Paul Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, the player-coach of the Charleston Chiefs, in George Roy Hill’s (The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) Slap Shot. Both Dunlop and his team have seen better days: the Chiefs can’t buy a win, and his marriage seems to be in the sin bin. What to do? Bring in a trio of thuggish, bespectacled brothers (Jeff and Steve Carlson and David Hanson) who don’t play nice on the ice, that’s what. Slap Shot fully justifies its R rating, with Newman and company filling the air with profanity as vulgar as their playing style. Screenwriter Nancy Dowd based the nasty language on tape recordings her brother (a minor-league hockey player for the Johnstown Jets who served as the film’s technical adviser) made while in the locker room and on his team bus.
