The Basketball Fix

The story, told in a series of flashbacks by newspaper reporter Pete Ferreday (John Ireland), is about a high-school basketball star, Johnny Long (Marshall TYhompson), who gets a full-ride scholarship to a fictional eastern-seaboard college who is poor and a weakling. His scholarship covers room and board and tuition, meals and laundry money but no cash and he likes to show his girlfriend Pat Judd (Vanssa Brown) a good time and going Dutch Treat was not considered a really swell good time in the late-forties and early-fifties. But a big-time gambler, Mike Taft (William Bishop), comes along and says he will pay Johnny a lot of money for making sure his team beats the other team by fewer points than the betting-spread on the game, and all Johnny has to do is miss a few shots or double-dribble or toss the ball out of bounds once in a while. Taft assures Johnny there is nothing wrong in a little bit of “point-shaving. But after awhile Johnny’s conscience starts to plague him, especially so after federal investigators and local police and noisy newspaper reporters start asking questions. He tells Taft he wants out but is too late.