Which boxer would you like to see a movie about...

[raylawpc]

Jerry Quarry's life would make for an interesting film.

I'll second the Quarry movie and add Mando Ramos and Mickey Walker. Though it has already been done, the definitive Jack Dempsey movie has yet to be made.

I would add to that a bio of John L. Sullivan. Stanley Ketchel would be interesting too!

[Evander]

Lots of good replies.

Foreman would make a good one.

I'd like to see one on Manny Steward after all of the people he has worked with and stories he could tell.

[Expug]

Bobby Chacon
Johnny Tapia
Lotta hard hard times.

[hhaehre]

The Hiltons, highs and lows

Vicente Rondon, from the slums of Caracas to the light heavy weight championship of the world to the mental ward to the slums of Caracas and then death at 54.

[jimglen]

this one...

http://www.pugilistica.com/begifiprbyau.html

[The 1bangkid]

Johnny Nelson would be awsome- just think about it

lol why yes i like him as a fighter but alot of people dont no him and there are better stories to tell

[BCN]

Always wanted to see a biopic of Tex Rickard. I know, not a boxer but from a farm near Jesse James to the Klondike where he made and lost fortunes to Goldfield and the Nelson-Gans fight. A million in gold in a store window. Then on to the million dollar gate and the building of the "new" Madison Square Garden. Then a scandal about an underage girl. In death thousands turn out in NYC for his funeral. You can't make that kind of story up. He literally was the American success story and died as the market crashed. Got that allegorical thing going that serious filmmakers like. One day.

[raylawpc]

Always wanted to see a biopic of Tex Rickard. I know, not a boxer but from a farm near Jesse James to the Klondike where he made and lost fortunes to Goldfield and the Nelson-Gans fight. A million in gold in a store window. Then on to the million dollar gate and the building of the "new" Madison Square Garden. Then a scandal about an underage girl. In death thousands turn out in NYC for his funeral. You can't make that kind of story up. He literally was the American success story and died as the market crashed. Got that allegorical thing going that serious filmmakers like. One day.

An excellent suggestion.

[Baby Face Finster]

I don't know if the French have made one or not but Marcel Cerdan was who I thought of first.

Probably the most dramatic of them all would be the life story of George Chuvalo. What he has had to endure in life would have driven most men to the grave.

Did anyone mention Jack Dempsey? Surely a film about him would be great as Tex Rickard would be a part of it.

A film about Sam Langford would be quite interesting I'd imagine.

I could envision a great film about Mickey Walker.

I'd love to see one about Pierce Egan.

[ZoeCatherine]

Do we really need another Mike Tyson movie. There's so many stories to tell in boxing history.

What do you mean "another" Tyson movie, I've seen documentaries on Tyson but not a full feature film. Did I miss them?

[Ric]

Another fine candidate would be Oscar-winning actor Victor McLaglen. This guy had quite the life, with his world-wide travels, multi-war experience, and adventures. Look at the following bio from IMDb.com:

Rambunctious British leading man (contrary to popular belief, he wasn't Irish) and later character actor primarily in American films, Victor McLaglen was a vital presence in a number of great motion pictures, especially those of director John Ford. McLaglen (pronounced Muh-clog-len, not Mack-loff-len) was the son of the Right Reverend Andrew McLaglen, a Protestant clergyman who was at one time Bishop of Claremont in South Africa. The young McLaglen, eldest of eight brothers, attempted to serve in the Boer War by joining the Life Guards, though his father secured his release. The adventuresome young man traveled to Canada where he did farm labor and then directed his pugnacious nature into professional prizefighting. He toured in circuses, vaudeville shows, and Wild West shows, often as a fighter challenging all comers. His tours took him to the US, Australia (where he joined in the gold rush) and South Africa. In 1909 he was the first fighter to box newly-crowned heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, whom he fought in a six-round exhibition match in Vancouver (as an exhibition fight, it had no decision). When the First World War broke out, McLaglen joined the Irish Fusiliers and soldiered in the Middle East, eventually serving as Provost Marshal (head of Military Police) for the city of Baghdad. After the war he attempted to resume a boxing career, but was given a substantial acting role in The Call of the Road (1920) and was well received. He became a popular leading man in British silent films, and within a few years was offered the lead in an American film, The Beloved Brute (1924). He quickly became a most popular star of dramas as well as action films, playing tough or suave with equal ease. With the coming of sound, his ability to be persuasively debonair diminished by reason of his native speech patterns, but his popularity increased, particularly when cast by Ford as the tragic Gypo Nolan in The Informer (1935), for which McLaglen won the Best Actor Oscar. He continued to play heroes, villains and simple-minded thugs into the 1940s, when Ford gave his career a new impetus with a number of lovably roguish Irish parts in such films as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and The Quiet Man (1952). The latter film won McLaglen another Oscar nomination, the first time a Best Actor winner had been nominated subsequently in the Supporting category. McLaglen formed a semi-militaristic riding and polo club, the Light Horse Brigade, and a similarly arrayed precision motorcycle team, the Victor McLaglen Motorcycle Corps, both of which led to apparently erroneous conclusions that he had fascist sympathies and was forming his own private army. The facts prove otherwise, and despite rumors to the contrary, McLaglen did not espouse the far right-wing sentiments often attributed to him. He continued to act in films into his 70s and died, from heart failure, not long after appearing in a film directed by his son, Andrew V. McLaglen.

BTW: his son, Andrew, went on to have a fine directing career (he directed the most episodes of the TV series Have Gun Will Travel).

