The Strange Connection Between George A. Romero and O.J. Simpson
Brandon Wetherbee
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Directed by George Romero 20 years before the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the 1974 made-for-TV documentary O. J. Simpson: Juice on the Loose is oddly something neither Simpson nor director and editor George Romero talked about that much. With the recent passing of Simpson a re-watch, or initial watch for most everyone, is an interesting and not-too-long look at one of America’s most successful athletes turned most infamous murderer who got away with it.
Watching O. J. Simpson: Juice on the Loose, an installment of The Winners television series, in 2024 is loaded. We’re obviously looking for hints and clues into what led O.J. to become a murderer. Obviously, none of that is here unless you consider football highlights that inevitably involve a ton of CTE. Then there’s a ton of clues of what led O.J. to murder.
Horror fans might also be hoping to see any sort of Romero style. Unfortunately, there isn’t much. Other than how he shoots his interviews with O.J.’s family members, almost any director could have made this. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching.
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The intro is foreboding and captivating, a series of close-ups of O.J. and fellow Buffalo Bills putting on sneakers and jerseys and pads inter-spliced with slow-motion highlights of O.J. evading tacklers with a funky version of “Flight Of The Valkyries” rising. After that, it’s a pretty straightforward television special that never overstays its welcome.
There’s no narration, just a lot of talking heads, teammates, coaches, sports writers, announcers, and his family talking to the camera, mostly about how great O.J. is on the field. The moments with his family, specifically his older brothers, deliver the best quotes. Other than that, there’s nothing much to remember. But there is one minute from legendary announcer Howard Cosell that makes me wonder if no one in the media ever saw this thing. It’s the perfect quote about 1974 O.J. that would be applicable to 1994 O.J.
About five minutes into the documentary Cosell says:
“O.J. is the kind of runner whose instincts surpass those of any runner I have ever seen. He does have power, he can break tackles, but the power is not excessive. What he has is this uncanny instinct for sensing when to make the move, when to make the cut. He can kill you with a headfake, he can kill you with the swiftness of his legs and the ability to be a direction at any single second. He also kills you with his variation of speed. Perhaps this above all else, the ability within an instant to so quickly accelerate that the defensive linemen and linebackers wonder whatever happened to them. So he’s got his own unique running style and it’s not a studied style, it never is in the superstar, a studied style.”
It’s a shame Norm MacDonald never got his hands on that clip. It’s yet another reason to thank the good folks at the Internet Archive. A good soul uploaded it there in February 2020. Without them, that footage is most likely lost forever.
Some of the more interesting, murder-friendly tidbits include a few minutes with fellow NFL player Al Cowlings, the guy who drove the white Ford Bronco on June 17, 1994, retelling a tale of how O.J. got away from punishment in high school.
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Once we get through the high school segments we get to O.J.’s college career. The athlete’s professor of criminology at City College (he went to City College before USC because his grades weren’t good enough) Larry Lawson describes O.J. as a good student. “He was able to transpose the learning situation into a practical situation.” Another good quote and, looking back, kind of weird that the only guy Romero talked to who said anything positive about O.J.’s schooling was a professor of criminology.
Following the college section, we get more praise of O.J. as a player and his burgeoning celebrity. The most interesting takeaway in retrospect is a few dedicated minutes on how O.J. knows has to manipulate the media and his ‘flaws’ (he can’t sing, he’s late, nothing about murder).
Unrelated to murder but related to O.J. serving prison time, we get a minute devoted to his trophies. There are dedicated shots of them and a quote from O.J. that’s laughable now considering he spent nine years at Lovelock Correctional Center for stealing his old trophies, “I used to enjoy them [the trophies] a lot more.”
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The last ten minutes of the doc could be cut without losing anything. It’s just a slightly cinematic recap of O.J.’s historic 2,003-yard reaching game, but other than the intro, it features the most ‘filmmaking’ in this doc made by the best zombie filmmaker.
The last line of the doc, not counting the disembodied voices chanting, “Juice! Juice! Juice!” comes from Juice himself. “When O.J. dies, somebody is going to be talking about it.”
He was right.
Categorized:Editorials
