Toby (1975 film)

Toby is a 1975 American boxing drama film directed by Carl Andy, produced by Joseph E. Levine and released by United Artists, loosely based on the Osamu Tezuka manga, The Ballad of Tobio the film stars Walter Matthau, Joey Miyashima, and a pre-Star Wars Carrie Fisher. Informally, the film is the third in what Andy calls his "Action in New York Quadrilogy", preceded by The Big Arena (1964), Addiction (1966) and concluded with Calamity (2003).

Andy along with production partner James Willaim Guercio (then producer of the bands Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears) first gained the rights to the Manga in 1971 for $3,600 (about $25,698.58 today), after some time scouting for potential studios, Andy and Guercio eventually made a deal with former Embassy head Joseph E. Levine who agreed to finance the project as well as pay out of their own pockets from the sales of their music for the film's fundings. United Artists eventually joined in as distributor following a deal with Levine for with A Bridge Too Far (1977). Filming began and ended in 1973 followed by additional shooting in early '74 but would be held for over a year due to conflicts with the studio over the film's runtime and violence before eventually seeing release in March 1975.

Though it recieved little fanfare, Toby became a sleeper hit and recieved well by critics, with many praising it's themes of hope and triumph. series creator Osamu Tezuka even called it one of his favourite adaptations of his works. In 2022, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

A Musical remake directed by Gerry Tanaka is set to be released by Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in November 2022.

Plot
The year is 1963, 15-year old Toby Katsumoto (Joey Miyashima) is an escapee from an Orphanage, who decides to live in the slums of New York, he then becomes a new recruit for Robert Shmuel's Gym as a boxer

Cast

 * Walter Matthau as Rob Shmuel
 * Joey Miyashima as Toby Katsumoto
 * Carrie Fisher as Hannah
 * Peter Ostrum as Shawn (loosely based on Shohei Ōshima from the Manga)
 * Vincent Schiavelli as the tall bartender
 * Anne Ramsey as Old Lady at the Club
 * Peter Cetera as Club manager
 * Ving Rhames as Jeffery "Jazz" Kidd (credited as Irving Rameses)

Pre-production
Carl Andy first read the manga durring a business trip to Japan in 1966, Andy wasn't much a fan of Boxing but he was intrigued by the characters, dynamic art style and it's gritty realism. He eventually met Tezuka and the two became close friends, a parnership that would last until Tezuka's death in 1989.

Around this time, Tezuka had many failed attempts to make an adaptaion of the manga, his Mushi Production had produced a test pilot for a potential animated series, but no network was interested, his next attempt would be a feature film, however due to the potential international cast, the project was shelved.

By 1971 after a period inactivity, Andy had ressurected both his filmmaking and music career, signing with Columbia Records and producer James William Guercio the year prior, the two produced their first movie together, the thriller Home Invader at Universal Pictures. As they were thinking of potential movie ideas, Andy jokingly suggested they'd addapt Tezuka's manga, Guercio in response dared Andy to actually go through with the idea, the two would eventually travel to Japan and contact Tezuka, to their surprise, Tezuka agreed to the offer and sold them the rights for $3,600 (about $26,489.78 in today's money).

Following this, the two considered producing the film at CBS's in-house film unit, Cinema Center Films, however the studio was suffering financial losses, eventually going out of business in 1972, this forced them to shop other potential studios, such as Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and American International, all of whom passed due to it's subject matter along with the fact it was based on a Japanese manga, which had yet to appear on American bookshelves.

Durring this time Andy had wrote the script in about a month, he decided to anglicize Tobio's name to Toby as well as change the setting from Tokyo to New York City in hopes to make the story more palletable to an American audience. Guercio had a deal in place with United Artists, including this film and Electra Glide in Blue, which came out in 1973, however UA was uninterested backing Toby. eventually Andy and Guercio decided on financing the film themselves, relying mostly on revenue generated by their album sales as well as filming it on the cheap. Because of the small budget, most elements from the original script had to be mimimized or removed altogether, one example being the Mad Mask gang from the original manga and the elaborate fight scene between Toby and Maku (renamed Mack in the script). Jean Belmondo and Jo Kashuka were also combined into a hybrid character named Joe Belmondo, with these revisions, Andy put more emphasis on the relationship between Toby and Hannah, which he felt was essenntial to the story.

Casting
Andy and Guercio felt that the title role would be played by an unknown, keeping with the story's Japanese origins, Andy felt a Japanese-American actor would best fit the role, despite this, Andy have stated that race was never a point of discussion in casting rooms, "I pretty much made the casting choices myself whilst Guercio was doing all the financing, so there was never much a problem with casting an Asian-American teen for this project". After some searching, they settled on then 16 year old Joey Miyashima as the title role, in an effort to get into the role, Miyashima went through extensive physical training, then entered in three genuine Los Angelis amateur boxing matches, winning two of them.

The role of Hannah Cacarone required extensive searching, with Jodie Foster, Denise Nickerson and Denise McCormick among many others considered, actress Debbie Reynolds, a friend of Andy's, suggested her daughter, then 17 year old Carrie Fisher, to which she was picked as Hannah, Andy was willing to give into certain demands, such as not having her wear the bowtie as depicted in the manga, feeling it would look ridicilous as well as having her portray the character with a certain sassiness as opposed to the character's usual nice girl portrayl.

