Born to Win

Born to Win (1971)

Their story is written on his arm. If they can get a grip on each other, maybe they can turn their lives around.

A smart-mouthed junkie and a former hairdresser spends his days looking for just "one more fix".

Date of release
1971-12-01
TMDB
5.4 / 10 (44)
Runtime
1h 28m
Genres
Comedy, Crime, Drama
Director
Ivan Passer

Casting

Interesting facts

Born to Win is a 1971 crime thriller directed by Ivan Passer and starring George Segal, Karen Black, Paula Prentiss, Hector Elizondo, Jay Fletcher and Robert De Niro. Filming locations were in Manhattan, specifically Times Square.

Production

Ivan Passer and David Scott Milton started interviewing ex-addicts at the Phoenix House, near where they were putting on a play titled Duet for Solo Voice. The resulting screenplay was originally more serious in tone when shot. The comic elements were played up later during editing.

Milton based the film's characters on the addicts who frequented the Manhattan diner that he owned. He adapted his observations of these characters into a play titled Scraping Bottom. The resulting screenplay for the film was titled Scraping Bottom. The copyright clearly can be read under the title as being credited to Scraping Bottom Productions.

Some of the characters in the film are played by actual junkies, people who Passer encountered when researching the film.

The film was chosen to be screened at the New York Film Festival in October 1971.

The film was the first effort of a production company founded by George Segal and Jerry Tokofsky.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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