When Billie Beat Bobby

Way back in the mid-‘70s, when tennis was sponsored by tobacco companies (remember the Virginia Slims Tour?) and women were fighting in earnest for gender equality not only on the court but in the office, at home, and pretty much everywhere else, the notion that a woman could beat a man on a level playing field, as it were, was considered preposterous. Little matter that Bobby Riggs was out of shape and 25 years past his prime, or that Billie Jean King had just won Wimbledon: most folks, ladies included, figured King had no shot when the two met in the “Battle of the Sexes,” a 1973 match held at the Houston Astrodome and seen by millions on TV. All of this is detailed to amusing effect in When Billie Beat Bobby, a 2001 TV movie with Holly Hunter and Ron Silver in the title roles. The casting (including hilarious turns by Fred Willard as Howard Cosell and Elizabeth Berridge as tennis player Rosie Casals) makes the movie, and the two leads have a field day--especially Silver, whose parody of the incorrigible hustler and self-described male chauvinist Riggs comes replete with lisp, paunch, and ridiculous sideburns. Hunter's King is a committed women's libber, demanding equal pay for tournament winners of both sexes; only after Riggs demolishes Number One-ranked Margaret Court does she seriously contemplate taking him on herself. And while the outcome of the match is never in doubt (uh, check the title), director Jane Anderson stages it reasonably well, including some graceful, balletic moves set to chamber music. Recommended. (S. Graham)