"The film so improves upon an original autobiography of Mr. Piersall and a television drama based thereon that it is the initiation of a first-rate psychological film." – The New York Times.

"Fear Strikes Out rolls Frank Merriwell and Sigmund Freud into a ball and then lines it out for a solid hit." -- Time.

"Baseball is only a means to an end in this highly effective dramatization of the tragic results that can come from a father pushing his son too hard towards a goal he, himself, was not able to achieve. Anthony Perkins, in the young Jim Piersall role, delivers a remarkably sustained performance of a sensitive young man, pushed too fast to the limits of his ability to cope with life's pressures. It's an exceptional job...Karl Malden...is splendid as the father who gets his own ambitions mixed up with love for his son." -- Variety.

"Interesting but dated...In effect, the film is rooted in the youth-problem pictures of the fifties: it is the reverse of Rebel Without a Cause [1955], in which a troubled boy can't express to his weak father his desperate need to receive some fatherly advice for once...Perkins is ideally cast as the young Piersall. With his display of nervous energy, emotional instability, paranoia, pent-up rage, and, finally, strait-jacketed catatonia, he may well have been using Piersall to prepare himself for Norman Bates." - Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic.

"Rather flat biopic...well-intentioned and careful in its psychological insights, but too often just plain dull." - Halliwell's Film & Video Guide.

"Fear Strikes Out is a baseball story that spends less than twenty minutes on the field...Mulligan and his producer Alan J. Pakula keep their show as simple as the then-popular television dramas, and use the big screen to amplify the tension without overstating their case...The acting here is phenomenal...Perkins is a marvel at portraying subtle inner discord, and Fear Strikes Out is a powerful companion picture to the colder Psycho [1960]."

"Director Robert Mulligan, who had previously directed only television dramas, doesn't go for subtlety here...Fortunately for Perkins, the film is much more about his emotional difficulties and his relationship with his father than it is about baseball, so his acting makes the melodrama watchable - many of the same shy mannerisms that have become icons in are employed effectively here." - John Nesbit, ToxicUniverse.com

AWARDS AND HONORS

The Directors Guild of America nominated Robert Mulligan for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures.

Compiled by Andrea Passafiume & Jeff Stafford