00:08Hi, I'm Dave Carger. Welcome back to TCM.
00:11Earlier today, we showed the 1946 film noir The Killers, which marked the big screen debut for Burt Lancaster.
00:17Up next, we're bookending Lancaster's career with the last feature film he ever made.
00:23It's also one of the most beloved baseball films of all time.
00:25From 1989, Field of Dreams.
00:28Based on a novel by W.P. Kinsella, it's the story of an Iowa farmer named Ray Kinsella, played by
00:34Kevin Costner,
00:35who hears a mysterious voice one night that inspires him to clear a large part of his cornfield and build
00:41a baseball field in its place.
00:43The field then miraculously summons the ghosts of baseball legends, including shoeless Joe Jackson, who was Ray's father's favorite player.
00:52Field of Dreams was adapted and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, who had only made one feature film before this.
00:59From the start, he imagined Kevin Costner in the lead role, but he was worried that Costner might turn it
01:04down since he had just finished making another baseball movie, Bull Durham.
01:08But Costner accepted the part, and he was joined by a powerhouse roster of stars, including Ray Liotta as shoeless
01:15Joe Jackson,
01:16along with Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, and Burt Lancaster as a former ballplayer whose career in the majors was
01:22just one game.
01:23As I said, this was Lancaster's final big-screen movie role, and he went out on a high note.
01:29The film became a huge hit and remains a classic, with one of the most often-quoted lines of all
01:34time, although it's often misquoted.
01:37The mysterious voice tells Ray,
01:39If you build it, he will come, not, if you build it, they will come.
01:43The line is ranked number 39 on the AFI's list of greatest movie quotes of all time.
01:49From 1989, with an Oscar-nominated score by James Horner, here is Field of Dreams.
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