The Main Event 1979 Movie

Streisand / Movies

The Main Event

Opened June 22, 1979
Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand in the boxing ring.

  • Credits

    • Executive Producers: Howard Rosenman & Renee Missel
    • Produced by: Jon Peters & Barbra Streisand
    • Directed by: Howard Zieff
    • Screenplay by: Gail Parent and Andrew Smith
    • Edited by: Edward Warschilka
    • Production Designer: Charles Rosen
    • Music Score: Michael Melvoin
    • Music Supervised by: Gary Le Mel
    • Cinematography by: Mario Tosi
    • Costume Designer: Ruth Myers
    • Technical Consultants: Hedgemon Lewis, Jose Torres
    • Body Design by: Gilda
    • Fight Sequences Edited by: Freeman Davies
    • Ms. Streisand's Costumer: Shirlee Strahm

    Songs:


    "The Main Event" by: Paul Jabara, Bruce Roberts

    "Fight" written by: Paul Jabara, Bob Esty

    Performed by: Barbra Streisand

    Song Produced by: Michael Melvoin

    "Angry Eyes": Loggins & Messina

    "The Body Shop": Michalski & Ooserveen



    Running Time: 112 minutes

    Aspect Ratio: 1:85:1

    Sound Mix: Stereo

    Filmed with Panavision equipment

    MPAA Rating: PG

  • Cast

    Barbra Streisand .... Hillary Kramer

    Ryan O'Neal .... Eddie 'Kid Natural' Scanlon

    Paul Sand .... David

    Whitman Mayo .... Percy

    Patti D'Arbanville .... Donna

    James Gregory …. Gough

    Chu Chu Malave .... Luis

    Richard Lawson .... Hector Mantilla

    Ernie Hudson …. Killer

    Rene Dijon .... Nose/Moss

    Earl Boen .... Nose/Kline

    Robert Nadder …. Nose/Bean

    Sue Casey …. Brenda

    Lindsay Bloom …. Girl in Bed

    Gilda Marx .... Exercise Teacher

    Roslyn Kind .... Aerobics class dancer

    Roger Bowen …. Owner Sinthia Cosmetics

    Harvey Parry …. Referee in Long Beachs

    Denver Mattson …. Referee

  • Purchase


“We’re gonna get better fights with nicer people.” 

... Hillary Kramer
Synopsis:

A bankrupt entrepreneur (Streisand) attempts to recoup some of her losses by getting a washed-out boxer (O'Neal) she picked up as a tax loss back into the ring — an idea her protégé isn't fond of.
Key poster for The Main Event

Barbra Streisand and Jon Peters survived both the critical backlash and the immense box office success of A Star is Born. After that film was released December 1976, Peters continued working, producing the 1978 Faye Dunaway thriller Eyes of Laura Mars while Streisand recorded two big albums for Columbia Records, Superman and Songbird while she pondered her next film project.


Streisand considered starring in a film with John Travolta called Fancy Hardware about a 1920s feminist.   Another possibility was a Jon Peters-produced remake of the classic Hollywood film, The Women, starring Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welch, and others. Streisand also commissioned a script by Gerald Ayres about a love affair in Washington, D.C. based on her big hit with Neil Diamond, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” She even met with Franco Zeffirelli and Dino De Laurentiis about making their version of The Merry Widow (she’d once discussed the same property with Ingmar Bergman). Of course, Streisand always had Yentl on her mind, and Jon Peters even mentioned it as a possible project when speaking to the press during that 1977-1978 time period.


Because many of the films she considered were not sufficiently developed at the time, Streisand chose to work on The Main Event.  She owed First Artists one more movie, and timing was part of the decision. Streisand said, “It was my third picture for First Artists— I had a three-picture deal. It was quite a funny script and Ryan [O'Neal] and I wanted to work together again.”


Around May 1978, it was announced that Ryan O’Neal would reteam with his What’s Up, Doc? costar on a script which was titled Knockout. (Later, it was called The Woman And The Boxer before The Main Event was settled on). O’Neal was extremely disappointed that he was not able to play the father in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1979 boxing movie, The Champ, which he wanted to star in with his son, Griffin. “Zeffirelli misled us,” O'Neal told The New York Times. “I was already in training for the movie and he sent somebody to tell us he thought Griffin was too old.” 

Jon Peters on set with Barbra Streisand, 1978.

The screenplay of The Main Event took a circuitous route to Jon Peters’ office. 


