BoxRec

we know that fight films back in the 20's were big business and that grebs fight with mickey walker broke attendance records. so there must have been a film made - perhaps more than one - does anyone think it might yet exist...somewhere?

Quite possibly. An old 'lost to time' cut of a Cassevettes' film turned up in someone's loft a few years abck now. Okay, not as old but I wouldn't be surprised if one doesn't turn up eventually.

edit

sadly the only known film of greb. ok everyone check your lofts

harrygreb wrote:sadly the only known film of greb. ok everyone check your lofts

Not sadly. Back in the 1960's Sports Illustrated quoted a man who owned a Greb fight. He wanted to trade it with film collecotr Bill Clayton, but the oily Clayton tired to low ball him, and rubbed the gentleman the wrong way.

In the words of Vince Vaughn, I think we are focusing on the wrong details. Tons of boxing films are un-marked. The real trick is having an expert identify the fighters. And when I say an expert, I mean an astute boxing historian who knows what Greb would look like on an un-marked film that has no audio.

99.99% of the people would be able to id Greb / don’t own a projector / or have no desire to bother to check what out boxed up in storage. This is the main problem.

but even if cayton messed up the deal with this guy, do you think he would not have sold it to anyone else? unlikely to say the least and i think the whole affair would be more well known in boxing circles. not doubting your story, you understand, just the fella who claimed he had film of greb.
but i am happier with the idea of unmarked footage still extant that could be what every true fan would want to see, namely a greb fight.

thanks

Grebs fight against Walker was filmed..as were some of his others...though as said, none seem to have survived :(

The law of that time concerning fight film and the perishable nature of the film both didn`t exactly help.

This just didn't happen in boxing, but in Hollywood as well. There are numerous films of Lon Changey, Sr that were made, and only a few still exist to this day. Changey made some 200-300 films, now these days, there is probably 20 or so at best still around.

=shrugs=

Guess what I am saying, this is a common place thing, at least back then.

pound per pound wrote: Back in the 1960's Sports Illustrated quoted a man who owned a Greb fight.

WHAT Greb fight?

obviously greb v walker would be the pick but flowers or any of the tunney fights, kid norfolk, etc etc etc in fact even a snippet of any little rumble involving the windmill would be priceless.

You know where I would look?
Someplace like Alaska,Greenland or where its really cold that would possibly stop the nitrate from disintergrating so fast.
You know the Army use to show its troops boxing footage for morale.
Sometimes it was cheaper just to keep the film and get rid of it then postage to send it back especially if it wasnt much in demand anymore like an old fight.
I agree most artsy fartsy fim historians who check out various archives in Eastern Europe for lost classics or somewhere are not boxing fans so they dont care.
However I feel all film archives should catalog what they do have.

yeah I read somewhere back in the late 1950's Jess Willard was trying to locate a print of his fight against Johnson,he located a collector in Sydney Australia who had a print.Then he told Jacobs and Cayton about it and they bought it.
Willard didnt want the fight commercialized but they showed it on television so Willard sued Jacobs and Cayton for a million dollars.

what a lovely image - a bunch of middle aged eskimos sitting in an igloo watching endless (and very good quality) re-runs of harry greb v mickey walker and sipping bitterly cold pints of lager.

harrygreb wrote:what a lovely image - a bunch of middle aged eskimos sitting in an igloo watching endless (and very good quality) re-runs of harry greb v mickey walker and sipping bitterly cold pints of lager.