[The Great John L]

Ad Wolgast

[The Great John L]

Do we really need another Mike Tyson movie. There's so many stories to tell in boxing history.

What do you mean "another" Tyson movie, I've seen documentaries on Tyson but not a full feature film. Did I miss them?

It's easily forgotten.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114759/combined

[Syntax Error]

I'd like to see a film about Jack Johnson.

Reading about him, he was such an interesting & entertaining character & he's a really significant figure in not just boxing history, but in history in general.

[Brutu]

I'd like to see a film about Jack Johnson.

Reading about him, he was such an interesting & entertaining character & he's a really significant figure in not just boxing history, but in history in general.

There was a movie released in 1971
THE GREAT WHITE HOPE
starring James Earl Jones
which was pretty good.
It was based on a Broadway play.

[Syntax Error]

I'd like to see a film about Jack Johnson.

Reading about him, he was such an interesting & entertaining character & he's a really significant figure in not just boxing history, but in history in general.

There was a movie released in 1971
THE GREAT WHITE HOPE
starring James Earl Jones
which was pretty good.
It was based on a Broadway play.

Thanks for that.

I never knew about that film.

Will have to check it out.

[The Great John L]

I'd like to see a film about Jack Johnson.

Reading about him, he was such an interesting & entertaining character & he's a really significant figure in not just boxing history, but in history in general.

There was a movie released in 1971
THE GREAT WHITE HOPE
starring James Earl Jones
which was pretty good.
It was based on a Broadway play.

Thanks for that.

I never knew about that film.

Will have to check it out.

It's probably safe to say that the play and movie were "inspired" by Johnson's life.

[Brutu]

Im not sure why some of the names and events were changed for the play
which opened in December 1967 on Broadway and won a number of Tony awards)and made into a movie a few years later.
Maybe because Jack Johnson's living relatives threatened a lawsuit.
But believe me,they (Hollywood)do not and can not makes movies
like this anymore,not just production values,but trained actors.
here is a link for more into

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065797/

[raylawpc]

Im not sure why some of the names and events were changed for the play
which opened in December 1967 on Broadway and won a number of Tony awards)and made into a movie a few years later.
Maybe because Jack Johnson's living relatives threatened a lawsuit.
But believe me,they (Hollywood)do not and can not makes movies
like this anymore,not just production values,but trained actors.
here is a link for more into

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065797/

Because it was inspired by Jack Johnson. As I recall, Slacker said he never intended it as a biography. It first opened at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and debuted on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on October 3, 1968 for a run of 546 performances.

http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3417

[Brutu]

Im not sure why some of the names and events were changed for the play
which opened in December 1967 on Broadway and won a number of Tony awards)and made into a movie a few years later.
Maybe because Jack Johnson's living relatives threatened a lawsuit.
But believe me,they (Hollywood)do not and can not makes movies
like this anymore,not just production values,but trained actors.
here is a link for more into

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065797/

Because it was inspired by Jack Johnson. As I recall, Slacker said he never intended it as a biography. It first opened at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and debuted on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on October 3, 1968 for a run of 546 performances.

http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3417

Did ypu read the earlier thread,when Brock Peters was doing the road show of it in Chicago in 1968,
and wanted to put a small grave stone on Jack Johnson's grave at the cemetery,his niece
publicly said that she would sue if he did.

[Brutu]

The play was"inspired"by the life of Jack Johnson?
I think Howard Sackler was probably a tight wad just did not want to pay out any money for the dramatization(anyone who had written a book about Jack Johnson) or get sued by the Johnson family or even Jess Willard, for some of the liberties he had taken.
read this from
EBONY June 1969.
pp 54-61.


http://www.books.google.com/books?id=RN ... pg=PA54&dq

[Brutu]

Jess Willard was still alive when the play opened on Broadway October 1968.
Willard died December.15.1968.
From what i remember seeing the movie,it insinuated
that Jack jefferson threw the fight in "Durango Mexico".
also it portrayed the"kid"(i.e Willard charactor as a big slow moving clumsey robotic fighter)incidently play by real life boxer Jim Beattie in the movie.

[thunderfromdownunder]

Les Darcy, what a sad story

[raylawpc]

Im not sure why some of the names and events were changed for the play
which opened in December 1967 on Broadway and won a number of Tony awards)and made into a movie a few years later.
Maybe because Jack Johnson's living relatives threatened a lawsuit.
But believe me,they (Hollywood)do not and can not makes movies
like this anymore,not just production values,but trained actors.
here is a link for more into

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065797/

Because it was inspired by Jack Johnson. As I recall, Slacker said he never intended it as a biography. It first opened at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and debuted on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on October 3, 1968 for a run of 546 performances.

http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3417

Did ypu read the earlier thread,when Brock Peters was doing the road show of it in Chicago in 1968,
and wanted to put a small grave stone on Jack Johnson's grave at the cemetery,his niece
publicly said that she would sue if he did.

Yes, but I didn't need to. I already knew about it from being alive and a boxing fan in 1968. You don't need permission to do a biography about anyone. As I recall, Slacker said he didn't intend to write a biography. His theme was a man fighting against society, and he used Jack Johnson's life as the springboard for that story. But he never intended to write a biography. Muhammad Ali claimed in the late 60s that the story was his. I paraphrase Ali: "Take away the white women and substitute the issue of religion, and it's my story."

[Brutu]

Spoiler alert* to the GREAT wHITE hOPE movie.



Looked like in the finale that "Jack Jefferson" changed his mind yet again in the middle of a round and just "allowed" the"Kid"to knock him out as origianlly planned by the backers.