Brian's Song (1971) on Netflix
G19711h 13mBiographyDramaSport
Rookie running backs Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo meet at the Chicago Bears. They compete for the same job but become road roommates and close friends, the league's first interracial pair.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.5/109,675 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
Gale Sayers arrives at Chicago Bears practice as a rookie, and a punt brings his first exchange with Brian Piccolo, another first-year running back. Piccolo pranks him with a false warning that coach George Halas cannot hear well, and Sayers answers by putting mashed potatoes on Piccolo's seat while he sings his college fight song. Piccolo struggles at practice while Sayers excels, yet the team pairs them as road roommates, unusual amid the racial strife of the era. Both men's wives, Joy Piccolo and Linda Sayers, become part of the friendship. Sayers becomes a standout, then injures his knee against the San Francisco 49ers, and Piccolo installs a weight machine at his house to help him train. Piccolo takes the starting fullback job, so both are on the field together.
Cast
- Abe Gibronas Himself
- Jack Concannonas Jack Concannon
- Ed O'Bradovichas Ed O'Bradovich
- Harold 'Happy' Hairstonas Veteran Player #1 (as Happy Hairston)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Brian's Song (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film was the most watched movie on U.S. television during 1971 and the most watched made-for-TV movie ever, with a Nielsen rating of 32.9 and an audience share of 48%, until it was surpassed by The Night Stalker in January 1972.
- Chicago Bears players Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers had sharply differing temperaments and racial backgrounds that made them unlikely to become friends, but they did, becoming the first interracial roommates in the history of the National Football League.
- The production was such a success on ABC that it was later shown in theaters by Columbia Pictures with a major premiere in Chicago; however, it was soon withdrawn for lack of business.
- Michel Legrand wrote the music for the film, with lyrics to the theme song "The Hands of Time" by Alan and Marilyn Bergman; Legrand's instrumental version charted for eight weeks in 1972, peaking at No. 56 on the Billboard Hot 100, and won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition.
- Long after its first broadcast, a 2005 readers' poll taken by Entertainment Weekly ranked Brian's Song seventh in its list of the top "guy-cry" films.
- Thirty years after its original airing, a remake was aired in 2001 on ABC's The Wonderful World of Disney, starring Mekhi Phifer as Sayers and Sean Maher as Piccolo.
- Beginning in the fall of 1972, the film was made available to schools all over the United States by the Learning Corporation of America.
SPOILER
The movie ends with a flashback of Piccolo and Sayers running through the park, while Halas narrates that Piccolo died at age 26 and is remembered not for how he died but for how he lived.
