The British Boxing Film 3030742091, 9783030742096

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Rules of Boxing on Film
References
Part I: The Silent Treatment
Chapter 2: Opening Rounds: 1895–1918
2.1 Celebrities and Comics
2.2 Politics and Pugilism
2.3 Boxing Melodrama
2.3.1 1910s Boxing Film Champion: The House of Temperley (1913)
References
Chapter 3: The Plot Thickens: 1919–1928
3.1 Actors Versus Boxers
3.2 Boxing Shorts
3.3 Silent Boxing Film Champion: The Ring (Alfred Hitchcock, 1928)
References
Part II: The Sound Treatment
Chapter 4: Boxing Sound and Vision: 1929–1939
4.1 Fistic Funnymen (and a Dog)
4.2 The East End, Ethnicity and Masculinity
4.3 The 1930s Boxing Film Champion: There Ain’t No Justice (1939)
References
Chapter 5: The Post-war Return: 1945–1960
5.1 Boxing Outsiders
5.2 1950s and Sound Boxing Film Champion: The Square Ring (1953)
5.3 Comic Irreverence and Ineptitude
References
Part III: The Colour Treatment
Chapter 6: Wider Representation: 1961–1999+
6.1 Boxing at the Art House
6.2 Boxing in the Provinces
6.2.1 The 1990s Boxing Film Champion: The Big Man (1990)
6.3 Boxing at the Margins
References
Chapter 7: Final Rounds: 2000–Present
7.1 Boxing for Geezers
7.1.1 The 2000s Boxing Film Champion: Shiner (2001)
7.2 Boxing and the Biopic
7.3 Boxing and ‘Retro’ Comedy
7.4 2010s Boxing Film Champion: Journeyman (2017)
References
Chapter 8: Conclusion: The Judges’ Verdict
References
Boxing Filmography
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The British Boxing Film Stephen Glynn

The British Boxing Film ‘Stephen Glynn is the authority on sport in British cinema, and The British Boxing Film is a very welcome addition to his previous surveys of the people’s game and the sport of kings. Glynn makes a highly persuasive case for the boxing picture as a site of significant cultural interest, especially through its engagement with class and gender politics. As relevant for social historians of sport as for film studies, The British Boxing Film is an undisputed knock-out winner.’ —James Chapman, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Leicester and editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Stephen Glynn

The British Boxing Film

Stephen Glynn De Montfort University Leicester, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-74209-6    ISBN 978-3-030-74210-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

No boxer fights alone: they are supported by a team that manages, coaches and cares for them. The same is true for an author, and I am very grateful to the team that has helped me to realise The British Boxing Film. This monograph could not have stepped into the publishing ring without the support and skills of executive editor Lina Aboujieb who green-lit and guided my trilogy of sporting film monographs for Palgrave Macmillan— thank you, Lina. My thanks also to editorial assistant Emily Wright who steered me expertly through this volume’s preparatory practicalities. In my corner, as ever, encouraging my efforts with care and consideration (even when expressing their unfathomable preference for WWE WrestleMania), I give my unending thanks, and undying love, to Sarah and to Roz.

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Contents

1 Introduction: The Rules of Boxing on Film  1 Part I The Silent Treatment  15 2 Opening Rounds: 1895–1918 17 3 The Plot Thickens: 1919–1928 49 Part II The Sound Treatment  83 4 Boxing Sound and Vision: 1929–1939 85 5 The Post-war Return: 1945–1960117 Part III The Colour Treatment 147 6 Wider Representation: 1961–1999+149 7 Final Rounds: 2000–Present189

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8 Conclusion: The Judges’ Verdict229 Boxing Filmography235 Bibliography243 Index251

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3 Fig. 7.4

Boxing Match (1896)—boxing film beginnings The Pocket Boxers (1903)—NSC + SFX The House of Temperley (1913)—regency realism The White Hope—the eyes have it A Gipsy Cavalier—if I were a Carpentier … When Giants Fought—intimations of equality The Ring—boxing and romantic fortunes come full circle Excuse My Glove—Superman gets a shiner Money Talks—the kid stays in the picture There Ain’t No Justice—boys to men No Way Back—Sally and the Croucher The Square Ring—‘Everybody dies’ One Good Turn—the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness The Big Man—to the victor the spoils The Boxer—no Irish, no blacks Blonde Fist: seeing stars Snatch—‘Truth’ 800 frames-per-second Shiner—a man more sinned against than sinning? Risen—bags of Welsh courage Journeyman—reflections (of the way life used to be)