For Robert Shmuel, the grizzled old trainer who becomes Toby's father figure, Andy at one point considered British actor and screenwriter Robert Shaw, however due to his commitments to The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, he could not be available, however Walter Matthau was interested despite not resembling the character, Matthau told Andy he could do it for free, as he was also planning to film Pelham in Brooklyn around the time time, a deal was reached between Andy and director Joseph Sargent that Matthau would do Toby in the day and Pelham at Night, veteran makeup artist Karl Silvera was brought in to transform Matthau into Robert Shmuel. Matthau loved the look so much that on days off durring filming, he went out in-character and see if he could fool any unsuspecting bystanders into thinking he was an older man.

Filming in New York took place between November 1973 and finished in December, while filming in New York, Andy was threatened at gunpoint by a member of the Black Panther political party who thought the production was tresspassing, he eventually let Andy go after some explanation. In later interviews, Andy, who lived in New York durring his youth, stated this moment made him realize how much New York had changed since the early 60s. The following year, much of the Boxing matches and interior scenes were shot in Culver Studios (formerly the Desilu and Selznik Studios) in Culver City, California. In an effort to add some authenticity to the Boxing scenes, Andy borrowed a handheld camera used mainly for documentary filming to give the scenes a first-person view, For one scene, Andy requested Miyashima and Ving Rhames to improvise their fighting rather than plan out the scene, however this lead to Miyashima suffering various injuries, including swelling, bruises and cuts, this caused him to go to the hospital for 4 days, Andy in later years would come to regret this decision, stating "we didn't know what we we're doing at the time, I never thought there was some kind of consiquences to this kind of filmmaking style". Miyashima eventually recovered

Post-production and distribution
As production was wrapping up in early 1974, former Embassy Pictures head Joseph E. Levine had heard of the film and was eager to help out with getting the movie released, he met Andy and Guercio and the pair agreed to have Levine become a producer, Guercio stated "If it wasn't for him, our film wouldn't have made it this far" around the same time, he was preparing to produce a big-budget adaptation of the soon-to-be published book A Bridge Too Far. As United Artists still had the distribution rights, Levine decided to have UA produce Bridge, on the account that they also release Andy and Guercio's film first, UA agreed to distribute the film in North America, but because of their indifference to the film, Levine was allowed to retain the copyright and sell the film's international distribution to various local distributors in the UK, France, Japan and Italy. The film itself however would take a while to release, as Andy and Guercio had submitted the film to the MPAA, expecting a PG rating, they were instead surprised to learn the film recieved an R rating in part due to it's violence and swearing. The film was originally slated for release on December 20, 1974, but was removed from United Artists' schedule to make room for the James Bond picture The Man with the Golden Gun. it was eventually moved to March 1, 1975, taking Rancho Deluxe 's original slot

Box Office
The film grossed an estimated $570,000 in it's limited run on March 1, 1975 playing in nearly 800 theaters.

Critical Response
Toby received mixed to positive reviews during it's release, The film apparently has an 77% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 51/100 on Metacritic, the film stayed at number 3 for the next two months behind Tommy and Funny Lady.

Legacy
In the years since, Toby has since gained recognition from film fans, Tezuka fans and sports films enthusiats in general. Many have praised it's optimistic message of triumph and redemption, especially compared with other films of the early 70s which relied on pessimistic outlooks. Andy had stated this was his intention to help it stand out. The film has also been credited for introducing the Tobio IP widely to the United States as well as introducing Miyashima and Fisher to mainstream audiences, George Lucas saw the film at Andy's home and decided to cast Carrie Fisher in the role of Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars, which had started casting that year.

In Japan (where the Manga originated), the film was a much huger hit compared to the sleeper hit it was in the States, Toho in conjunction with Joseph E. Levine, released the film to Japanese cinemas in late 1976 and earned ¥1200 million in it's first week. This convinced Tezuka to go ahead with an Anime series which began airing in 1979.

Home Media

 * 1983 Embassy Home Entertainment VHS/Betamax/CED (Under license from Joseph E. Levine)
 * 1985 Paramount Home Video VHS (under license from Joseph E. Levine)
 * 1989 Nelson Home Entertainment VHS (reprint of 1983 VHS)
 * 1994 New Line/Columbia TriStar Home Video VHS
 * 2000 MGM DVD/VHS
 * 2006 MGM UMD (distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
 * 2006 MGM DVD (reprint of 2000 DVD, double feature with Raging Bull, distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
 * 2010 MGM Blu-ray (distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)/DVD (reprint of 2000 DVD)
 * 2015 Kino Lorber Blu-ray/DVD (Under license from MGM/Fox/StudioCanal)
 * 2021 Kino Lorber Ultra HD (Under license from MGM/StudioCanal)

Cancelled sequel
After the film's release, a sequel based on the last half of the Manga was considered by UA, however Andy wasn't interested in the idea of a sequel, alongside Carrie Fisher now being an overnight star thanks to Star Wars in 1977, the actors growing older and Andy taking the rights to Paramount, killed chances of a sequel.