Executive producer Howard Rosenman recalled, “Renee Missell, my partner, wanted to do a comedy about a woman who owned somebody, a man, a boxer. Through Sherry Lansing we got a deal at MGM and we hired Gail Parent and Andrew Smith to write the script.”


MGM owned the picture while Daniel Melnick was in charge of production.  There was a regime change, and then Richard Shepherd took over the studio in 1976. Shepherd wanted the script rewritten as a vehicle for Diana Ross and Burt Reynolds. Writer Bob Kaufman rewrote the script for them, but MGM put the film into turnaround. 


At that point, “I gave the script to Sue Mengers,” Rosenman said (Mengers was Streisand’s agent at the time). “We were developing it for Diana Ross, and we wanted Sue to get Ryan O’Neal interested – to costar with Diana. Then Sue saw the potential of getting Barbra involved with Ryan. She had packaged What’s Up, Doc?, which made millions for the agency, so she decided to try for that combination again.”


Jon Peters bought their script and hired several writers to rework it, including the team of Charles Shyer and Alan Mandal.­


Gail Parent recalled that “I had rented a house in Malibu Colony and I was walking down the beach. It was sort of a gray day and the only other person on the beach was Barbra Streisand in front of her house … I went over to her and I said, ‘It’s not a movie about boxing, it’s a ten-round fight between a man and a woman.’ And she said, ‘Oh yeah?’ … And the next day we were back on the film.”


Sue Mengers went about getting MGM to give up the property so it could become a First Artists production at Warner Brothers.


Mengers knew that producer Rosenman had a sharp temper and that MGM studio head Dick Shepard could be easily irritated, too.  So Mengers stirred the pot when she told Rosenman, “Did you know that Dick Shepard called you an amateur? Or that his name is really Shepardinsky?” 


So Rosenman confronted Shepard, called him “Mr. Shepardinsky,” and demanded the picture back.


“Sue engineered the whole thing,” Rosenman told Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke. “She knew my weakness was my anger and she knew I would use the anger to push him to the point where he would want to be rid of me. That’s how brilliant she was.”

PICTURED: Barbra Streisand and her agent/friend Sue Mengers.


Streisand briefly considered directing The Main Event, but instead she hired Howard Zieff, a director of offbeat comedies. “She was particularly impressed by House Calls, which was a battle-of-the-sexes comedy,” Zieff said about his 1978 film starring Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson.


Zieff knew the backstage story of A Star is Born – how Streisand and her director Frank Pierson had clashed.  Zieff even talked to Pierson before taking The Main Event and seemed clear that his role as director would be a collaborative one with Streisand. “I knew going in that this would not be a ‘director’s picture’ – but a Barbra Streisand vehicle,” Zieff explained. “She’s too big a star for it to be otherwise. When an audience goes to see a Barbra Streisand movie, they go to see Barbra Streisand. No matter what critics say about her, her fans will come. Nothing will affect their attitude toward her.”


Zieff also took the job for practical career reasons.  After the picture was made, he said, “The fact that I’ve done it has already helped me as far as studios’ response to things I want to do. It gets around. ‘Hey, he can handle movie stars and still bring movies in on time and around budget.’”


Assistant director Pat Kehoe confirmed, “Howard knew it was a hybridized kind of direction – that Barbra’s opinion counted for a great deal and one couldn’t dismiss it.”


“Howard Zieff was directing it,” Andrew Smith added, “but Barbra was really directing it and she got mad at herself for not assuming the job of official director by the time the film was over because she made so many decisions about the shooting of it.”

Rewriting the Script

The screenwriters, Parent and Smith.

The May 26, 1977 “Revised Second Draft” by Parent and Smith needed some work in order to tailor it for Streisand and O’Neal.


At this point, the story was about “Hillary Hartug,” the owner of a dress business, who discovers her business manager skipped town with all her money, leaving her with only two assets: a boxer and a small nursing home for senior citizens. “Kid Natural” was named “John Lewicki” and described as “a wonderful specimen of a man (Paul Newman, Robert Blake, Peter Falk, Steve McQueen)” who was forty-eight years old.  There are many jokes about his age in this script, including a whole subplot where Hillary and ex-husband David (a dermatologist) drive around the elderly patients from Hillary’s nursing home.  For the last fight, Kid Natural even wears a custom bathrobe that reads “Kid Elderly.” The Kid’s mom has a small role in the screenplay.  David and Hillary have a more intimate relationship:  they’re still divorced but sleep together and consider re-marrying each other later in the script. The characters of Percy and Donna are basically the same. For the finale, the Kid grabs the  boxing ring microphone and admits his love for Hillary, who hides in the back of the auditorium. The film ends with Hillary running to catch the Kid’s plane, only to have the door shut on her.  “I never had the chance to tell him I love him.” But the Kid is there waiting for her. “If I was ten years younger I coulda make that plane,” he says. “I got no problems with old people,” she replies.  FADE OUT.


