The Basketball Fix

"Felix Feist's The Basketball Fix (1951) dates from a period in which white basketball players were a significant part of the game -- and, to judge from this movie, the only part of the game. Marshall Thompson was a fine actor and a decent male ingenue who'd given a great performance in William Wellman's Battleground, but he's hopeless at convincing anyone that he's a top basketball prospect. Forgetting the shortcomings of the movie, the source print, transferred full-frame (1.33:1), is somewhat worn and scratched, with a fair amount of white vertical blemishes, but not so badly as to make it unwatchable, even if the picture is a tiny bit soft and some of the wider shots are whited out; by the same token, however, the night scenes and dark scenes all have usable picture information. The audio is stable and set at a healthy volume level. The 66-minute movie gets six chapters, par for the course for Alpha Video, and the usual three-selection menu opens the disc automatically, with the ""play"" command in the default position."