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01:15In 1962, for $3,000, my dad bought the film rights for the NFL championship game.
01:21And I was a fullback at Colorado College then, and I'll always remember his phone call to me. He said,
01:27I can see by your grades that all you've been doing out there is playing football and going to the
01:31movies. But that makes you uniquely qualified for this new job.
01:36So I quit school and came back to Philadelphia to work for my dad. And since then, NFL Films has
01:44been the only job I've ever had. 38 years.
01:47And you know, I thought I knew something about everything that we'd ever shot. But last year, Phil Tuckett, a
01:54producer who's been working with me for 31 years, found in our film vault some unmarked cans that they were
02:00so old they were rusted shut.
02:02Well, we opened them up, and inside was this uncut black and white negative film. And it must have been
02:10shot during the exhibition games prior to the 1964 season, because I'd never seen any of this stuff.
02:16But after we looked at it, we said, boy, this is a great time capsule of the 1960s.
02:22So Phil decided to put together a research team, and they dug even deeper into the archives to see what
02:28else they could find.
02:29This series is the result of that search. And we decided to call it the Lost Treasures of NFL Films,
02:38because that's what they are, a never-before-seen record of the growth of pro football.
02:43And also of the growth of that little company my dad started back in 1962.
02:50When my dad started filming pro football, he used to tell his cameramen, let the film run like water.
02:56We can't miss anything. Film's the cheapest thing we've got. Shoot everything that moves.
03:01He said, we're historians. We're recording the game for posterity.
03:06Now, a lot of this early footage never got used.
03:09But after more than 35 years in what dad used to call the wine cellar, these shots are more valuable
03:16than ever.
03:17They've aged very well. And now they're a colorful reminder of the way the game used to be.
03:43And this forgotten footage also tells the story of Tiny Blair Motion Pictures.
03:48That was named after my sister and how it evolved into NFL films.
03:52And this was the time when Hallis and Lombardi shared the field. How about those hats?
03:57Cheerleaders used megaphones in those days. Players drank out of the water bucket.
04:01All the kicking was done straight ahead by big men, not one skinny sidewinder in the group.
04:08Fans dressed like they were going to church. Look at this guy, though. He was wearing something extra.
04:15And back then, you could smoke on the sidelines and up in the stands, and no one cared.
04:19Who knew about secondhand smoke?
04:21Ha, ha, ha.
04:27Then television started showing up on the sidelines.
04:30But this is what we were shooting at the time, these little wind-up Bell and Hal movie cameras, trying
04:35to get close to the action, but yet without becoming part of it.
04:45Seeing this footage for the first time reminds me of why I love this era so much.
04:50I was 21 when I went to work for Dad, and there were only 14 teams in the NFL.
04:55But I could tell you something about every player in the league. I could name every offensive lineman.
05:03They seemed larger than life to me then, and maybe even a little bit tougher than the players of today.
05:18Now, right from the start, we experimented with slow motion photography to show the subtleties of the game, things that
05:25TV had overlooked.
05:27Dad felt that slow motion was pure cinema.
05:30This was movie-making perfectly matched to the grace and the beauty and the violence of pro football.
05:38Who could forget Tom the Bomb Tracy? He's finishing up his career with the Redskins, and that's punter Bobby Joe
05:45Green.
05:45You can tell he's a kicker. He's not wearing a face mask.
05:49For a year, Phil and his guys dug, and they explored, and they scrounged through thousands of cans of film.
05:55Some of it so rusted, we needed metal cutters to open them.
06:03What you'll see in this show is the best of 30 hours of lost treasures from the 1960s that we
06:11rediscovered and restored.
06:13Not one shot has ever been seen on television until now.
06:21And we not only found footage of all the great players of the day, but also some shots of other
06:26players that we shouldn't forget.
06:28And I thought it would be great to track down some of these guys and interview them for the first
06:32time.
06:32So, you'll be meeting Joe Rutkins, Brady Keyes, and the Catawba Claw, that's Bucky Pope, during the next hour.
06:40Now, you might not remember them or even know who they were, but as far as I'm concerned, they were
06:46all lost treasures.