When Parent and Smith were re-hired for the movie, they did a quick rewrite before filming began.  They injected the script with some of Streisand’s male/female ideas, and tailored it for her – for example, Hillary’s perfume company was called “Le Nez” (“the nose”). Director Howard Zieff also brought 24-year-old Jonathan Kaufer aboard to do rewrites. “Howard and I started out with boyish enthusiasm. We thought we could rewrite the script from the bottom up,” Kaufer said. “But little by little our enthusiasm got chipped away. Only one line from my version remains and is delivered in context, so I can’t really take credit for anything in the film.”


The script drew its conflict from the battle of the sexes. Gail Parent explained that “in order to have a good male-female comedy, they have to be equal.”


Streisand elaborated, “What is exciting is not for one person to be stronger than the other, not for the man to be stronger than the woman, and not for the woman to be stronger than the man, but for two people to have met their match. And yet, they are equally as stubborn, as obstinate, as passionate, as crazy as the other.”


The only problem was that the screenplay was not ready when the filming began. “We used to have lunches and work on the script,” Barbra confessed.


“We would literally be writing up until midnight the night before we were going to shoot the scene,” Smith stated, “and we'd show up on the set with new pages and then they'd shoot it.” 


For example, when the crew arrived at Big Bear Lake for the training scenes, the writers retooled the dialogue to accommodate the unseasonal snow. In the script, Hillary says she can “smell snow,” which wouldn’t have made sense because the location already had snow on the ground.


Even the shooting script contained a different ending for the picture.  “We didn’t have a good ending to it,” Streisand stated. “So I always encouraged everybody working on the set to be free to have ideas and come to me with them.” 


PICTURED: Andrew Smith and Gail Parent, the screenwriters. 

The Supporting Cast

In the film, Hillary’s ex-husband is David and is portrayed by actor Paul Sand. Although there’s not a lot of evidence out there, several entertainment columns reported in 1979 that Jeff Goldblum was cast as David but was let go from the movie because he looked so much younger than Streisand on screen. At the time, Goldblum was 24 years old and had appeared in small roles in films like Nashville, Thank God It’s Friday, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Director Zieff also considered Allan Miller for the role. Miller, you may recall, was a former acting teacher of Streisand’s.  Although he gave a good reading for Zieff, Miller concluded, “She might still think of me as a teacher or director, judging her work.” Paul Sand was 47 years old and coming off his own television show Paul Sand in Friends & Lovers which aired several years before The Main Event. 


Patti D’Arbanville was cast as Ryan O’Neal’s floozy girlfriend, Donna. D’Arbanville, formerly an Andy Warhol film starlet, impressed Barbra Streisand at her audition with her quirky cough. “I let out this enormous cough, and she roared and said: ‘That's great coming out of this little body. We've got to use it,’” D’Arbanville said.


Her memories of the film include learning an important lesson on a film set. D’Arbanville recalled, “you have to be really, really disciplined and punctual for movies. I learned that very quickly. I was late once, and I was never late again. [Barbra] called me into her trailer and pretty much read me the Riot Act. I just sat there and took it. She was signing my paycheck! ‘You don't keep people waiting. They're on the clock. They're getting paid whether you show up or not. You don't do things like that in this industry. You'd better get a move on.’ After that, I understood.”


The charming actor Whitman Mayo, best known for his role on T.V.’s Sanford and Son, was cast as O’Neal’s trainer, Percy. “[Streisand is] a workaholic,” Mayo said. “I couldn’t believe how much energy she had. Each day was like a boxing match and, as it went on, you caught different aspects of Streisand – I saw her as a woman, a young lady and as a child. But I don’t blame her for feeling so intensely. She’s a perfectionist and likes to have things her way. She genuinely feels her way is right.”

Filming “The Main Event”

The Main Event started filming in October 1978.  Budgeted at $7 million, Warner Brothers would end up spending another $7 million on prints of the film and advertising. 