18 21 37 41 58 62 77 92 98 110 121 137 139 160 168 183 194 198 208 226

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Rules of Boxing on Film

A five-minute scene early in Twentieth Century Productions’ The Young Mr. Pitt (Carol Reed, 1942) sees Britain’s youngest-ever Prime Minister (Robert Donat), without a workable mandate or parliamentary respect, ambushed at night by henchmen of his political enemies. Two observers come to Pitt’s aid and with deft comic teamwork swiftly rebuff the assailants. They are revealed as ‘followers of the Fancy’: Daniel Mendoza (Roy Emerton), 16th bare-knuckle boxing champion of all England, and ‘Gentleman’ John Jackson (Leslie Bradley), successor to the title. On repairing to Jackson’s adjacent Pugilistic Academy, the boxers tend to the despondent Pitt’s injuries and, over a restorative glass of wine, reassure him that he holds high favour with ‘the common people’ despite being only 24 years old. ‘Same as in the Fancy, sir,’ Mendoza asserts, ‘a game young’un is always better than a game old’un’—and with Jackson encouraging him to ‘peel off the mufflers and take the fight to them’, Pitt calls a general election and gains a working majority. Almost 50 years later, an early scene in Parkfield Entertainment’s The Krays (Peter Medak, 1990) follows 18-year-old twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray to a travelling fairground’s boxing booth. After their grandfather, ex-streetfighter Jimmy ‘Cannonball’ Lee (Jimmy Jewel), is summarily dispatched by the booth’s ‘Cockney Devil’—a cameo from 1975–1976 WBC welterweight champion John H. Stracey (45-5-1)1—Ronnie (Gary Kemp) enters the ring and enacts a swift revenge. Reggie (Martin Kemp) then puts on the gloves and brotherly union disappears as the ensuing slugfest, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2_1

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complete with slow-motion head-blows and blood-spitting, exposes a deep-seated search for sibling domination, only ending when their fearsome mother Violet (Billie Whitelaw) steps in and pleads with them to stop. Back at their Bethnal Green terraced home with a restorative pot of tea, Violet kneels between her boys and makes them vow never to fight each other, ‘not for fun, not for money, not for no reason’. The contrite twins comply with her entreaty to ‘stick together: that’s how we’re strong’ and to fight instead the world beyond, ‘them out there’. It is a bond that will lead to their notorious reign of terror as crime-lords in London’s 1960s underworld. These two scenes illustrate the range and reach of boxing in British film history. From urbane Georgian politicians to psychotic ‘Swinging Sixties’ gangsters, the sport of boxing allows the exploration of an encompassing British social, historical, psychological and physical topography. In truth, both biopics offer less period accuracy than a contemporary reading underpinned by what Katharina Bonzel terms the ‘emotional authenticity’ required whenever films employ sport ‘in the service of a particular vision of national identity’ (2020, p.  15). Peter Evans curtly dismisses Reed’s film as ‘wildly inaccurate’ as it brazenly skews the Napoleonic Wars to fit an allegory on Britain’s current war against Nazi Germany, with Pitt explicitly modelled as a Winston Churchill figure (2005, p. 53). The pugilism scene is entirely fictional, but it succeeds in showing how British boxing enjoyed a broad appeal across both ethnic and class divides. Mendoza was a Sephardic Jew whose ‘scientific style’ with guard up and side-­ stepping defence revolutionised boxing technique and popularity; reputedly the guest of King George III, his standing improved the reputation of London’s Jewish community at a time of distinct anti-Semitism. Middle-class Jackson was a key player in furthering the sport’s social acceptance, founding in 1803 a boxing academy for aristocrats including the Prince Regent and Lord Byron (who termed Jackson the ‘Emperor of Pugilism’), and co-founding 1814’s Pugilistic Club, a forerunner of the modern Boxing Commission that worked to keep the sport clean and respectable (Colls, 2020, pp.  87–94). The Krays similarly offers an allegory for its time as, with war-survivor Violet ‘mothering’ a ruthless spirit of free enterprise, the film reveals the ‘“homosocial economy” of the male gangster society as a “doppelgänger” of the ordered society of Thatcher’s Britain’ (Desjardins, 2006, p. 119). It certainly plays fast and loose with chronology: the brothers were briefly professional boxers (not shown in the film), debuting in 1951 as lightweights at the Mile End Arena and

