Banning (film)

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Starring Robert Wagner and Jill St. John with a supporting cast that includes Gene Hackman as a washed up, alcoholic golfer, this film, set in an extremely exclusive Southern California country club involves love, denial, avarice, gambling and, perhaps, the greatest line in the history of cinema... Quincy Jones and Bob Russell were nominated for an oscar for the song, "The Eyes of Love."

Mike Banning (Wagner) was recently thrown off the PGA Tour for cheating. He was accused of offering to split the purse with a competitor (James Farrentino) if that competitor deliberately missed a final putt. In fact, the competitor and another pro (drunk and washed up, played by Gene Hackman) had approached Banning. When Banning/Wagner refused they turned him in, accused of their crime.

The accusers soon leave the tour to become head pro and assistant at a very ritzy golf club. Banning arrives, threatens to expose them in their new affluence, and is given the assistant pro's job to quiet him. Banning then proceeds to lure the club's high rollers to stage a high-wager golf tournament, a Calcutta, in which two-man teams are auctioned off. All the money is then put in a pot and split three ways between the teammates and their bidder. Banning must win this tournament to win enough money, $21,000, to pay off the mob who had bankrolled his trial on the PGA Tour. He is literally playing for his life (and that of his dentist who actually took out the loan).

Banning knows the club pro cheats. The club president also cheats. He plays high-stakes poker, appearing drunk on whiskey while actually drinking iced tea. The club president's daughter, Jill St. John, wins the highly competitive bidding for Banning's team and wants him to cheat with her on her husband, Banning's partner (he doesn't).

In the end we arrive at a sudden-death playoff, just as had happened in the ill-fated attempt to bribe Banning on the tour. On the 17th hole of sudden-death, with his life literally riding on his shot, Banning elects to try a near impossible shot over a tall stand of trees. He utters "the greatest line in the history of cinema": "Give me the five wood, Walter. I'm going over the trees."

You'll have to watch the movie to see what happens, to Banning, his adversaries, and the "Tess Truehart" club manager, also in love with Banning, played by the lovely Anjanette Comer.

The mob tough displays a curious skill during the scene in which he threatens Banning's life. He can stand 10 feet or so from a door and, in an underhanded motion, throw a key into a lock, every time.