Streisand explained the tone that the movie was aiming for. “The first time you see my office, I was very inspired by Sullivan’s Travels where everybody talks at the same time and everybody moves in and out of the frame. That’s what I tried to do here. They talked very fast in the old movies and I always liked that. That seems very normal to me because I speak fast.”


Director Howard Zieff shot most of The Main Event in Los Angeles. “I like shooting at real locations instead of studio sets,” said Zieff. “Our first day's shooting took place outside the famed Main Street Gym in downtown Los Angeles,” he recalled. “There's nothing like setting up the cameras at the actual site, especially when you realize that such boxers as Joe Louis worked out there.”  The Main Street Gym was at 318 ½ South Main Street in Los Angeles.  Sylvester Stalone filmed Rocky there, too.  For The Main Event, the filmmakers put up a new sign, calling it the Third Street Gym.


Ryan O'Neal put in some hard training to play his role. “I had to box 150 rounds just to prepare for this movie.”


Streisand trained, too. Gilda's Gym was an exercise salon in Beverly Hills. “Streisand is a regular at the gym during off-screen hours,” Howard Zieff shared, “and here she is, before the cameras, performing sexy 'body tucks' as Paul Sand, who plays her ex-husband, struggles to tell her that she's been swindled of all her assets.”

Streisand with fitness instructor Gilda Marx.

Gilda Marx, the highly successful body-fitness entrepreneur who owned gyms and created a successful line of women’s exercise leotards, stated in her book: “When Barbra first walked into my penthouse exercise studio overlooking Beverly Hills, she seemed totally unaware of her fitness potential. She was totally unaware that she had great legs and a most remarkable derriere. It was a revelation for her to discover that she could be coordinated, that she did look graceful when she was moving, and that she had a body that did not have to be hidden in layers of carefully designed costumes.”


The Knockout Driving Academy, shaped like a boxing glove, was an interesting set to build. “We were supposed to shoot the scene in Long Beach,” said Zieff. “But instead we constructed the driving school on a residential Los Angeles street—in the shape of a two-story high boxing glove!”


The comedic driving scenes near the Knockout Driving Academy were filmed near the 2700 block of North Queen Street.

O'Neal, Zieff, and Streisand filming on North Queen Street, Los Angeles.
The Main Event cast and crew at Tail o' the Pup hot dog stand filming a scene.
Streisand, Zieff, and O'Neal in the boxing ring.

There’s a short scene during the Kid’s training sequence where Streisand wraps his hands before a fight (and accidently wraps one of her hands, too).  O’Neal brought in the boxer Hedgemon Lewis, who he managed for a short time. “Lewis worked with her for hours before we shot the scene,” O’Neal said.  “O’Neal knows as much about boxing as almost anybody in the country,” Lewis added. “He reads a lot about it and he’s been involved with fighting since before we met in 1966.”


Other locations utilized by the film crew were a hot dog stand on the corner of La Cienega and Beverly Boulevards (see “Cut Scenes”), and the mountains near Big Bear Lake (for the wintry training scenes).


“The major fight sequences were shot at the legendary Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles,” said Zieff. “It was a very real situation —with cheering and booing fight fans—perfect for the climactic encounters between Streisand and O'Neal, both inside and outside the ring.”


Former light-heavyweight boxer Joe Torres staged the boxing scenes and wrote the boxing dialogue (he’s listed as a “technical consultant” in the credits).


Actor Richard Lawson and CBS football announcer Brent Musburger had fun shooting the sports chat show segment, “How it Happened.”


“I came in, and the scene was supposed to take two hours,” Musburger stated. “It dragged on to eight, partially because Streisand didn’t like the color of the backdrop they were using for the TV show set.”


Lawson created a funny accent for his boxer character, Hector Mantilla. “It wasn’t a real accent, because it wasn’t specific. It was sort of a West Indies thing,” he said. Lawson recalled having fun improvising the scene. “The lines were basically there, but the imitation Barbra did of my accent was improvisational. The scene took on a life of its own. It wasn’t rehearsed like that. Some wonderful things come out of improvisation and you just go with it. It was written as a straight interview. The whole aspect of her sleeping and him waking her up, her calling him Brett then Burt … all of that was total improvisation.”


Musburger shared that “the parts of the scene that you don’t see, that you only hear, were filmed.” He’s speaking of the edit that happens as the TV interview is ending and the audience is shown Percy and the Kid watching the interview in the cabin. 


Streisand contributed and directed the “morning after” scene in the cabin after she and Ryan O’Neal’s characters make love. They filmed it after the production had closed down.