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concluding together a year later—Ronnie (4-2-0), Reggie (7-0-0)—on a Royal Albert Hall undercard. Their fairground punch-up is deemed apocryphal: if it happened they were 12 at the time, and proudly took their 7s6d winnings aka ‘nobbins’ home to their beloved mother (Smith, 2012, pp. 135–138). These two scenes, manifesting first a nostalgic index for the nation’s imperial greatness then a critical metaphor for contemporary capitalist practices, will prove indicative of common themes at different times in British boxing films. The Krays is, perhaps, more recognisably ‘generic’ as it situates boxing in an internationally recognisable social milieu: a pathway for working-class self-realisation but entwined with organised crime where fights are regularly fixed to secure gambling success. The Young Mr. Pitt, by contrast, exemplifies a uniquely indigenous slant with its patrician curatorship of a sport that Britain long considered its own. Boxing had held an important place in the games of ancient Greece and the Ludi Romani, only to fade with the Roman Empire (Boddy, 2008, pp. 9–25): it re-emerged in eighteenth-century London, quickly overtaking combative sports such as backsword and quarterstaff when the wealthy and powerful patronised bare-knuckle fighters and spectators wagered heavily on the outcome. This ‘English Golden Age’ saw boxing’s first heavyweight champion (1719?–1730) in James Figg (reputedly 269-1-0). The next noteworthy champion John ‘Jack’ Broughton (1738? –1750), looking to remove the sport’s image as an undisciplined brawl, introduced practice gloves (‘mufflers’) and in 1743 standardised a set of seven rules, codifications modified by the London Prize Ring Rules of 1838 (and 1853), and definitively moulded by the (still extant) Queensbury Rules, published in 1867. Redressing the balance between boxing skill and brute strength, these 12 rules limited fight lengths, insisted on a roped-in square ideally 24ft square and prohibited all wrestling or bare-fisted fighting. Ironically, as this codification was globally accepted, Britain’s status as the epicentre of boxing diminished. Nonetheless, as Richard Holt notes, in twentieth-century Britain, ‘despite the dominance of the United States, especially in the heavier weights, boxing remained an extremely popular professional sport’ (1989, p.  301). The same holds true for the British boxing film, the focus of this study. While there may appear to be no viable ‘heavyweight’ contender to challenge America with the aesthetic reputation of Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980), or the commercial longevity of Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976) and its reiterations, The British Boxing Film will show that home-grown works operating at lesser weights have

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frequently entered the ring to entertain audiences and, while at times beating a hegemonic retreat to a past ‘Golden Age’ as shown with Pitt’s brave rescuers, repeatedly re-present prevailing social attitudes. Boxing and cinema are adjudged as developing hand-in-glove. Dan Streible contends that cinema was central in the move to ‘modernize, popularize and legitimize professional boxing’ (2008, p.  13), while Luke McKernan boldly claims ‘that it was boxing that created cinema’ (1996, p. 107). The latter may be open to the accusation of ‘hyperbole’s irresponsible attractions’ (Babington, 2014, p. 41), but supportive evidence bears weight, beginning with the early experiments to capture human motion from English-born photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Alongside studies of adults running, jumping and throwing, his shadowy serial photographs of Athletes Boxing (1879) were considered especially successful—when Muybridge gave the first London presentation of his work three years later, the Prince of Wales reportedly greeted him with a specific request: ‘I should like to see your boxing pictures’ (Photographic News, 13 March 1882). Muybridge’s later, clearer images such as Two Men Boxing, published in his Animal Locomotion of 1887, proved hugely influential on Thomas Edison and his New Jersey engineering team. Thereafter, existing research on boxing and early cinema focuses almost exclusively on America, tracing Edison’s and others’ documentary-style fight ‘topicals’ through to the 17 March 1897 full filming of the 14-round world championship bout between ‘Gentleman’ Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons— Veriscope’s Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (Enoch Rector, 1897) is considered the world’s first edited, widescreen and feature-length film release (Streible, 2008, pp.  52–95). While a financial success, Rector’s recording also increased the moral momentum to ban boxing from America and Canada: thus, alongside technological and stylistic developments appeared the medium’s constant corollary, film censorship. Both practical and legal restrictions led thereafter to the filming of numerous restaged (i.e. ‘fake’) contests, arguably occasioning the first employment of actors and ‘the beginnings of the popular narrative film that would dominate cinema from the second decade of the twentieth century’ (Crosson, 2013, p.  40). These ongoing tensions between a commercially successful genre repeatedly stigmatised by ‘violent content, interracial provocations, and gender politics’ (Abel, 2005, p. 80) were alleviated by a parallel recourse to comedic fictions foregrounding knockabout/knockout action, with boxing-­ based shorts such as Comedy Set-To (William Heise, 1898) and A Scrap in Black and White (Alfred C.  Abadie, 1903) rehearsing the exaggerated

