User Reviews

... but at the time no such controversy existed. Transgender rights would not become an issue until about 2015.

In 1986 , when this film was made, somebody being trans was still a very rare thing. I always thought the protagonist was a fictional character, and I was surprised when preparing to rewatch it to discover Renee Richards was an actual person.

Richard Radley (Vanessa Redgrave) is an opthamologist in New York City and also a very good tennis player. The film actually minimizes his tremendous athletic accomplishments. But he's also suffering from considerable gender dysphoria. He first approaches his mother - both of his parents are physicians - about his feelings. She connects him with an excellent psychiatrist. This being the 60s, transsexualism was considered insanity at the time, so he is only encouraged to "get over it" by medical professionals. This leads to lots of heartache, including RIchard marrying and fathering a son, with the wife wondering what is wrong with her when Richard grows cold towards her- she knows nothing about the gender dysphoria. The marriage fails, and ultimately Richard becomes Renee, finally taking the step of having the sex change surgery.

The public trouble begins when Renee plays in an amateur tennis tournament. A member of the press finds out the truth about her background and tells it on the air - members of the press aren't known for their compassion or discretion - and a controversy and the upending of Renee's life results.

One thing that wasn't discussed in the film is the tremendous advantage she'd have - in bone density, lung capacity, strength - having gone through puberty as a man. With there being so many trans people coming out today, many wanting to play sports, this has become a much bigger issue. In 1986 the novelty of the situation had it not being mentioned. It's almost like realizing that until the late 1970's the GOP really had no strong party position against abortion.

I'd say this is worth watching for Vanessa Redgrave's acting. She really has me convinced she is a wiry somewhat shy man up to the point of the physical transition. It's also interesting to see how the issue has evolved over 40 years.

Much after the book which inspired Second Serve came out and the film was broadcast on television, Renee Richards wrote a second autobiography in which she says that while she does not regret the transition surgery from man to woman, she does regret the notoriety that came with it. Who can say what she feels now because there certainly is a fine line between fame and notoriety.

As the film shows if it were not for a curious investigative reporter Renee would have had a modest career in amateur tennis while pursuing her real career as opthamologist.

I've met and talked with enough transgender individuals to know that what Renee formerly Robert felt was portrayed accurately enough, this is a private thing and most would like to do it privately. No one in the transgender world is groomed to be a Jackie Robinson, as Jackie Robinson himself was. It just happens. It happened in my area a few years earlier when a man who was teaching at a high school in Batavia over the summer transitioned. All kinds of noise was made about it and certainly the teacher didn't bargain for it. Curiously enough not any of her students had any problem and the hoopla has died down now.

Vanessa Redgrave did a superb job playing both the male and female versions of the character. As for Renee herself, she's probably got the quieter and gentler life now.

I think it was about 25 years ago that I saw Second Serve for the first time. At the time I had a personal interest in the problem of gender identity and Renée Richards was probably the most famous – or notorious – transsexual in the world. So I was quite curious to see the film, but in the end I was rather disappointed. When saw it again recently it was the other way round. Probably because of my low expectations I thought that it is not such a bad film after all. The best part is definitely when Richards is still a man struggling with his gender identity. On the other hand the part after the operation is too smooth and superficial for my taste. It looks as if the only problem that Richards has a female are the reactions of other people.

Of course I have to admit that Vanessa Redgrave is really fantastic in such a complicated role. Few actress could have played a male so well. But here we come to the biggest flaw. Why was the main part cast with an woman and not with a man? Richard Raskind – or "Radley" as is he called in the film - was a 100 % male. How hard Redgrave tries, especially in the close-ups you can see that she is a woman playing a man. On the other hand Renée Richards after the "sex-change" looks like a real woman and in some ways an attractive one. The real Richards did not. I think it is dishonest that Second Serve creates the illusion that an operation can turn a man into a woman. Of course there have been a number of famous transsexuals like Christine Jorgensen, April Ashley or singer Amanda Lear - who was born as Alain Tapp - who were really attractive women, but the male-to-female transsexuals that I have known personally just looked like men in drag.

Although just a small part of the film deals with her career as a female tennis player I think it is unfair that she is only presented as a victim of mean morons. Richards was already in her forties and had never been a real top player as a man. Still she had a male physique and was towering over her rivals. I can understand that other players didn't want to play against her and were deeply frustrated when they lost. Interesting enough it was Richards herself who called it "a particular stupid decision" that in 2004 transsexuals were allowed to take part in the Olympic Games. Maybe some would call her a hypocrite, but I think most of all she was a human being. And it is human never to stop doubting.

It is hard to discuss Second Serve and not talk about the real Renée Richards and the problem of gender identity. According to some studies of all the people who consider a sex change 97 % give up the idea after a while. And of the 3 % who actually go on a considerable number has regrets. Richards seems to be one of them – at least now and then. In 1999 she said in an interview: "I wish that there could have been an alternative way, but there wasn't in 1975. If there was a drug that I could have taken that would have reduced the pressure, I would have been better off staying the way I was - a totally intact person. I know deep down that I'm a second-class woman." She never wanted to be a role model, but her life can teach many interesting lessons about the hardships of transsexualism.

"Second Serve" is a stunning made for TV movie done at a time when TV films seemed to have a little more thought put into them than they do now. In later years, they have descended into true crime and women in crisis, drawing largely from the headlines. This film is drawn from the headlines, too, but a different kind. It's the story of Richard Radley, who becomes Renee Richards. Back in 1986, these stories were uncommon - there were no MSNBC documentaries on sex changes, no true stories shown on The Learning Channel. Renee Richards, of course, is a tremendously accomplished woman, an ophthalmologist and tennis pro, who gains a great deal of publicity by suing the tennis association for discrimination.