“The movie was finished,” she told John Michael Howson on The Mike Walsh Show. “The relationship just didn’t solidify, it didn’t culminate in something more tangible than just going to bed with each other the night before … One has to confront the other person sooner or later,” Barbra said. “I thought it’d be a funny chance to say something about men and women and the roles they’re supposed to play, and yet be funny.”

Photographing Streisand

Mario Tosi and Barbra Streisand on set.

Mario Tosi was director of photography on The Main Event and had the job of making Streisand look her best in the film. 


According to Tosi, Streisand and Zieff “wanted the film to look rather clean and stark. I would have liked it with a little more diffusion so it would look a bit softer. They objected to that because the picture was a comedy.”


During early tests and the first week of shooting, Tosi said Streisand “was trying to tell me where to put the lights and suggesting that we do things a certain way.” He explained that Streisand wanted to be photographed like she was by her favorite cameraman, Harry Stradling Sr. on earlier films like Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly! “She wanted these big, enormous, old fashioned scoop lights sitting on top of the lens. So we started with that but slowly I started bringing in my white cards and bouncing the light at an angle. She got used to it and, in fact, enjoyed it.”


Tosi went on to tell authors Schaefer and Salvato that he was eventually able to “sneak in a few more elements of cinematography that I felt were necessary such as filters or a certain way of lighting. Gradually I was able to photograph her in different key [lighting]; she later told me she had never been photographed that way before.”


“With a lady especially,” Tosi stated, “you cannot use hard lights. The quality of the bounce light enhances beauty.” Tosi also confessed that he employed diffusion nets on the camera lens when he photographed women. “I started using nets a little bit on Barbra Streisand on The Main Event.”
Barbra Streisand in The Main Event.

Final Round

Warner Brothers leveraged the country’s gas crisis (with cars lined up across the country at gas stations) for The Main Event’s June 20th premiere in Los Angeles. They announced the movie would be the first gas-less premiere in Hollywood history, asking the guests to arrive by gas-less means. Eventually, Warner Brothers canceled the premiere due to the gas shortage.


The Main Event was a hit for Streisand and Jon Peters, pulling in about $54 million.


Later, Ryan O'Neal told writer Guy Flatley, “Barbra was not overbearing during the shooting of the film, and she never slanted things her way. Sure, she oversees all the details of a production, but so does Stanley Kubrick. I worked harder with Barbra than with Kubrick on Barry Lyndon. She works 15 and 16 hours a day, checking to make sure we all do our jobs, but she does it in a feminine way. Yet that ruffles some men. I feel that people have been unfair to Barbra. She’s a delicately made creature, a great lady, and I would never have done The Main Event without her.”

Cut Scenes & Trims

The scriptwriters, the cinematographer and the director are all involved in making a movie.  But it’s the film editor who can really structure a film and create a rhythm and drive that may not have existed in the material as it was filmed.  The scenes described here appear in the 9/21/78 “3rd Revised” version of the screenplay (with some interior pages noted as October and November 1978). The scenes are presented here in order as they appeared in the movie.

The Gas Station Scene
& Hillary’s Car

One of the first scenes cut from the film was Hillary at the gas station. It followed the scene in which David broke the bad news to Hillary that her accountant had stolen all of her money. As filmed, Hillary pulls her Rolls-Royce convertible Corniche into a gas   station – the full-service lane. Then, she thinks about all the money she just lost and, instead, backs the car up into the self-service lane and pumps the gas herself.


In the script, there was a recurring gag that was abandoned in the final film — Hillary keeps trading in her cars, downgrading to less-expensive models. The only part of this gag that survived in the final film comes when Hillary visits The Kid in Long Beach, no longer in her Rolls Royce, but, instead, driving a blue Volkswagon “Super Beetle” – with a license plate that reads “520 Red.”

Hillary Says Goodbye to Her Maid

There’s never been a still released showing the actress who played Maria , Hillary’s maid. But there is a short scene in the shooting script that comes right after the Gas Station Scene. Cash-strapped Hillary asks her maid to stay without pay, which the maid declines. Hillary asks Maria how to wash clothes, run the vacuum, and empty the trash.  


After Maria leaves, Hillary walks into her bedroom and turns off the television, which was tuned to a channel airing a boxing match in Spanish. Getting a bold idea, Hillary turns the T.V. back on to watch the boxers! This scene would have motivated the next scene in which Hillary drives to the gym and confronts Kid Natural about working for her.


The scene actually survives in the movie, although the editors have repurposed it during a boxing montage. Check out the movie at about the 49-minute mark.

