Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania (23 page)

Wishing for a night of movies with the word “Philadelphia” in them? Here you go!

What It's About:
A hotshot lawyer (Tom Hanks) gets fired by his Philadelphia law firm when the senior partners discover he has AIDS. He sues and is represented in his fight by an attorney (Denzel Washington) who has to overcome his own homophobia to try the case.

Uncle John's Ranking:
Four cheesesteaks out of four. Philadelphia plays a big part in the movie, which was filmed in the city. Featured landmarks include City Hall, the Furness Building at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Wachovia Spectrum.

Philadelphia
was the first major Hollywood film to deal with the subject of AIDS. It was also the film that won Tom Hanks the first of his two back-to-back Best Actor Oscars. (The second was for
Forrest Gump
.) In his acceptance speech, Hanks called Philly the place where “wise, tolerant men” founded the United States. The film won a second Oscar for the Bruce Springsteen song “The Streets of Philadelphia.”

Philly Fact:
In the film, Denzel Washington's character mentions that he hopes the Phillies will win the pennant. The year the film was released, they did.

What It's About:
High society fixture Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) is getting married for a second time, and the first husband, C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) crashes the festivities with a sardonic journalist (Jimmy Stewart) in tow. Is he there to see his old wife off—or to get her back?

Uncle John's Ranking:
Three cheesesteaks out of four. This film is a classic, but we gave it only three cheesesteaks because, even though the city of Philadelphia shows up in the movie, its role is minor. Portions of the film focus on the lives of people living in Philly's ritzy “Main Line” western suburbs, which were at one time Pennsylvania's equivalent to Beverly Hills or the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The Philadelphia Story
won four Oscars, including Best Actor (Jimmy Stewart) and Best Screenplay (screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart, who said that the original play he adapted was so well written that writing the film was the easiest job he'd ever had).

Philly Fact:
The name “Main Line” refers to the Pennsylvania Main Line railroad, which ran from Philadelphia through wealthy Chester County.

What It's about:
Two sailors in 1943 are on a navy ship in a Philadelphia shipyard, taking part in an experiment to render the boat invisible to radar, when something goes horribly wrong and they find themselves sent forward in time and space to 1984 Nevada. They spend the movie trying to get back to their own era and wondering what will be there when they do.

Uncle John's Ranking:
One cheesesteak out of four. Philadel-phia makes a very minor appearance in the film. Shipyards in South Carolina stand in for the Philadelphia shipyards, and the rest of
the movie was filmed in Nevada. Plus the movie's stars (Michael Paré and Nancy Allen) aren't well known, and the most prestigious accolade this film garnered was a science fiction–oriented “Saturn Award” Best Actress nomination for Allen (who lost to Daryl Hannah for
Splash
). But as far as '80s B-movie science fiction goes, it's not bad.

Philly Fact:
The film is based on the “Philadelphia Experiment” urban legend. The story goes like this: In 1943, a destroyer named the USS
Eldridge
allegedly disappeared from a Phila delphia shipyard after the crew conducted a science experiment on it. The ship appeared in Virginia waters, disappeared, and reappeared in Philadelphia . . . minus a few sailors, who were never found. (The U.S. Navy, of course, claims that it's all fiction.)

 

 

In
The Godfather, Part II,
gangster Hyman Roth says, “We're bigger than U.S. Steel.” Well, maybe . . . but not many things are. This Pittsburgh-based company started strong and hasn't faltered
.

Then:
The United States Steel Corporation officially got its start in February 1901 when 10 smaller companies (including Carnegie Steel, the American Steel and Wire Company, and the American Bridge Company) merged. The combined assets were more than $1.4 billion, making U.S. Steel the country's first billion-dollar company and its largest steel producer.

Now:
In 2008, U.S. Steel posted profits of $919 million and is still the United States' largest steel producer.

Then:
The company's founders named it United States (or U.S.) Steel because it was a combination of those 10 major American companies.

Now:
U.S. Steel became the USX Corporation in 1986 because its shareholders decided there was more to the company than just steel. (It had also become an energy producer after buying the Marathon Oil Company.) But in 2001, it went back to its original name when the steel side of the business spun off from the larger corporation and became its own publicly traded company. The energy side did the same and once again became the Marathon Oil Corporation.

Then:
The peak of U.S. Steel's employment was during World War II—in 1943, the company had more than 300,000 people on its payroll.

Now:
U.S. Steel employs about 49,000 people worldwide.