06:47I was like, oh, you're all lost treasures.
06:47I was like, oh, you're all lost treasures.
06:51I was like, oh, you're all lost treasures.
07:16I was always into sports.
07:18I was a jock all my life.
07:20And to me, the best sport to film at that time was pro football.
07:24Even the field is shaped like a movie screen and there's eight seconds and the play stops.
07:30And then there's another eight seconds and the play stops.
07:33And there was a lot of action.
07:37So, you know, you get a couple of guys who know a little bit about the game.
07:41And we decided that we're going to shoot pro football.
07:46Dad hired director Dan Indy.
07:48And Blair Motion Pictures paid $3,000 for the rights to the 62 championship game.
07:54Yeah, 1962.
07:55That's the game I'm talking about.
07:57And I think this game was about minus 10 with the chill factor.
08:01That's the wind blind.
08:02You know, that was just a severe afternoon to shoot movies of a football game.
08:08Well, thank God I didn't know more.
08:09I didn't realize that the film could freeze.
08:12I didn't realize that a cameraman, if he put his face against the camera, it would stick to the camera.
08:17So, I didn't know about that.
08:18I just said, let's go.
08:20Shoot.
08:20That's all.
08:20Shoot everything that moves.
08:22And I'll never forget how cold it was in Yankee Stadium that day.
08:26And the wind.
08:27That was worse than the cold.
08:28And the pregame, YA Tittle's passes were getting blown all over the field.
08:33The quality of this footage amazes me.
08:36It was shot on ectochrome film stock.
08:39And for some reason, Kodak stopped making it.
08:40It's too bad, because look at this quality.
08:4337 years later, no deterioration.
08:46The cold killed us.
08:48Our cameras weren't winterized.
08:50They would stop and start, and they'd leave what...
08:51See this? This is called a flash frame.
08:54And it'd make the shots too short to use in the edit, so a lot of the footage wasn't good
08:57enough.
09:00But when they did stay on long enough, we tried to get the kind of storytelling shots that Dan needed
09:05to make a film.
09:08Another obstacle which we faced in those days was the equipment was archaic.
09:13I mean, we were shooting with Kodak Cine Specials, which were World War II cameras.
09:19The Aeroflex, the zoomar lenses, the film stock, none of it was as good as it is today.
09:25So, I mean, in some respects, it's analogous to a Wright Brothers aircraft compared with a jet plane today.
09:32The stuff just wasn't available to do the job, and even if it were available, none of us, or very
09:38few of us, had the real training to do it.
09:40So, there was a lot of on-the-job training.
09:44One camera that ran well the whole game was this telephoto lens.
09:47And that was a big innovation back then, and we used it because we wanted to personalize the game.
09:53We wanted to portray the struggle as well as the strategy.
09:57But there were so many problems.
09:58I mean, my dad actually got physically sick with worry and anxiety, and he was in the Yankee dugout toilet
10:04most of the second half with diarrhea.
10:06He had to run.
10:06And that's where we got the name for that particular game, Pro Football's Longest Game, because it was a long
10:13game.
10:15When it got through, and they started to take the film out of the cameras, it started cracking and breaking.
10:22And that's when I said, oh, my God, what have I got here?
10:25And they took the film, and I remember looking in laundry baskets in the locker room, and they were throwing
10:31it in the laundry baskets.
10:32Oh, there goes my game. It's over.
10:35And fortunately, we salvaged enough film that didn't get spoiled to come up with a, I guess it was a
10:4228-minute film.
10:43Maybe that was a blessing in disguise, because it did get good reviews, and the people who were reviewing it
10:49were sports writers who had been there in person, and they knew the obstacles.
10:53The film was a success. Pete Rozelle called it the best football film he had ever seen, and maybe at
10:59that point it was.
11:00So Blair Motion Pictures was up and running, and this is my first screen credit.
11:06I was an assistant editor to John Butterworth.
11:10By 1964, we were ready to shoot our first full season, and we had to produce highlight films for all
11:1514 teams.
11:17Now, this footage was shot in the preseason, and we used it to test the cameramen and the equipment.