Hillary and David at the Courthouse

Following the scene in which Hillary visits the Knockout Driving Academy and chases the Kid in her VW Beetle, there was a scene between David and Hillary at court.  She feels bad about pressuring the Kid to fight again.


HILLARY

But all he’s got is that silly glove over his head.


DAVID

It still puts him in a higher tax bracket than you.


HILLARY

David, having you as an ex-husband is almost worth having you as a husband in the first place and please send me a bill for all this.


Hillary waves goodbye to David, who goes about his court business.

The Kid in Bed with a Girl

Another scene which was used in the training montage involved the Kid in bed “alongside an unidentified girl.”  The editors have disguised the fact that Kid Natural is cheating on his girlfriend, Donna.  When Ryan O’Neal answers the telephone in bed (“Yeah, I know it’s 5:30. So what, I already ran.”) his arm obscures the girl’s face — she was played by Lindsay Bloom.  The editors have added the sound effect of Donna coughing to cover the infidelity. The girl is identified in the credits as “Girl in Bed,” but if you're not paying close attention you would miss this entirely.

Massage Trim

The scene in which Hillary massages the Kid was a little longer and edited shorter.  One of the lines appears in the movie’s theatrical trailer as Hillary is giving the Kid a massage: “As a matter of fact, you can have fantastic sex with a person you hate.”

Tail o’ the Pup Hot Dog Stand

Again, in the middle of the movie as the Kid is going through training to get ready for his first fight, the script contained a not-so-funny scene set at Eddie Blake's Tail o' the Pup hot dog stand. This Los Angeles iconic landmark was located at 300 N. La Cienega and Beverly Boulevard, next to the Beverly Center — the stand was in the shape of a hot dog.


“This hot dog stand is shaped like the food it serves,” said Zieff. “We had cars lined up for blocks as passing motorists gawked in stunned amazement at Streisand and O’Neal just sitting there eating hot dogs.”


In the scene, Hillary and the Kid debate the healthiness of eating hot dogs.  When the Kid gives the hot dog stand owner one of his Knockout Driving Academy cards, he explains that it’s located in “a boxing glove. Twenty feet high.  You walk in right through the laces.”  The owner asks, “What’s that got to do with taking driving lessons?” “I’m a fighter,” the Kid says, “Boxing gloves.  Get it?”  The owner isn’t buying it.  “You see, you miss the significance of having the place look like what you do. You shoulda guilt it in the shape of a car or an accident.”


The scene ends with Hillary claiming she’s broke after the bill for $3.48 comes for the hot dogs and Cokes.

The First Big Fight

The storyline around Kid Natural's first boxing fight was rearranged both editorially and, apparently, with rewrites during the making of the movie.


The editor has placed the scene at the Driving Academy boxing ring in which Hillary and the Kid faux-box for the press right before the first fight with Cannibal. 


The fight with Cannibal reads the same in the script, except that it also contains the bit with the ice water down his trunks, as well as Hillary throwing in the towel, which makes the Kid lose the fight. 


In the final film, the Kid is disqualified in this fight when Hillary enters the ring with a stool before the round has ended. 


It's almost as if, during the rewrites, they saved the towel bit for the ending of the movie. 

At David’s House

Keen-eyed viewers may notice this bit of editing!  After the fight with Cannibal, Hillary is shown in profile at the beach at sunset.  She is actually at David’s Malibu house (where they had the money-raising party earlier).  This scene established that Hillary's ex-husband is still in love with her. David joins Hillary on the beach house deck ....


HILLARY

David, did you ever think of making love in the sand?


DAVID

Okay.  Whatever you want.


HILLARY

David, you’ve got to think of what you want. Be your own person.


DAVID

I am my own person, and my person wants to make your person happy.


HILLARY

That’s the problem. You want to make me too happy.  We never fight.


DAVID

We’re fighting now.


HILLARY

Do you feel like punching me in the mouth?


DAVID

No, of course not.


HILLARY

Then we’re not fighting. 


After this scene (in the final film) we see Hillary call the Kid.  This, again, takes place at David’s house, in his study, although you'd never know it by the way it is cut together.


Hillary’s Apartment, Morning

Percy calls to tell Hillary to check out the picture of her and the Kid in the morning newspaper (when they're fighting in the ring with the stool).  Hillary peeks out her front door … and steals the neighbor’s newspaper (pictured) — another subplot about Hillary's reduced income ... she can't afford a newspaper!


