Under-rated movie from the time period and another movie I would recommend to anyone along with “Bears, Smile” To understand what growing-up in the 70′s was like.

I can remember watching “Over the Edge” during the winter of 79-80 on HBO when I was about 13 and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

That was another movie that didn’t talk down to kids and actually tried to depict them in an honest way. Another film with a similar feel from the time period was “Foxes” starring Jodi Foster.

http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n9/htdocs/over-the-edge-134.php?page=1

The Big-Tough/Loner/Golf kid was an interseting person from my school. He was the youngest out of 7 or 8 kids with 5 older brothers. He was a terrific athelete Football/Basketball/Baseball, overall he was the best athelete in our class. He was a fairly smart kid but he was definitely kind of an eccentric.

He didn’t live in our town, he lived in a very small very rich town that was about 5 miles from our school. This might have played a factor in his loner persona, plus I think there was a fairly large gap in age between his brothers and himself. By 6th-8th grade he kind of became the de-facto leader of the Nerds/Geeks/Misfits/Pot-Heads/Fat-Kids/….and the 3 guys that were a hybrid: misfit/pothead/fat-kid/Football-Player all in one.

Also, he was probably the only kid in the state of New Jersey that was a Kansas City Chiefs fan during the late 70′s. He even had a Chiefs Varsity Jacket!! He probably was the only kid East of Missouri that owned one of those in the late 70′s.

He used to take on the entire 7th grade in a king of the hill competition in which he usually won or we needed about 4 guys to bring him down.

As far as baseball went, he was a great pitcher. He was Left handed, threw fastballs. He made the All-Stars as a 12 old and basically hung it up. We were all shocked the next year when he decided he wasn’t going to play baseball anymore but he was quite emphatic saying he was going to focus on golf.

johnq11:
I can think of some kids in my town who resembled Kelly (like the minibike owner I mention in this post, for starters), but yeah, Kelly was mythic. Funny story about the big tough loner quitting baseball for golf.

I think Kelly Leak first appears at the start of the film lighting Walter Matheau’s cigar with a 4″ flame on his cigarette lighter. Then I think Joyce Van Patten yells at him and he takes off on his motorcycle.

Kelly Leak was mix of Mickey Mantle, Evel Knieval, Fonzie (Pre Shark-Jump), James Dean, and Marlon Brando’s character in the Wild Ones.

The “Kelly Leak as Pitcher” is excellent point which I never thought of before. I guess they wanted to center the film around Tatum O’neil’s Feminist pitcher character Amanda and Matheau’s alcoholic ex-pitcher father figure. I guess the Amanda-pitcher/Buttermaker-pitcher dynamic wouldn’t be as strong if added a “Leak/pitcher” dynamic into the mix.

Kelly Leak was kind of unique character compared to real life Little League because he was Heroic/Outlaw/Loner character. Most kids that resembled Kelly Leak: (BMX, cigarette, tough kid) weren’t Heroic figures or Loners. For the most part they were just outlaws that were “Bullies” and would just ride their BMX bicycles in a posse and prey on smaller and weaker kids. And then they usually quit baseball by 12 or 13 saying it was “gay”.

I went to Catholic school with a Rich kid who wasn’t an outlaw but kind of a Heroic/Loner who rarely mixed with other kids but was big/strong and an excellent athelete. He was a left handed pitcher who would strike out 9 kids in a 6 inning game. He quit baseball at 12years old after making the “All Stars”. He really could care less about baseball and said it “wasn’t challenging” anymore instead he wanted to concentrate on Golf.