BoxRec

THE FIGHT
Barak Goodman, USA, 2004
BBC Two: Saturday 28 August 10pm-11.30pm


Focussing on the legendary 1938 rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, this is an engrossing look at the intertwined careers of two boxing greats.

On 22 June 1938, more than 90,000 people crammed into Yankee Stadium, and a global audience of millions tuned in their radios, for the most famous boxing match of all time.

In one corner stood Joe Louis, the representative of FDR's New Deal - a courteous black man; in the other stood the villain of the times, Max Schmeling - a Nazi from Hitler's Germany. But these stereotypes prove far from accurate. Barak Goodman's heartfelt film takes us on a voyage through the politics of boxing from that dark decade.

Schmeling was no picture-book Nazi and the fate of Joe Louis bears reflecting on. The boxing footage is carefully restored and looks as good as Raging Bull. Joe Louis really was the Brown Bomber.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentar ... ight.shtml

BBC 2, hey? I might just be watching.

There was a thread on here a week or two back about max schmelling and joe louis where one of the things discussed was schmelling during the war. Co-incidently around the same time i was reading a biography of Gerald 'Stapme' Stapleton and RAF Battle of britain pilot who fought for a while with 603 City of Edinburgh squadron, hence my interest. Anyways, in the latter part of the war Stapme was imprisoned as a POW in a camp called Stalag Luft 1 at Barth.

As it became increasingly obvious that the Germans had lost the war and the russians were advancing very close, all of the gaurds disappeared over night from the camp in a bid to escape the advancing russians. there was only one guard left in the camp that morning. legend has it that the guard strode into the office of the senior british officer, a group captain grant and another officer called colonel zemeke, an american, afraid that he would be shot by the russinas and asked if they could smuggle him back to Britain or America. His request was flatly refused and the german guard left.

Apparently that guard was Max Schmelling.

great doc last night

REAL_DEAL wrote:great doc last night

Indeed it was, I've taped it and added it to my ever growing collection. The Historu Channel also from time to time shows a Documentary on the Louis - Schmelling fights which is also worth a watch.

The BBC gets a lot of flack over it's Boxing coverage and rightly so at times, but credit where credit is due over the years it's shown some outstanding Boxing Documentaries.

Yep, learned alot. Didn't know that Max Schmeling hid those young Jewish people away from the Nazi's during Crystal Nacht. That was as gutsy as anything as he achieved in the ring. I also never realised that Schmeling vs Braddock was arranged.

It was a well balanced documentary and very insightful.

SHIT!!!!!!
completely forgot it was on, I was watching ricky gervais' animals at that time. Damn! new there was something I was suppose to be taping.

Missed it :( One thing annoyed me, this was advertised as a "Choice" in the Daily Sport and they billed Schemling as a "Nazi sympathizer" which is wrong...the way they described the documentary of the Louis-Schmeling fights was a sort of good V evil thing...it pissed me off because Schmeling was by no means this sort of character and it's a slur on a great man who is still with us. I'd e mail the bastards if i thought for a second they would listen

Shit. I completely forgot about that. Oh well, at least I was in the pub at the time (not all doom and gloom).

saw first half hour, looked good so taped the rest...shall watch tonight. I loved the freinds of Joe, the 3 of them on the couch, they were great!