I found this to be a very uplifting story of a brave person who fought for what she believed in so that she and others like her could have a better life. Vanessa Redgrave is perfect in the role - tall and big-boned, she has an androgeny that she can turn on when a role calls for it, and of course, she is a great actress. I saw her several years ago in "Long Day's Journey into Night" and was blown away, as I was when I saw her in this 19 years ago. If you get a chance to see this, it's beautifully done.

I'am a Vanessa Redgrave fan. However, that does not mean that every performance she gives and every film she makes will be "Oscar" worthy in my eyes. This film DESERVED every Emmy it was nominated for (3) and deserved the 2 wins. However, Redgrave was cheated out of her Emmy. I have never seen a woman pass so greatly as a man before. Redgrave is wonderful! She even got down the movements of a man! There are times you can tell it's her. But if you don't know her, you can't. She looks like a man 100% of the time and only when she turns slightly do you get a glimpse of the real person.

The movie is wonderful. It's brilliant. Redgrave is brilliant! You see her struggle time after time with her identity and you feel for this character. She really jumps into character. She even fights like a man! If you can get your hands on this, get it! It is wonderful!

This is a telemovie, but make no mistake about its quality. There are better production and performance values here than in many big screen Hollywood flicks.

Get it if you can! I'm lucky enough to have found an ex-rental copy many years ago.

Vanessa Redgrave delivers a performance characteristic of her extraordinary body of work - stirring, believable, assured, compelling - in fact you will wonder where the 90 minutes went as she takes you on an incredible trip through the life of an extraordinary individual.

Redgrave is totally convincing as a man, and as the movie progresses she remains totally convincing as a woman who was once a man. She clearly has enormous empathy for the difficulties faced by Richard Radley in his long and arduous quest to live the life he wants, as Renee Richards.

There are some other fine performances in this film (Louise Fletcher, however, is surprisingly stilted) but it is Vanessa Redgrave's breathtaking portrayal that makes this movie unmissable, and will make you forgive the glib, all-too-convenient telemovie-style moments of plot development, of which there are mercifully few.

I've just read a local paper bemoaning the fact that very few films or books had been made with tennis as a central theme. I was waiting for the author to mention "Second Serve" - and the fact that he didn't proves that he must not have seen this movie.

It would be fully 15 years since it was shown here on TV, but I remember how superb Vanessa Redgrave is in the lead role (true to form - she is one of my all-time favourite actors).

Since becoming an activist in the local gay community, I have come to know personally several transgenders and to appreciate even more just how honest a representation "Second Serve" makes.

Significantly it is just this month that the Olympics governing body have declared that transgenders will be included in the next Games. I believe that Renee Richards personal strength and public honesty was the first step in achieving this statement of equity.

Ms. Redgrave is no less than stunning as Richard. This is so much the case that when she finally won her hard-fought battle to become Renee, I was worried that she'd have a hard time passing as female. Her performance really grabbed me that much. The supporting cast is also very professional, and they wisely defer to Redgrave's presence in every scene. This film walks the line between the clinical and the emotional better than any other I have seen on the subject including the recent TransAmerica. There can be no greater fighting for the dignity of one's soul than when the world insists that your apparent gender is true but you are certain it is a lie and that you really can never life your own life until you correct that lie.

Vanessa Redgrave's follow up project with producer Linda Yellen after Playing for Time. Here She is New York opthalmologist Richard Radley who has a sex change operation to become Renee Richards, and earns fame as a champion female tennis player. Redgrave's largeness - her height, broad shoulders, wide hips, flat chest, and large feet help in making Richard in drag look unlike a woman, and Redgrave lowers her natural speaking voice. This disparity, brave for an actress playing a male transexual, carries over after Richard becomes Rene, and although she is legally a woman and is heterosexual, her presence retains the memory of her change. The moment of Rene's first romantic kiss with a man is handled particularly delicately.

The teleplay by Stephanie Liss and Gavin Lambert, based on the autobiography by Richards with James Ames, has Richard define his predicament as "gender confusion", having "a woman inside of him raging to get out", and a "compulsive disorder", and clinically defined as a "compartmentalised psychosis". We are presented with a scenario of a strong mother and weak father, with Richard as a child dressed by his mother as a girl and being "pleased" by the attention he got, as his reasons for cross-dressing. However one doctor explans it simply - "When the spirit refuses to fit the body, why not make the body fit the spirit". Richard's path to the operation is so convulated that when it is finally done, the news is announced with little fuss. Director Anthony Page has echoed voices in flashbacks, a drag queen singing Put the Blame on Mame with a gag at the end when he uses his own deep voice, and montages of previous scenes in times of stress. He intercuts between Renee's tennis match and her trial where she sued the tennis organisers for discrimination, and makes use of the subtle music score of Brad Fiedel.

Mine is not so much a review but a rebuttal of the negative reviews here. One reviewer thinks that taking female hormones change a male voice to a female one and eliminates a beard. This is completely untrue. The voice has to be retrained and the beard removed via electrolysis. This is hard to do and takes a long and painful time to complete. Many have said that Renee Richards had an unfair advantage when competing against cis-women. This is a falsehood. The female hormones that Richards would have taken would have significantly reduced the muscle mass and strength from that when she was a man. The only advantage she would have had, perhaps and only perhaps, was that gained from being a man and the superior sports hand eye coordination and technique that would entail. Having said that, Raskin wasn't that great a player as a man in that environment. Others have said a man changing sex will never be a true woman. But he will never again be a true man. So that then creates a voluntary inter-sex, the eunuch. This position has existed since the dawn of human history and therefore should be treated with the utmost respect and admiration for it is a brave and committed path. Transsexuals hurt no-one and give much love back, when allowed to do so.