11:22And also, we had to decide whether we were going to use color or the cheaper black and white film.
11:28Back in those days, teams barnstormed around the country for exhibition games, and they did it to promote the league
11:34in out-of-the-way places.
11:35They'd go to, like, Wheeling, West Virginia, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
11:40This footage shows you how far the league has come.
11:46You know, some of these towns had only baseball diamonds to play on, and there were minor league ballparks.
11:52You'd be up there. There wasn't a bathroom. Others had speakers and lights. We had to shoot from the roof.
11:58We had really bad camera positions.
12:01But then when we got a clear shot, it was like a who's who of all the great players of
12:06the day,
12:06because a lot of those guys would play a lot during preseason.
12:10But, you know, since it was preseason, teams were still rehearsing for the year, and there were a lot of
12:16screw-ups.
12:16And we had no idea how to use this stuff.
12:18You know, at the time, we'd look at this and say, God, this is embarrassing. We can't show this.
12:22But years later, these shots would come to be known as Follies.
12:27And we would use them in what would become our most successful film ever, The Football Follies.
12:35Also, during that preseason, we experimented with wind-up handheld cameras to show the game from the ground level.
12:42Dad called these guys who got this assignment moles.
12:45I think that was Ed's term because you were down on the ground and you were, you know, walking around
12:52like some subterranean rodent, ergo the term mole.
12:57It was his job to go down on the field with 100 feet of film and just go through both
13:03teams and get extreme close-ups of everybody's face.
13:07That was the only chance we could get to get their faces without the helmets. So that was the way
13:11we got the facials.
13:13We were just looking for personalities, and I remember you would have to ask the guy to take his helmet
13:19off so you could see.
13:20I mean, an introductory piece, very much of a cliché even then as it is now, but it helped fill
13:27the gap.
13:27Let's see if I can remember some of these mole shots.
13:30This is George Izzo, a Redskin backup quarterback.
13:33The man with the biggest thighs in the NFL, Israel Lang.
13:36John David Crowe with a rare smile.
13:39Here's Billy Truax. He was 81 with the Browns, and two weeks later after a trade, he's 87 with the
13:45Rams.
13:45Let me see who that's. That's J.D. Smith.
13:48I think this number 20 is Paul Martha of the Steelers, 25 of the Eagles. I don't know who the
13:53hell that is.
13:54Now, one thing, you won't see any close-ups of the Chicago Bears, and that's because Bear owner George Halas
14:00refused to let us shoot any of his players without their helmets off.
14:04He says, I don't want any facials. That's what he used to call a close-up.
14:07And he said, I don't want to single out a player. It's a team sport.
14:11If you single out a player and he gets a facial in our highlight film, then he's going to come
14:15to me and want more money.
14:16So you never saw any close-ups of any Chicago Bears.
14:20Well, by the time the preseason ended, we thought we were ready.
14:24And luckily, we made the decision to shoot color film.
14:34Well, this is opening day, 1964, and we were up and shooting long before the game started.
14:39We were all so excited that we shot anything.
14:41And at the time, we had no use for all these fan shots.
14:44But everybody was so excited that we shot them anyway.
14:46But now, looking back, I'm glad we saved them.
14:49This is sort of a 60s fashion show.
14:52The music you're hearing is also a lost treasure.
14:55It comes from the first selections recorded for Blair Motion Pictures between 1962 and 65.
15:01And the composer was Malin Merrick, and he was from Hollywood.
15:04He was a popular film composer in the 1960s.
15:07And we wanted to use music that reflected the temper and the style of the modern era.
15:13There were no domed stadiums then, and artificial turf hadn't even been invented yet.
15:18The media was just starting to take notice of the NFL, but high-tech it wasn't.
15:24There were no digital game clocks, the scoreboards were manual.
15:28Well, there's a job for you. I wonder who those guys were that had to work in that scoreboard.
15:32Lines were painted on the dirt because by November all the grass had been worn off.
15:37But playing in the dirt was no problem compared to having the goalposts on the goal line.
15:44And I can't imagine why it took the league so long to move the post back to the back of
15:49the endzone.
