AMOR PERFECT UNION: Enjoying Harvard’s ‘Win’ on Screen

My father, my roommate, and I entered the Film Forum–a nonprofit theater in lower Manhattan that mostly shows independent films–last Friday right about when the previews had started.

The lights were already off, but the palpable smugness in the room and self-consciously appropriate laughter that followed suggested that the audience consisted of hipsters, socialites, Ivy grads and an assortment of other caricatures out of the East Coast intellectual elite. For a moment, I found it strange that representatives of the group supposedly ushering in the United States’ moral decay and loss of traditional values would come together to watch a movie about football, America’s rough and tumble answer to that wimpy game where scrawny European boys chase after each other in short-shorts kicking a ball around.

But then I remembered that the movie in question was “Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29,” a documentary about the famous 1968 game in which the Crimson mounted a seemingly impossible comeback in the contest’s waning minutes to overcome a 16-point deficit and force a tie on the game’s last play.

Putting the film and its audience in the proper context, I stopped sniffing the air for traces of socialism and sat back and enjoyed the show.

And what a show it was.

Filmmaker Kevin Rafferty ’70 has managed to compose a compelling and thrilling documentary using just old game footage and one-on-one interviews with former Harvard and Yale players. Despite his film’s simplicity, Rafferty weaves a rich narrative with conflict, suspense, a thrilling and climactic end, and even a villain in Yale’s Mike Bouscaren.

The movie also made me really happy that I go to school where I do.

Rafferty paints the Crimson as a motley crew of scrappy underdogs overmatched by the Bulldogs despite both teams entering the game undefeated. Most of the former Harvard athletes interviewed come from blue collar backgrounds and some are the first in their families to make it past high school. Amid the turmoil of Vietnam, the Crimson features players both for and against the war—and one, Pat Conway ’69, who fought in it—that put their differences aside in the spirit of team unity.

Yale, on the other hand, is portrayed as a daunting and arrogant juggernaut. Brian “God” Dowling is the polished quarterback who hasn’t lost a game since middle school and running back Calvin Hill is a future No. 1 draft pick of the Dallas Cowboys. Several of the Bulldogs players come from families with long-standing ties to Yale, and while the Harvard players talk about picket lines and the University Hall student takeover, the Elis care less for broader global happenings and more about walking around campus and being treated like heroes.

Then there’s Bouscaren.

The former Yale defensive captain steals the show as the film’s conniving and yet strangely likeable bad guy. He openly discusses trying to intentionally injure Harvard players during the game, and his dirty tactics increase as the Crimson cuts down the Bulldogs’ lead. Bouscaren even takes credit for a cheap shot that he didn’t commit. But his antics seem to always backfire, such as when he draws a flag for a facemasking penalty on Harvard quarterback Frank Champi ’70 that gives the Crimson better field position and allows the team to complete its comeback.

Bouscaren’s ineptness as a villain and his frank honesty regarding his unethical play and general status as a jerk almost make him endearing.

Of course, there is more than a hint of irony in casting Harvard’s football team as the plucky wannabe facing a cunning and ruthless Yale squad when one considers that in reality the biggest difference between the two universities is geographical location, and even that contrast is far from stark.

While Rafferty does a fairly decent job of remaining objective, he is a Harvard man and he is also looking to entertain. I’m sure he picked out specific aspects from his interviews and used them not only to inform but to develop his narrative.

That’s fine from my perspective. Everybody loves an underdog, and if you’re going to accept the absurd premise that either Harvard or Yale could be one, it might as well be your team.

When the tune of “10,000 Men of Harvard” played as the credits rolled, I could barely contain the urge to sing along. There was no cynicism involved, only a repeat performance of that genuine school spirit that Harvard students usually only get to experience once a year, and now I had enjoyed another inspiring Crimson victory less than a week after this year’s installment of The Game.

But I restrained myself, remembering that a true Harvardian shows his elitist snobbery by pretending to hide it, and I quietly hummed the fight song to myself as I walked out into the brisk New York night.

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.