The Bad News Bears Go to Japan * (1978, Tony Curtis, Jackie Earle Haley) – Classic Movie Review 13,806   

Paramount Pictures’ 1978 second sequel comedy film The Bad News Bears Go to Japan stars Tony Curtis and Jackie Earle Haley. The Bad News is the magic didn’t work more than just the once.

Director John Berry’s 1978 American sport comedy drama film The Bad News Bears Go to Japan stars Tony Curtis and Jackie Earle Haley. The Bad News is that the 1976 first film The Bad News Bears was great but that the magic didn’t work more than just the once. Also known as The Bad News Bears 3, it is the second sequel and the last in the series.

Jackie Earle Haley, who appeared as Kelly Leak in both parts one and two of the Bad News Bears trilogy, is joined here by Tony Curtis as a two-bit hustler / promoter called Marvin Lazar who sees his chance to make money out of the Bears, plus some of the original kiddie team of Erin Blunt, George Gonzalez, Brett Marx, David Pollock, and David Stambaugh. It also features TV presenter Regis Philbin (who held the Guinness World Record for the most hours spent on US television) in a small role as Harry Hahn and Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki as Himself.

In Bill Lancaster’s screenplay, Marvin Lazar decides to chaperone the baseball team to Japan for their game against Japan’s best little league baseball team. Kelly Leak develops an interest in Japanese girl Arika (Hatsune Ishihara).

And the upside is that Curtis is good in such lowly circumstances. But the downside is that the script is hardly amusing at all, let alone funny, lacking wit and sparkle. Also many characters from the previous instalments like Jose Agilar (Jaime Escobedo), Alfred Ogilvie (Alfred W Lutter), Timmy Lupus (Quinn Smith) and Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes) are not featured. 

Instead, there are three new players: E.R.W. Tillyard III (Matthew Douglas Anton), Abe Bernstein (Abraham Unger) and Ahmad Abdul-Rahim (Erin Blunt)’s younger brother, Mustapha (Scoody Thornton).

Jackie Earle Haley named it the worst movie ever made.

Release date: June 30, 1978.

Running time: 92 minutes.

It took only $7.3 million at the US /Canada box office, against the $19,104,350 take for The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977).

Here, fortunately, the series ended: in the 1940s, Hollywood would have concocted a score of good scripts for a B-movie series of a situation as strong and popular as this.

But it was followed by a 1979 CBS-TV series, and eventually by a 2005 remake of the 1976 film.

It follows The Bad News Bears (1976) and The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977).

Cast: Tony Curtis. Jackie Earle Haley, Tomisaburo Wayakama, George Wyner, Lonny Chapman, Hatsune Ishihara, Erin Blunt, George Gonzalez, Brett Marx, David Pollock, David Stambaugh.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,806

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com