15:50It just seemed that once a week, players would get racked up on the posts.
15:57But we were all having a great time, and we were just a bunch of young guys who loved making
16:02movies,
16:03and who loved pro football, and wanted to convey our love of the game to whoever was watching our movies.
16:11Looking at this footage, doesn't this seem like this was a more innocent time,
16:16and maybe the players had more fun playing the game?
16:22The first season, we shot thousands of feet of goofy things, color, pageantry, and we had no idea how to
16:28use it.
16:31Now just look at this stuff. Look at it.
16:47Look at these balloons. You know why there's balloons?
16:50Because Pete Rozelle loved balloons, and the teams would use them whenever he would attend one of their games.
16:56Pete Rozelle's gonna be at the game, you knew balloons were gonna go up.
17:09No show business types here. This is just high school bands.
17:13And out of all the thousands of anonymous half-time characters, we finally found one we recognized.
17:20You know who this is? This is Sybil Shepard, Miss Teenage America.
17:26None of the rest of these people ever made it to Hollywood.
17:44Now we shot everything, no matter what the conditions. In fact, in the beginning we didn't like bad weather, but
17:49then when we saw shots like this, we prayed for bad weather.
17:53This was combat photography.
17:56And this is when those dirt fields turned to a quagmire, but that's when the fun started.
18:01But see, a lot of our cameras were Aeroflexes, and they'd been used in World War II, so they were
18:05combat tested, they never broke down, they kept rolling.
18:08The pictures we used to get when the weather was bad, we always used to say, gee, these are better
18:14than the great sunshine pictures.
18:15When we had a driving rainstorm, and we had the cleats and the feet sliding and sloshing through the mud,
18:23and when a fellow would come at the camera and it slide right up to the camera, right in front
18:27of the lens, they were marvelous pictures.
18:29But the problem was, then the film stocks were slower, and sometimes the lights weren't that good, the stadiums, and
18:35it would get so dark, it just looked like we were shooting in some sort of primordial ooze.
18:40You know, as far as I'm concerned, this stuff is much more dramatic than a day on Astroturf in a
18:46dome.
18:47This was football, and in football the show goes on, no matter what the weather.
18:52Fog.
18:53This was also a great cinematic backdrop for our movies.
18:57And this 1965 game between the Redskins and the Colts had a sort of a hound of the Baskervilles feeling.
19:03This was duplicated 20 years later, you'll remember, in a playoff game between the Bears and the Eagles at Soldier's
19:09Field.
19:10For some reason, we had an end zone camera here, and we got this classic shot of Lenny Moore.
19:19In fact, this game was full of a lot of lost treasures, including the longest one we found.
19:24Now, this is Jerry Logan, intersecting a Sonny Jergensen pass, goes back 104 yards.
19:32Colts won this game 45-17.
19:35He could go all the way.
19:40Why haven't we ever seen this shot?
19:43I haven't the foggiest.
19:51The one thing I love about looking at all these lost treasures is the way it brings nearly forgotten players
19:57back to life.
19:58Like Pete Retzlap, he was the premier possession receiver of his day.
20:03He could catch the ball in a crowd, and he would have been great in today's West Coast offenses.
20:11This is Detroit's Nick Petrosani.
20:14He was a fullback I could identify with.
20:17Slow, but every step meant something.
20:22Now, we got this shot of Rick Caceres, despite the Hallis no close-up rule.
20:26Looks like a character in our Martin Scorsese movie.
20:29He was from North Jersey.
20:31My favorite rediscovery was this guy, Big Joe Rutkins, who played defensive tackle for the Redskins.
20:37He was number 72, and he was a Redskins captain for all ten years he was in the league.
20:42And each game, he'd start out neat and tidy at the toss of the coin.
20:46But by the end of the first play, somehow his shirt tail was out.
20:49It's funny, here's a tough guy made all pro, but what I remember most was his shirt tail always being
20:54out.
20:54My stomach does hang out a little, and it's hard to keep the shirt in, and it wasn't comfortable in.
