111%: The Jason Burdock Story (1973)

Directed by:
Tuck Hoorley

Writing credits:
Jason Burdock (autobiography)
Xactl Xc00-45 (credited as Baron Woof von Barkington)

Genre: Sports / Drama / Fantasy / DRAGON FIGHTOL (more)

Tagline: Every man on the team gave 110%. Jason Burdock gave 111%.

Plot Outline: The autobiographical story of Jason Burdock's rise from obscurity to become an all-pro quarterback for Denver. Burdock battles and ultimately triumphs over a crippling injury that imprisons him in an iron lung, because the body may be in an iron lung, but the spirit can never (more) (view trailer)

User Comments: Basing a sports drama on the hallucinatory autobiography of an insane (and widely hated) football player in an iron lung and then claiming it is a true story probably wasn't the best idea to ever come out of Hollywood. But it's close. (more)

User Rating: A STAR!? A STAR!? A STAR!? A STAR!? A STAR!? A STAR!? NO STAR!!!! NO STAR!!!! NO STAR!!!! NO STAR!!!! 6.2 / 10 (432 votes)

Credited cast:
Eugene Corman....Jason Burdock (adult)
Galactus (III)....Jason Burdock (child)
Jaclyn Smith....Emily Burdock
Jack Warden....Coach Kaiser "Bull" McCurry
Shelley Winters....Mrs. Burdock
Sammy Davis Jr.....Goodfry Blackfriend
Porp Borngrun....Ivanov Giveupski
Burgess Meridith....KGB Coach
(more)

Also Known As:
Desu no Jasonu Burdocku Hero Squadu (Japan)
Filthfinger's Video Nasties (UK)
Runtime: USA: 134 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Smudgylux Nostalgiatone (Blueotrope)
Sound Mix: The Cobra

AMDB Trivia:
  • Licensing issues with the National Football League caused the film's producers to insist on completely fictional team names. Jason Burdock's own Denver Broncos became the North City Ropecats and the rival Raiders became the KGB All Stars from Moscow.
  • Though it is only briefly referenced in the film, Jason Burdock gambled heavily and compulsively throughout his career. He once bet a bookie, as a single bet, that his own team and the opposing team would both lose the same game. Burdock was also thrown out of a casino when he tried to cover outstanding bets by selling his wife and children to the Sands.
  • Jason Burdock's crippling "De-spinalpolasia" was entirely self-diagnosed following a drunk driving accident and his iron lung treatments were self-prescribed. To this day the AMA has not recognized "De-spinalpolasia" as a real medical condition.
  • Actress Shelley Winters slept in a paddock filled with straw adjacent to the set and her good performances were rewarded with sugar cubes.
  • Cameo: Actor and director Ron Howard drinks gasoline during the wedding scene.
  • Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin paid an infamous visit to Sammy Davis Jr. on the set, interrupting shooting and causing thousands of dollars in damage. Martin went on a drunken arson binge, setting fire to trailers on the studio's backlot and Sinatra choked an intern until the man's eyes bled and beat several others with his shoe. Sammy Davis Jr. made no apologies for his friend's behavior and threatened a pair of security guards with a hatchet when they tried to intervene.
  • Actor Irving Perry changed his name half way through the film's production to Galactus(III) as an homage to actor Marlon Brando, who also changed his name to Galactus(II). Unfortunately, Brando's name change was temporary as part of a running gag on the set of The Godfather, but Perry was killed by birds before he could change his name back.
  • No mention is made in the movie of Jason Burdock's bizarre hate letters. Burdock was known to stay up late into the night following a game writing hateful letters to any player he felt threatened his fame. These letters nearly always contained death threats that would be impossible to act upon. When Joe Namath was named AFL rookie of the year, Burdock sent him a letter in which he threatened to "shrink [Namath] to the size of a wee egg" and then swallow him whole. When 49ers linebacker Jerry Tubbs sacked Burdock five times in one game, Burdock wrote that he would "step on [Tubbs's] foot so hard [he] will turn inside out."
  • 111% was director Tuck Hoorley's third film after 1972's Case: Hamburger and 1971's A Bit of Shit and it nearly ruined his career. He was so ineffectual as a director that he often directed scenes by radio from his bed by peering through a telescope. After weeks of confusion, Warner Brothers grudgingly paid for the construction of a motorized wagon that would drive him, in bed, around the set. Hoorley did not direct again until his 1979 family drama Palmer Versus S.T.I.N.K.E.R.
  • In Jason Burdock's autobiography the entire romance subplot of the film is summarized in three sentences graphically describing Burdock having sex with his future wife inside a burned out van at a city dump.
  • Director trademark: A skull flashing on the screen when a character takes a bite of food.
  • Cameo: In the locker room at half time, Orson Welles is the fat man laughing as he is pulling off a child's pants.
  • 111% was Romanian actor Porp Borngrun's first English-speaking role and director Tuck Hoorley was so concerned that his accent would be incoherent to American audiences that he made Borngrun wear shirts with his dialog printed on the front in each scene. Borngrun is better known to audiences for his roles in the Death Stinger series of action films and his comedic turn in Doctor Mommy, PI.
  • Actress Jaclyn Smith nearly quit on the second day of shooting when the real Jason Burdock visited the set and demanded he be allowed to "lick every inch of her to know if she tastes the same" as his real wife. Burdock was later dissuaded from this by Sammy Davis Jr., who amused Burdock with a series of hilarious jokes about drinking.
  • Director Trademark: A man tapping on a window and then vomiting against the glass.
  • Jack Warden prepared for the role of Coach McCurry by stranding himself in a tree and howling all night long until firemen managed to coax him down.
  • This is the only film in which Sammy Davis Jr. wears an eyepatch in place of his glass eye. He also appears fully nude for the first and only time.
  • First-time actor Eugene Corman was chosen to take on the leading role purely by chance. Director Tuck Hoorley was driving in Los Angeles when he saw the muscular Corman out-wrestle a robot that had escaped from a nearby office. Hoorley remarked to Variety that "Corman possesses that rugged strength and indomitable spirit that allows a man to overcome adversity, be it an iron lung or a rogue droid." (More)
Memorable Quotes:
Jason Burdock: I'm the tiger that ate the lion. I have a lion inside me and I'm a tiger.
Goodfry Blackfriend: Hey, daddy-o, a cool cat in a cool cat is out of sight.

