It’s hard to believe how many Hollywood films (and
international films, for that matter) have focused on prizefighting. Such
ring-set films seem to have a built-in audience: Wikipedia lists 50 boxing
movies that over the years have grossed between $3 million and $300 million at
the worldwide box office. At the very top of the list are five Rocky
movies, as well as three Creed films that can be considered Rocky
spinoffs with an African-American twist. A number of highly successful boxing
movies are biopics: see Ali (2001), with “The Greatest” played by Will
Smith; The Hurricane (1999), about the ringside and legal woes of
Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter; The Great White Hope (1970), the slightly
fictionalizing story of early Black prizefighter Jack Johnson; and of course
Martin Scorsese’s great Raging Bull (1980) in which Robert De Niro plays
the deeply troubled Jake La Motta. (I could name a good many more boxing
biopics, but enough is enough.)
Then there are boxing-related films that qualify as
comedies. See for instance, Danny Kaye in a musical called The Kid from
Brooklyn (1946), about a neighborhood milkman who accidentally becomes a
boxing sensation. The high-grossing Any Which Way But Loose (1978) and
its sequel, Any Which Way You Can (1980), both star no less than Clint
Eastwood as a trucker who’s also a bare-knuckles brawler, and who roams the
American West along with an orangutan named Clyde. In a more sentimental vein, a
desperate Charlie Chaplin tries boxing in City Lights (1931), a film
that many consider his masterpiece. Even more sentimental is another 1931
flick, The Champ, starring Wallace Beery as an over-the-hill
prizefighter desperately trying to care for his young son. And let’s not forget
Hilary Swank as a female boxer whose dreams are shattered, along with her body,
in Clint Eastwood’s poignant Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby (2004)
My parents, who loathed John Wayne westerns as well as
anything to do with boxing, made room in their hearts for John Ford’s The
Quiet Man (1952). It’s the rollicking story of a former pro boxer with a
guilty conscience who must reluctantly fight on behalf of the lass he loves.
It’s a carefree Gaelic romp just right for St. Patrick’s Day.
On the other hand, there’s 1947’s Body and Soul, which
is a great deal more somber, but is often considered one of the best boxing
films of all time. This designation is partly because it was shot by the great
cinematographer James Wong Howe, who later won Oscars for both The Rose
Tattoo and Hud. If part of the attraction of boxing on film is that
it allows for intense close-ups of two human bodies in motion, Howe’s in-tight
camerawork beautifully conveys the sport’s intensity. Meanwhile director Robert
Rossen’s strong cast, led by John Garfield, punches home a powerful story about
a young would-be boxer, his girl, his worried mother, and the dangerous men who
control him. The film was a critical and commercial hit, accruing three Oscar
nominations (it won a statuette for its editing). But its cast and crew paid a
high price. The story, which specifically pointed to Jews and African Americans
as victimized by powerful WASP interests, was not a safe one to be telling in
an era when the House Un-American Activities Committee was on the rise. Star
Garfield, screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, and director Robert Rossen all found
themselves called to testify before HUAC, and only Rossen (who eventually
agreed to name names) emerged unscathed. Garfield continued to make films, but
was deeply scarred by the HUAC experience. He died in 1952 at age 39.