21:00I used to blame it on the offensive lineman for my jersey being out from holding and pulling it out
21:06from home on too tight.
21:08My wife always said that I look like an unmade bed, and I haven't lost much weight since then I'm
21:12about the same size.
21:15That was the name of the whole game was sacking the quarterback.
21:19And even if he has already thrown the ball, you still like to hit him a little bit, let him
21:24know you're around.
21:28You're always asking about my shirt staying in. The shirt stays in now, but the tie won't stay where it's
21:32supposed to.
21:34Bucky Pope, he had the best nickname, the Catawba Claw, and he had a spectacular rookie season in 1964 with
21:42the Rams.
21:44We went looking for him, and believe it or not, we found him 20 miles right here from NFL Films.
21:49He was working as an executive at a steel company.
21:52Well, the college that I played for was not necessarily renowned for first-round draft picks.
21:58It was tiny Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina.
22:02Now, if you would have asked anybody in that camp, who's the guy least likely to make this team?
22:08They'd have said, that guy there, that guy from Catawba, where is that place? What's that place all about?
22:14But I will tell you this, the one guy that I was absolutely certain was going to make that team
22:18was me.
22:19And I was smitten, I was tunneled, I was narrowed, and I was going to make that team somehow, someway.
22:26So here was a guy that was six feet five, could run, and was catching the ball.
22:34The Catawba Claw. That name's just fun to say.
22:37And somehow, someway, that crazy nickname caught on, and frankly is fairly alive and well to this day.
22:46The Claw had 10 touchdowns in just 25 catches, and he averaged 47 yards per touchdown catch.
22:53That's 10 yards more per catch than Randy Moss.
22:57And we had a guy that could throw the ball, that was Gabriel.
23:00And I was pretty talented catching a long ball.
23:07Well, I'd like to think that I'd had a 10-year career, a couple of Super Bowl rings, candidate for
23:13the Hall of Fame.
23:15But then ran afoul of a sophomore jinx, I guess is the way you would describe it as far as
23:20I was concerned.
23:21It was fairly seriously hurt, and never ever recovered from that initial knee injury.
23:26Nobody can ever, ever take away from me what you accomplished.
23:31And that is, I am the Catawba Claw. There's only one of me.
23:34And I'm very, very proud of that.
23:36In our research, we found outstanding plays by men like Joe Rutkins and the Catawba Claw.
23:42I love saying that name, the Catawba Claw.
23:46But we didn't find any of the best shots of legends like John Unitas and Jim Brown because we've been
23:52using them in our shows for years.
23:54But what we did find in The Lost Treasures were examples of legends being human.
24:00Like this shot, flawless Raymond Berry actually dropping a catchable pass.
24:07This probably happened once a year.
24:09And what about this shot of Unitas?
24:11Looks like the clumsy free agent from Louisville he once was.
24:19Baseball was the most popular sport of the day, and it was followed closely by college football.
24:24So we weren't about to show Superman Jimmy Brown going down with an arm tackle.
24:29Pete Rozelle felt the league needed to create superstars that were far superior to anything you could see in college.
24:35That's why you never saw any of these shots in our highlights.
24:38But what we were forgetting was that viewers loved to see their heroes make mistakes.
24:44They could identify with a guy messing up.
24:54Some of the mistakes seemed prophetic.
24:57Jackie Smith didn't drop that many passes.
25:00But this one, this one looks a lot like another short touchdown gone bad that Smith duplicated in Super Bowl
25:07XIII as a Dallas Cowboy.
25:10Actually, we did find footage of legends at their best.
25:13It was in our Pro Bowl coverage from the early years that rarely got used because the uniforms didn't match
25:19with the rest of the games.
25:20And sometimes the numbers were different, and the teams didn't want to use the footage in the highlights.
25:25But where else could you find George Halas coaching John Unitas and Don Shula working with Fran Tarketon?
25:35Now, because none of this footage got used, all of the best remained in the outs.
25:41Jim Brown refusing to go down.
25:48Jimmy Taylor running the Green Bay sweep.
25:55Bear tight end Mike Ditka being his belligerent self.
26:06Super quick Chicago safety Rosie Taylor.