Then:
When U.S. Steel first consolidated in 1901, business powerhouses Elbert H. Gary (for whom the steel town of Gary, Indiana, is named) and Charles M. Schwab shared control: Schwab was president, and Gary was chairman of the board.

By 1903, however, the two proved that they couldn't work together. Schwab resigned and went on to open Bethlehem Steel (
more about that on
page 122
), and Gary continued at his post until he died in 1927.

Now:
The company's chairman and CEO is John P. Surma Jr., a Pittsburgh native and Penn State graduate.

 

 

Villanova's victory over seemingly unbeatable Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship is considered one of the greatest upsets in sports history. How did the unheralded Wildcats sneak into the Hoyas' den and come away with a trophy?

Over the course of the 1984–85 basketball season, the Villanova Wildcats encountered Big East Conference foe and defending national champions Georgetown Hoyas twice. The Hoyas, led by all-American Patrick Ewing and coached by the equally imposing John Thompson, defeated the Wildcats 52–50 in overtime on January 11, 1985, and again by a score of 57–50 on February 11. After being ousted in the Big East Conference Tournament by St. John's, the Wildcats (with their 19–10 record) could only wait and hope until the NCAA announced which teams would be playing in that year's tournament.

Fortunately for the Philadelphia school, the tournament had been expanded from 48 to 64 teams that year, and this meant that more of the “bubble teams”—those that were unsure if they would be selected—made it. Villanova barely squeezed into the tournament as an eighth seed largely on the basis of its tough regular-season schedule and the fact that it was one of the few teams to lose to Georgetown by a slim margin.

Before the Wildcats could even think about defeating the Hoyas, though, they would need to improve the consistency of their play. In particular, the Wildcats' top players—center Ed
Pinckney, forward Dwayne McClain, and guard Gary McLain—would need to embrace Coach Rollie Massimino's philosophy of being patient and focusing on one game at a time. The team didn't have superstars or a dominating center like Patrick Ewing, but it did have a lot of smart players. If they could become a cohesive team like Massimino wanted them to, they'd have a chance.

During the tournament, Villanova's players put their mediocre regular season behind them and produced victories over Dayton, Michigan, Maryland, and North Carolina. Suddenly, Dwayne McClain was on the cover of
Sports Illustrated
along with Georgetown's Ewing and St. John's Chris Mullin. At the time, most sports fans and journalists viewed the Wildcats as an anomaly, a team that had put together a great run but whose time was almost up. Villanova, though, remained undaunted.

Next came the semifinal. Villanova played Memphis State, which was considered a superior offensive team. In the end, though, Villanova came out ahead; the Wildcats' defense shut down the Tigers, 52–45. There was just one game left: on April 1, Villanova would play top-ranked Georgetown for the national championship.

Many fans of college basketball consider the Georgetown teams of that era to be among the most dominant in history. They had reached the NCAA championship game twice, and won in 1984. The 1984–85 team spent most of the season ranked #1, and entered the tournament as the favorite to win it all again. Ewing, a seven-foot center who worked tirelessly on both offense and
defense led the team. The Hoyas' opponents that season had shot less than 40 percent from the field (not including free throws) and were held to under 60 points in 21 of 38 games. The Hoyas employed a full-court press—aggressively defending the other team's ball handler over the entire length of the floor—for almost the entire game. They were not afraid to deliver hard fouls and played with an intimidating demeanor. Few thought the Wildcats had a chance.

A 45-second shot clock had been used throughout the 1984–85 regular season on an experimental basis, but for the tournament, the NCAA ruled that teams would play under the old rules, without a shot clock. (Today, the shot clock is standard.) For Villanova, this was a boon: they could milk the clock, holding and passing the ball patiently while waiting for high-percentage shot opportunities to open up. Against Georgetown in the first half, they did just that, making 13 of 18 shots from the field and 11 of 13 free throws. When forward Harold Pressley converted a basket just before halftime to give Villanova a 29–28 lead, fans across the country were stunned. There were 20 minutes left to play, though. Surely Georgetown would come out of its funk.

After falling behind by six points early in the second half, Georgetown slowly chipped away at Villanova's lead and was ahead 54–53 with just under five minutes to play. With the pressure mounting, the Wildcats refused to deviate from their plan. After lulling the Georgetown defenders by passing the ball around the perimeter, the Wildcats put the ball in the hands of backup guard Harold Jensen, who sank a wide-open jumper to reclaim the lead for Villanova, 55–54.