The editors repositioned one of these scenes for the training montage earlier in the picture – after Hillary sees the photo, she says to Percy on the phone, “Really?  Sure what time?”


Now, they are discussing the meeting with Gough to promote the Fight That Never Was.  In the final picture, when Hillary says, “Really?” they dubbed in Percy’s voice asking, “Still want me to set the tour?” which matches with her next line: “Sure what time?” Then they have Percy saying, “3:30 this afternoon.”  And …. Cut to the tour bus pulling up to the Knockout Driving Academy boxing ring.

David and Hillary

Another scene about David and Hillary's weird divorce relationship was cut (or never filmed — the photo here is not from that scene, but it is from the movie and was cut.)


In the shooting script, following the scene in Gough’s office where the principles conspire to stage a fight with Reuben Gomez before tackling the Fight That Never Was, there was a scene between David and Hillary that explained their complicated relationship (and may have been too complicated for this light, comedic movie).  In the scene, David and Hillary are dressing after not having sex. Hillary just couldn’t go through with it. “It’s bad enough breaking up with my wife,” David tells her, “but breaking up with my ex-wife is almost too much.” Hillary explains that David will still serve as her lawyer, then reveals her plan to him. “This time I’m going to take what I make from the Kid’s big fight and start all over again on my own.”

Reuben Gomez Fight

In order to get to the Fight That Never Was, the Kid has to win against Gomez.  In the shooting script, this fight has barely any screen time.  As pointed out earlier, it looks like The Main Event team wanted to develop this fight more than what was written on the page.  They seem to have stolen bits from the first fight with Cannibal (the ice bucket bit) and put them in this one.


What’s curious (and not in the shooting script I have) are ex-husband David’s shabbily written lines in which he tries to get Hillary’s attention about a business opportunity.  What opportunity? And when does it occur?  Because this plot point doesn’t seem to go anywhere or pay off later.

Tahoe Training Camp

Comparing the movie to the shooting script, it appears this section of the film underwent rewrites before lensing these scenes (including the fact that they had not anticipated snowfall!). 


The movie has more character bits for the boxers in the barracks — were these ad libbed or written on the fly?


Also, the dialogue in the scene in which Hillary answers questions from reporters was added to the film. 

“How it Happened” Sports Show

Again, it appears this underwent rewrites before filming.  The structure is the same in the shooting script, but the concept of “Winner Take All” which Hillary introduces is not.  That seems to have been added to the movie during filming. 

The Fight That Never Was (part I)

The movie's ending differs greatly from the original script from now on. 


The plot in the script was a little more convoluted and complicated.


Some of the scenes appear to have been filmed, while others may have been jettisoned for new ones written on the fly.


While the Kid and Hillary spend the night together, Percy is at a hotel bar where another trainer named Eddie Lasalle tells him that Gough paid the fighters $500 to throw the fights with the Kid.  Percy says, “The Kid thinks he knocked those guys out.”  Eddie replies, “It’s good the Kid is enjoying himself tonight while he can.”


We have already established that Streisand and team returned after filming had ended to add the “I respect you” morning-after scene. It’s not there in the shooting script.


Instead, Percy grabs Hillary at breakfast and tells her about how Gough fixed the fights and how he is worried about the Kid.  “He’s gonna get killed,” Percy says.


Hillary goes out to the pond and sits on the rock by herself, thinking about what to do (see photo).


It looks like they filmed a scene in which ex-husband David stops by the barracks to talk to Hillary. We can only assume that he drove to Lake Tahoe to talk to Hillary about that business opportunity that he mentioned at the Reuben Gomez fight.


David's scene at the Tahoe training camp has been completely cut from the final film.

The Fight That Never Was  (part II)

At the big fight, Hillary confronts Gough.  “Fix the fight?” he says. “I couldn’t do that. That’s against the law.” Hillary replies, “As they say in the perfume business, Mr. Gough.  You stink.”


In the script, Hillary and the Kid have a final dressing room scene in which she tears up his contract. She tells Kid Natural that Gough fixed the fights. She begs him not to box, tells him she is pregnant … with twins. Gough breaks in and the Kid punches him out.  They run from the hotel and are discovered several months later in Buenos Aires.  Hillary is pregnant and mixing fragrances; the Kid is teaching driving lessons.  They both live in an elaborate boxing glove building. “How come you’ve been so wonderful ever since we got down here?” she asks. “Nobody’s watching,” the Kid replies. FADE OUT.