26:14Scrambling Fran Tarkin and throwing to Boom Boom Brown.
26:18Dave Parks making a block to spring Tommy Mason.
26:21John Mackey going deep.
26:27Detroit's Terry Barr making a fingertip catch.
26:30That's too bad this interception by Green Bay linebacker Ray Nischke wasn't in a regular season game
26:36because in his contract with Lombardi, Nischke got a $50 bonus for every pass he intercepted.
26:46Now, looking back, it seems to me that the pro bowlers of the 60s played harder in this game than
26:50they do now.
26:51Just watch this.
26:52Doug Atkins, number 81, rushed the quarterback.
26:59In the 1964 game, number 89, Gino Marchetti delivered this message to quarterback Frank Ryan.
27:05And there's a great story about this.
27:07Marchetti felt that the Browns had run up the score two weeks earlier in the NFL championship game.
27:12And he told Ryan after the game, listen, you don't do that and I'm going to get you.
27:17And he did in this pro bowl.
27:22But number 77, Eugene Big Daddy Lipscomb was the most dominating defender in pro bowl history.
27:29They used to say he could tilt the field.
27:34Now, in this footage from 1963, Big Daddy dominated the best defensive lineman in the league.
27:42He was 6'7", 300, but he didn't beat up the guy in front of him.
27:47Pursuit was his specialty.
27:48He didn't spend a lot of time pounding on the blockers.
27:53He was out to pound the ball carrier, the quarterback.
27:59Big Daddy was MVP that day.
28:02But no one could have known that this was also his last game.
28:08Big Daddy died six weeks later.
28:15Defensive play in the 1960s was as basic as hand-to-hand combat.
28:23Defenses back then were built on the premise that a good player becomes less good when he's hit so hard
28:30that he doesn't want to be hit again.
28:37Now, a lot of these hard hits never appeared in our shows because, at the time, most of the teams
28:42wanted to emphasize their offense and their scoring.
28:45The typical highlight package of the day consisted of touchdowns and not much else.
28:50So, unless it was an interception return for a touchdown, defenses largely got ignored, but not in the lost treasures.
29:02We were especially impressed in going through this old footage with the play of the defensive backs.
29:08Now, they were a hell of a lot more aggressive back then.
29:11A lot of times, they'd let the receiver catch the ball just to give him a good whack and then
29:15knock it loose.
29:16Receivers were like scraps of meat being tossed into a dog kettle.
29:26Number 22, that's Jimmy Lynch.
29:31Mel Renfro, Hall of Famer, number 20.
29:35Number 39 is one of the most underrated DBs of all time, Kermit Alexander of the 49ers.
29:41Now, one of the best of the defensive backs was a scrappy Steeler cornerback named Brady Keyes.
29:46But, because the Steelers were so lousy back then, his big plays seldom made the highlight reels.
29:52Well, we decided to track Brady down and we found him in Albany, Georgia.
29:57Oddly enough, he was more celebrated off the field than he ever was on it.
30:02Brady Keyes, what we call it, the history in the making, the black pioneer.
30:08Because I've been the first in so many things.
30:11He's the first black man to own a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
30:14And if you look closely, I had my picture there instead of the Colonel.
30:19And my name underneath there instead of the Colonel.
30:21But the Colonel and I were such good friends.
30:24I mean, we were both pioneers.
30:26You know, we had something in common.
30:27My whole attitude about everything changed when I was on the football field.
30:31You can imagine, boy, that was the Brady Keyes.
30:33When I was on the football field, I was no nice guy.
30:38My game plan when I went and played was not just to cover a receiver.
30:43That was not it.
30:44My game plan was to shut him out.
30:47When he got one pass on me, I was pissed.
30:49I tried to kill him after that.
30:51I tried to beat him up for catching that pass on me.
30:54But believe me, I was such a cocky little defensive back.
30:58I did not believe.
30:59I did not believe that anybody could beat me.
31:02I just didn't believe it.
31:04There was no rule against close lining.
31:06So I did it.
31:08There was no rule against chopping my little throat chop.
31:11So I did it.
