Everybody's doing it.

Gambling is the new national pastime. Reporter Steve Taggart is digging to get the $200 billion story. Bet on it.

Writer-director Richard Brooks' final film features a weak script and poor acting but high energy direction in a tale of compulsive gambling in Las Vegas. Ryan O'Neal stars as Taggart, a sports reporter obsessed with gambling. As Taggart gets deeper and deeper into debt, he compounds his problems with assorted loansharks and gambling operators. Taggart has already lost his wife because of his compulsive gambling, but he takes up with big-timer Charley (Giancarlo Giannini), hoping to make a killing and settle the score.

Fever Pitch is a 1985 American film starring Ryan O'Neal, and written and directed by Richard Brooks. This turned out to be the final film for Brooks, director of such acclaimed pictures as Blackboard Jungle, Elmer Gantry, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and In Cold Blood. Co-starring in the film were Giancarlo Giannini, Chad Everett, John Saxon and Catherine Hicks. The original music score was composed by Thomas Dolby.

The film failed at the box-office after it grossed only a little more than $600,000, Fever Pitch was nominated for four Razzie Awards, including Worst Picture, as well as contributing to O'Neal's later Razzie nomination for Worst Actor of the Decade. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made.[1]

Fever Pitch has not been released yet on DVD.

Release Date: November 22, 1985

Distrib: MGM

Boxoffice: $618,847 2014: $1,387,600