Stealing Home

In the 1980s, Billy Wyatt is a thirty-something washed up baseball player who lives out of a hotel with a cocktail waitress. One afternoon he receives a phone call from his mother to tell him that his close childhood friend Katie Chandler has committed suicide.

Flashbacks to the 1960s explain Billy and Katie's relationship. Katie was a slightly older neighborhood girl who babysat Billy for The Wyatt family who were best friends with the Chandler family (Katie's parents). Katie tries to mentor young Billy, giving him advice on girls and dating. As Billy ages he begins to develop feelings for Katie, and Katie in turn develops feeling for him. Just after Billy graduated high school, his father dies in a car accident. Two months later Katie, Billy, Ginny, and Alan Appleby go back to their summer home "Seasmoke" as they do every year and decide to spend the summer there, the first summer without Billy's dad. This begins a summer of humor, coming of age, and loss of innocence. As summer approaches its end, Billy feels Katie is encouraging his mother to live more freely too soon. Billy has a shouting match with Katie. The next day at sunrise, Billy goes to Katie for forgiveness, but what ensues is a deeply suppressed love for each other. This last weekend of the summer defines their true feelings and makes a memory they never forget. They encourage the others to return home while they spend the rest of the weekend together at Seasmoke. Their passion and love that weekend defines their special relationship in life, and in death. As the weekend draws to a close Katie asks that Billy pursue his passion for baseball, and to retrieve the baseball necklace pendant from the girl to whom he lost his virginity just months before. Walking slowly away, she turns and says "I love you Billy boy". The older Billy remembers that was the last time he saw her.

In the present, Katie's father Hank visits the Wyatt family to share the bad news. He recounts how he drove to Seasmoke to check on an upset Katie after her second divorce, and found her body lying in her bed. "She looked like a little girl sleeping." Katie's wishes are for Billy to take possession of her cremated ashes, confident that Billy would be the only person to know what to do with them.

Billy reunites with his childhood friend Alan Appleby and the two engage in a night of reminiscing and carousing while driving around in Katie's car with Katie's ashes, trying to figure out what to do with her ashes. Suddenly, Billy recalls Katie telling him her fantasy that she could jump off the pier and fly free with the birds. The next morning, Billy goes to the pier, runs down the plank and tosses her ashes just the way she described her fantasy. As he watches the ashes and birds fly freely, Billy realizes this was Katie's plan for him all along. She was speaking to him! The pennant retrieval was for a reason, the trip back home was for a reason, playing baseball with Appleby was for a reason, and all this was done with Katie's ashes in his arms! This directed him towards new sense of possibility in his own life, Billy reunites with a former girlfriend and joins a minor league baseball team; taking pride in grooming the field each morning before a game. The film ends with Billy, his girlfriend, and Appleby celebrating after a game.

• Mark Harmon as Billy Wyatt
  • William McNamara as young Billy Wyatt
  • Thacher Goodwin as Billy Wyatt (age 10)
• Harold Ramis as Alan Appleby
  • Jonathan Silverman as young Alan Appleby
• Blair Brown as Ginny Wyatt
• Richard Jenkins as Hank Chandler
• John Shea as Sam Wyatt
• Christine Jones as Grace Chandler
• Ted Ross as Bud Scott
• Helen Hunt as Hope Wyatt
• Beth Broderick as Leslie
• Jodie Foster as Katie Chandler

The film plot is set in the Philadelphia area and the New Jersey shore. The filming occurred in many locations:

• The house that Billy grows up in is located in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, where exterior scenes were shot;
• The interiors of Billy's childhood home were filmed in a house located in Springfield, Pennsylvania;
• The scenes in Bob's Diner were filmed at Ridge Avenue in Roxborough;
• Alan Appleby's sporting goods store was located on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia;
• Carlton Academy is actually Chestnut Hill Academy;
• The opening scene and closing scene were shot at Fiscalini Field in San Bernardino, CA. The team he was shown playing for in the movie was the name of the actual team that played there at the time, The San Bernardino Spirit, partially owned by Harmon.
• Camp Tecumseh, boys summer sports camp T-shirt is seen in the movie.
• Billy and Alan Appleby also sneak into and play baseball at Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia.

The film received negative reviews around the time of its release. In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "The era is simply established as a dreamily idyllic past, thanks to sand dunes at twilight, waves that crash in the distance, shiny red convertibles without seat belts and a musical score that may make you want to weep, for all the wrong reasons".[1] In his one-star review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote, "I detested Stealing Home so much, from beginning to end, that I left the screening wondering if any movie could possibly be that bad".[2] On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 20% based on reviews from 10 critics.[3]

When asked about the film in 2006, Mark Harmon said, "That was about a bunch of actors loving a script, going there and burning it on both ends for five weeks just to get it done. That was a fun one to make. I hear a lot about that role. People really found that movie on video."[4]

• List of American films of 1988
• List of fictional suicides

• Stealing Home at IMDb
• Stealing Home at AllMovie
• Stealing Home at Box Office Mojo