31:12I invented things that the rules didn't cover.
31:16Is that dirty?
31:17I don't think so.
31:19The things I used to do, they put me out of the game nowadays.
31:23I wouldn't last a quarter.
31:25I wouldn't last any time.
31:26Why?
31:27Because I would stop the receiver.
31:29They don't want you to stop no receivers now.
31:31They want that receiver to run down and score touchdowns
31:34and the crowd holler and the television ratings go up.
31:38That's entertainment.
31:39And you had the audacity to ask me, was it Rafa in the 60s?
31:44Can't be a break.
31:47That's a funny question.
31:48Excuse me for laughing.
31:55Feisty little Brady Keys played at a time when all-out brawls were not that in common.
32:02We weren't supposed to shoot them, but now it can be revealed that sometimes we did.
32:13Actually, the fights were not as violent as what happened when the ball was in play.
32:20And this was all legal in the 1960s.
32:23Clothes lining, leg whipping, head slaps, crack backs.
32:27They wouldn't get you fined or suspended.
32:32They wouldn't even get you penalized.
32:39They also wouldn't get you into the highlight film.
32:42Until now.
32:43Oh, let's go now.
32:44Oh, God.
33:04You are left.
33:05Go now.
33:14I think back in them days
33:16they used to have what they called hatchet men
33:19they'd be sent into a game
33:20for one reason
33:21to put somebody out of the game
33:24and there would be times a quarterback or somebody
33:26could be walking back to the huddle
33:28and a guy would come up and hit them
33:29they'd get thrown out of the game
33:31but that was their job
33:34quarterbacks weren't protected
33:35the way they are today
33:36when they pulled the ball down to run
33:39they were free game
33:40they were popped like paper bags
33:42hook slides hadn't been invented
33:43so there was no place for them to hide
33:47quarterbacks weren't even safe
33:49when they tried to get out of bounds
33:50now it was illegal to hit a man out of bounds
33:54it's just that the rules weren't strictly enforced
33:57a couple of strides more or less
33:59what the hell
34:00it didn't seem to matter
34:02now the Eagles tried to prevent injuries
34:05by putting used mattresses in the landing zones
34:16nobody was safe though
34:17defenses in those days
34:19were on a search and destroy mission
34:22even the great Jim Brown got ambushed
34:27today's players
34:28you know you hear that they're bigger and faster
34:30but I think the game in the 60s
34:32was more violent
34:34check this shot out from number 74
34:37the Steelers' Urban Henry
34:41that's a cheap shot
34:48despite what you've seen
34:50they did have referees in the 1960s
34:54and occasionally they found reason to throw their hankies
35:04you know I'd forgotten that the ref's flags were white until 1965
35:10but other than that the reaction of the players was just the same as it is today
35:24that 70-year-old George Howland
35:26he said he knew it was time to retire
35:28when he couldn't keep pace with officials
35:29when he was disputing the penalties they were marching off
35:34after seeing these lost treasures
35:36I think if today's rules had been in effect in the 1960s
35:40a lot of Hall of Famers would have been fined more than they earned
35:49going into 1965
35:50we kept trying to work out the bugs in our coverage
35:55at San Francisco's Kezar Stadium
35:57we kept seeing these strange intermittent flashes in the footage
36:01we didn't know what the hell it was
36:07then one game we shot in slow motion
36:09and discovered it was a flock of seagulls
36:12from San Francisco Bay
36:15then in New York's Yankee Stadium
36:17we had a bad top position
36:18and it was so low that the plays that went into the near sideline
36:22were obscured by the bench
36:23and then we still had some freelancers
36:26who just couldn't follow the ball
36:32now one of my dad's favorite slogans was
36:34flap, finish like a pro
36:36label your film cans
36:38put away your equipment
36:39but there were two things
36:41that really drove him crazy
36:44I had a fetish about two things in our movies
36:47and one was focus
36:49and the other was exposure
36:51because that's where our cameramen made their most mistakes
36:55you know, the color, the exposure would be wrong
36:58but why don't you use a meter, you got the meter, use it
37:01well they didn't want to use the meter, you know, they're lazy
37:03and when a picture's out of focus
37:05that's so immature
37:06it made me sick
37:07I couldn't stand to see a picture out of focus
37:10why couldn't you focus the picture?