Now, in the documentary about making The Main Event, there is an alternate dressing room scene that was not used, either. The Kid is in his boxing robe.


HILLARY

There’s something I gotta know before you go out there tonight.


KID

Say it Hillary. What?


HILLARY

(tries to say it, then …) Can you make a U-turn at an intersection?


KID

Yeah you can make a U-turn at an intersection if it’s not posted. If you have clear visibility for 200 feet … and you’re not on a one-way street. 


HILLARY

Oh.


KID

When in doubt, Hillary, go around the block. 


The Kid starts boxing in the mirror. Hillary goes over to him.


HILLARY

So I guess this is our last fight.


KID

What our last fight with each other or our last fight with another fighter?


The scene ends – which is included, again, on the film’s theatrical trailer – with a bit of comedy.


HILLARY

Let me just give you one final tip, ok?


KID

What?


HILLARY

I think it might help if you put your trunks on.

The Song

An up-tempo disco song was written for The Main Event to play over the movie’s final credits and to help publicize it.  Titled “The Main Event / Fight,” the song was written by Paul Jabara and Bruce Roberts, with “Fight” by Jabara and Bob Esty.


Jabara was a huge fan of Barbra Streisand and desperately wanted to work with her. “I’ve been in love with her since I was 15,” he told the Los Angeles Times.  Since Jabara was signed to First Artists publishing he knew Jon Peters was looking for a theme song. “He and Bruce Roberts went ahead and wrote the song hoping they’d consider it,” Bob Esty said. “He submitted a demo, but it was rejected and just laid around for two months.”


“Barbra hated that song,” said Gary Le Mel, who served as vice president of music operations at First Artists Productions. “So she had David Shire and the Bergmans compose a second.”


Bob Esty continued the tale, “but Jon Peters thought it should be an up-tempo tune since the movie’s a comedy. So he talked her into reconsidering because he wanted her to do a contemporary thing, a dance tune.”


Meanwhile, Paul Jabara was nominated for (and won) an Academy Award for his song “Last Dance” from the movie Thank God It's Friday – which may have helped Streisand reconsider him for The Main Event. 


Jabara remembered going to Streisand’s house to work on the song. “I had not seen the movie. I read part of the script. My image for the title – The Main Event – was that it was the Main Thing – a celebration. I wasn’t thinking of the fighting part. I started with the words Extra! Extra!  I heard her voice enunciating those two words, and I felt they would draw immediate attention to her.”  Jabara also added the line “I’ve got to thank my lucky stars above,” to the song’s intro, inspired by Barbra in Hello, Dolly!  “And then I got stuck and brought in Bruce Roberts,” he said.


Columbia Records released The Main Event soundtrack album to coincide with the movie's release.  Soundtrack album producer Gary Le Mel told Orange Coast Magazine why different versions of the disco song were included: “We didn't want to cheat the public. We wanted to give them what they heard on the radio,” he explained. “We had made a 12-inch disco version of the song, but it was only for discos and disco radio. It wasn't available for sale, so we put them both on the album.”


Columbia Records also released a promotional 12-inch single of the 11:42-minute “Main Event/Fight” disco song (#AS 625). Both sides contained the same mix.

“The Main Event” on Home Video

Warner Brothers released The Main Event on DVD in 2003. The making-of documentary Getting In Shape For the Main Event (which aired on syndicated television in 1979) was included on the DVD as a bonus feature. It includes several bloopers and behind-the-scenes footage, as well as a few scenes which were cut from the film. 


Barbra's commentary on the DVD is scene-specific; when you select this option, the DVD plays an edited version of scenes from the film with Barbra's audio commentary. It's short, but interesting. 


The DVD also included a gallery of stills and theatrical trailer.


The Main Event was also made available in HD (1080p) on iTunes as a digital download (the best-quality version available to date).


Warner Archive also reissued the DVD of The Main Event in 2017.  You can order it from Amazon (see ad) but it is a MOD DVD — Manufacture-on-demand.


MOD discs differ from traditional DVD and Blu-ray releases in that they are only produced on demand for customers, rather than pressed in bulk. The distribution process allows content owners to do away with storing inventory. MOD DVDs are manufactured with laser burning.

Scavullo Publicity Photos ... and more ...

Francesco Scavullo photographed the promotional shots for The Main Event. Streisand and O'Neal posed in various ways for the photographer.


Click the arrows to view photographs (many behind-the-scenes rare shots!) below ....

Related ....

Peters & Streisand in LOOK Magazine

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