Jason Burdock: (lifting head from steering wheel) My spine!

Emily Burdock: I believe in you, Jason Burdock. Like I believe the sun or the moon in the sky. I believe.
Jason Burdock: As long as there is a sun and a moon I'll know that the Burdock will rise again like the eagle from the ashes.
Coach Kaiser "Bull" McCurry: Your team needs you. I need you, Jason. Now get up out of that iron lung and show those Russkies how we Americans can pass!
Jason Burdock: I'll pass like George Washington! Raaaaaaaarrrr, (tears out of his iron lung) I'm coming for you, Stalin!

Ivanov Giveupski: Ha. Ha. Ha. Did they use a can opener to get you onto the field?
Jason Burdock: No, but they're going to have to use a can opener to get you off of it! HUT, HUT, HIIIIIIKE!

Decento Halfbackerson: We did it! We won the game!
Goodfry Blackfriend: There's no "we" in Burdock, you dig?
Jason Burdock: No, but there is a certain lion and a certain tiger in me. (looks off into the setting sun) We did it, dad. (More)
Goofs:
  • Factual errors: Martin Luther King Jr. was not assassinated by the KGB at a football game.
  • Continuity: When Burdock passes to Goodfry at the high school big game Goodfry's left arm falls off, but clearly his right has fallen off in the next shot.
  • Incorrectly Regarded as Goofs: When Burdock hears his father has died he punches through the brick wall of the hospital and fire shoots out of the hole. The room of the hospital next door could be on fire.
  • Anachronisms: During several shots at Makeout Point a Toyota Sirocco vectored thrust car can be seen out Emily's window, but these weren't built until 2027.
  • Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Jason begins to call a big play at his first pro game the audio is the announcer at the game in the finale declaring "Jason Burdock has overcome his crippling illness and defeated the KGB All Stars!"
  • Factual errors: A football cannot be crushed into a diamond.
  • Incorrectly Regarded as Goofs: When the doctor enters for the first time and looks at Jason he immediately declares that his spine is suffering from rare micro-fractures, even though the X-ray has not yet been taken. This could simply be a lucky guess and a doctor willing to speak his mind.
  • Revealing mistakes: During the hospital scene all of the actor's facial features are upside down (flipped shot).
  • Factual errors: The KGB has never mantained a professional football franchise "of super-human Soviet experiments in mind-control drugs." It did briefly have a controlling interest in the Cleveland Browns, but no one would mistake the Browns for super-human.
  • Anachronisms: Cheerleaders were not allowed to display their vaginas during games until the late 80s.
  • Errors made by characters: When Mrs. Burdock describes Jason's role in the high school big game she is actually describing Napoleon's role in the Crimean war.
  • Continuity: Martin Luther King Jr. lifts Burdock up onto his shoulders during the celebration at the end.
  • Revealing mistakes: Every shot of the scoreboard during the final game against the KGB All Stars is a basketball scoreboard displaying the score from a Lakers game.
  • Factual errors: The third quarter of a football game is not played inside a swimming pool.
  • Crew or equipment visible: Burning dumpster full of mannequins in the end zone.
Recent Posts (updated daily)
User
 
whose ur worst player of all time?
 
BurCOCKsux_COCKS
 
I think I have de-spineaolomosis lol
 
TomBooze
 
bootleg dvd?
 
afficionato
 
DVD release?
 
Sportyspice
 
y no dvd?
 
Blue42
 
NAZI AMDB MODS is G.A.Y.
 
evangelion007
 
burdock is G.A.Y.
 
evangelion007
 
burdock is G.A.Y.
 
evangelion007
 
burdock is so G.A.Y.F.A.G.
 
evangelion007
 
burdock is so G.AY.
 
evangelion007
 
burdock is so G.A.Y.
 
evangelion007
 
burdock is so G.A.Y.
 
evangelion007
 
WB sold DVD rights to Burdock
 
itaintcoolnews
 
is burdock stil alive???
 
Super_bowel_shuffle

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