37:12you know, Ed is a very impulsive and impetuous gentleman
37:15and I remember when we first got involved with the cameras
37:20you know, most people would buy one or two and test it through a season
37:24well, Ed found out that, you know, more is better
37:29so he bought twelve of them right out of the chute
37:31we took those twelve wind-up cameras and put them to work
37:34we stopped shooting all those stiff posed pre-game shots
37:38now, our moles were down on their knees
37:40sneaking into the bench area
37:42looking for candid close-ups
37:43although, I'm not quite sure what this cameraman was trying to shoot
37:50these early hand-held cameras didn't have zoom lenses like they have today
37:54so if the play went away from you, you were sunk
37:58on the other hand, if the play came toward the camera
38:01you might get lucky if you held your ground and you'd get a good shot
38:09but then if it came too close, you were sunk again
38:15now, this was all tricky business, not an exact science
38:18we just wanted to show the game the way the players experienced it
38:28before long, our best moles started thinking along with the quarterbacks
38:32and anticipating where the plays might be run
38:35more and more, they started to guess right
38:37and we started getting a few of the ground shots
38:40that NFL films would one day be famous for
38:43the favorite spot was a corner of the end zone
38:46it was a good place to catch a flag pattern
38:49then, even after you guessed right
38:51a great shot like this, like this run by the lion's Amos Marsh
38:56could be ruined by a hair in the frame
39:00another limitation of these primitive ground cameras was the speed
39:03you couldn't shoot a lot of slow motion
39:06because the 100 foot film load lasted only 2 minutes
39:11now that wasn't the case for the top camera
39:14which carried 12 minute loads, it had more film
39:16and right away, we started to develop the super slow motion coverage
39:21which would become one of our trademarks
39:23in fact, dad made it a priority to shoot slow motion
39:27even though it cost a lot more
39:29when you shoot slow motion through a movie camera
39:33the film is going through there like water out of a spigot
39:36and boy, it's just building up dollars
39:39it's like a taxi cab meter
39:42and nobody wanted to take that expense
39:45but it was so great to see slow motion in football
39:48lend itself so much
39:50because of the movements, almost like a ballet
39:53the runs especially, where they would miss tackles and slide
39:57and the great extensions for the passes
39:59and that's all that people talked about
40:01and I thought, if that's all the people are talking about
40:04and that's what they like
40:07then hell, I'm going to give them the whole game that way
40:10so I loaded up the cameras
40:11we're going to invest the money
40:13we're going to shoot every play slow motion
40:21the thing that strikes me about these slow-mo shots
40:24is why were these still in the outs?
40:27geez, look at this, look at this Lenny Moore run
40:29I can't believe that we never used this
40:43a lot of people would say
40:44Ed, how did you decide to shoot that game in slow motion?
40:47well, I shot every play in slow motion
41:00the 1965 season saw the arrival of two rookies
41:04who would become great for our films
41:06and for pro football in general
41:09number 40, Gail Sayers
41:10and number 51, Dick Butkus
41:12now they started out as special teamers for the Bears
41:15Sayers was so unique
41:17that every time the Bears played
41:19all of the editors would argue over
41:21who would be able to cut that film
41:22and Butkus was giving us a reason
41:25to use defensive plays in the highlight shows
41:27for the first time
41:29even then, we knew the significance
41:31of these two new stars that we could promote
41:33and how they represented the passing of the torch
41:37once again, Jim Brown had led the league in rushing
41:39but no one knew that this was going to be his last season
41:45he had made up his mind to retire at the peak of his career
41:48and the 1965 Pro Bowl would be the last game he would ever play
41:57the man sure knew how to go out in style
42:09In my mind, Jim Brown is the greatest NFL player ever
42:14he was the MVP of the last football game of his life
42:18and for the first time, we used our company's new name on the credits
42:23Blair Motion Pictures had been bought by the NFL
42:26and we were now NFL Films
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