Facenda, a musician named Sam Spence, and a film titled They Call It Pro Football, edited by Yoshio Kishi.
Early in 2002, Foxboro Stadium and Denver Mile High Stadium were leveled and turned into parking lots for the new gridirons in town. Steve Sabol recalls the history of the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos from a lost treasure of his own–the building from which the first 18 Lost Treasures episodes were shot. Interviews of former Patriot and Bronco players and their fans were shot during the demolitions of the old stadiums, recalling the very different paths of two franchises that started on common ground.
O.A. (Bum) Phillips had engendered a family atmosphere during his tenures as head coach of the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints. This program reflects on his virtues, his wardrobe, his player relations, and his coaching genius (Phillips was the winningest coach the Houston Oilers would ever have).
When released in 1986, Phil Tuckett's Autumn Ritual looked like anything but a football film. It was probably the most original sports movie since They Call It Pro Football, 19 years earlier. In 2003, Phil Tuckett embarked on a regenerated Autumn Ritual, mixing footage from the original production with new interviews. And some of the sources are pretty far-fetched, to say the least. New interviewees include Hunter S. Thompson, the former wild man who had sided with the Oakland Raiders, and Snoop Dogg, who bemoans the paucity of African-American coaches in the NFL.