NORTH DALLAS FORTY
Directed by Ted Kotcheff
Screenplay by Frank Yablans, Ted Kotcheff and Peter Gent
North Dallas Forty is a painful movie. That is to say, it is a movie mostly about pain—the god-awful physical consequences of playing professional football for a living. It is about the sport's normal bruising, which can render a fit young stud so lame that it is agony for him to roll out of bed the morning after a game. But more important, it is about pain at the abnormal levels, about the anesthetizing pills the guys pop to...