'Harvard Beats Yale 29-29' an in depth look at game, culture

If you think the title of "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29" gives too much away, you've already missed the point of this thoroughly engrossing documentary by Boston director Kevin Rafferty.

The film chronicles the unlikely outcome of a football game between the two undefeated Ivy League rivals on November 23, 1968.

Illustrated by grainy television archive footage and using the voice of the game's real announcer to act as narrator, the film unfolds play by play pausing to dissect each turning point of the roller coaster game in interviews with players and fans from both teams.

Rafferty, whose past projects included work with Michael Moore on 1989's "Roger and Me" uses long awkward silences to great effect coaxing unexpected insights out of the players, who include Yale's legendary captain Brian Dowling, who had not played in a losing football game since the seventh grade and actor Tommy Lee Jones, who played offensive guard for Harvard.

The film quickly becomes much more than just a rehash of the greatest plays of the match, spiraling off into an intriguing game of "Six Degrees of Separation" that illuminates Vietnam-era campus life and reveals a host of now-famous names.

Along the way we learn that one of the Yale tackle Ted Livingston was roommates with a young George W. Bush, while Tommy Lee Jones shared his dorm room with Al Gore at Harvard and another player was dating Meryl Streep. Before the game, the Yale team was already a frequent subject of student cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who created "Doonesbury."

At times it's an amusing look back at a different time, when Yale was still an all-male institution and suit jackets and ties were required to eat in the cafeteria. The mood is somber in places, as interviewees remember friends lost in the jungles of Vietnam and discuss the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

"Revolution was in the air," Jones notes. "Ideas were flying around like bullets."

Saturdays in the fall are painted as a time of truce between the factions in the film. One player hypothesizes that the success of the football teams played a major roll in keeping peace on the Ivy League campuses.

The players on both teams ranged the political spectrum on the issue of the Vietnam War, some were militant anti-war protesters, while others were already veterans. Yet, the players managed to overcome any differences in the name of playing football.

"Everybody was pretty genuinely tight," notes one player. "Not just this rah-rah stuff."

As the game progresses, you can't help but get wrapped up in the story, whether you're a football fan or not.

I found myself drawn to the stories of the relatively lesser known players, such as the second-string quarterback from Harvard, Frank Champi, the haunted Bob Levine of Yale and reluctant heroes Fritz Reed and Gus Crim of Harvard.

Rafferty listens to the tales and gently points out inaccuracies in the players' memories using the archival footage.

Part of the film's strength is that you already know the outcome, yet as the seconds tick down, you still can't help doubt what you know to be true. It just seems too improbable that a team could come back from so far behind with so few seconds remaining.

The announcer sums it up best: "Let's just watch."

A film by Kino International. Directed by Kevin Rafferty. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated: Not rated (suitable for all ages). Playing at: Darkside Cinema.