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in-ring moves subsequently perfected by London-born Charlie Chaplin in his self-directed The Champion (1915) and later City Lights (1931). What, though, of Britain’s pairings of boxing and film? A similar early symbiosis is evident and understandable: hitching the new medium to existing popular practices such as sport was commercially expedient, but for boxing three particular advantages present themselves. At the practical technological level, both practices were dependant on short, segmented periods of performance—boxing rounds and film reels; also, unlike sports such as football, athletics or horseracing where the action and points of development cover a wide and lengthy area, a boxing match was confined within the square ring, making it—especially if the ring was reduced in size—entirely filmable by a single fixed camera. Secondly, the renowned film theorist André Bazin would later assert that ‘the cinema is movement’ (1971, p.  141) and, aesthetically, single hand-to-hand combat encapsulates the focused movement of the human body, a prime initial attraction of the medium. Finally, as Streible notes, the interlinked development of cinema and boxing had important ‘sociological’ roots: ‘In the 1890s, prizefighting and filmmaking shared a milieu: an urban, male community known to its contemporaries as the “sporting and theatrical” world’ (2008, p. 23). All of these factors will be seen to develop in Britain as in America: technological advances enable a more immersive capture of ring action; as narrative advances, the boxer becomes a prime site for both social conflict and existential challenge—the pairing of ‘body’ and ‘soul’; simultaneously, boxing’s performative nature grows into settings interlaced with other branches of the entertainment industry—and with criminality, cementing its status as ‘show business with blood’. To this day, the boxer’s essential, elemental drive—to stand and fight or take the fall— remains a crowd-pleaser: reviewing the British film Jawbone (2017), Olly Richards summarises how ‘Boxing as metaphor for internal battle is hardly new cinematic ground, but there are good reasons why it’s perennial. The damaged person inside the fighter offers endless character possibilities and there are few action sequences more brutally exciting than a good boxing match’ (Empire, May 2017). Thus, the boxing film genre endures. The terms ‘boxing’ and ‘genre’ are performing some heavy lifting here and need elucidation. This study, as evidenced with William Pitt and the Kray twins, treats both professional and amateur boxing, bare-knuckle and gloved (plus late excursions into Muay Thai and UFC codes). Within the sport an aesthetic distinction is often made between a ‘boxer’ who, respecting rules and protocols, looks to win with skill and strategy (e.g. Mendoza),

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while a ‘fighter’ relies on brute force and expediency of technique (e.g. the Krays): in general parlance, though, the terms are synonymous and, if only for stylistic variety, the use of both terms—plus ‘pugilist’—will be made hereafter without intended differentiation of ‘artistry’. Whatever noun is applied, the using of fists is a physical reality, eminently provable on the pulses: by contrast, as Jane Feuer notes, ‘genre is ultimately an abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world’ (1992, p.  144). A troublesome and multi-layered term in film studies, Christine Gledhill sees genre functioning as a ‘conceptual space’ where ‘issues of texts and aesthetics—the traditional concerns of film theory— intersect with those of industry and institution, history and society, culture and audiences—the central concerns of political economy, sociology and cultural studies’ (2000, p. 201). The boxing film, with its myriad manifestations, ranging across socio-cultural spheres from Regency gyms to contemporary fairgrounds, offers just such a conceptual space for exploration. Nonetheless, even if, like goodness, ‘genre is easier to recognise than to define’ (Bordwell and Thompson 2010, p. 91), empirical parameters must be applied and this study examines the screen treatment of British boxing and boxers, both within and outside the ring: it will reference the influence of early actuality and later television works, but predominantly treat fiction films made for theatrical release. The frequency of such treatments—this book features over 100 investigations of the ‘Sweet Science’— not only throws up a recurrent narrative progression and secure/familiar iconography, but also indicates the importance of boxing as both a material and cultural entity in British national life. This still begs the question of how much boxing content is needed to ‘make the weight’ as a boxing film, and any answer exposes long-standing tensions in employing genre as ‘a tool for mapping out a taxonomy of popular film’ (Grant, 2007, p. 2). Denis Gifford, pioneer of British cinema’s encyclopaedic classification, divided the nation’s film content into 23 categories and defined the sports film as ‘a dramatic film, usually involving crime, in which the central theme is a sport such as boxing, football, horseracing etc.’ (1973, p. 12). While roughly a quarter of these inclusions are centred on boxing, Gifford’s generic apportioning results overall in relatively small numbers for sport (a highest annual total of 3%). However, as Stephen Shafer points out, an examination of Gifford’s film synopses reveals how ‘a large number of films in other categories (such as comedy, crime, musicals and adventures) also deal with various sports … or at least with aspects of sports such as gambling. If such films were

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included, this category would have been substantially higher’ (1997, pp. 28–29). This genre study purposefully includes many such films. For instance, Gifford categorises the big-budget A Gipsy Cavalier (1922) as an adventure, but it is equally a costume drama—and a boxing film; he labels the independent Run with the Wind (1966) a drama, but it is also a pop musical—and a boxing film. The applied ‘rule’ for generic inclusion in this study evaluates films where boxing constitutes a significant narrative momentum—though even this approximate prescription must function at a qualitative before quantitative level. In his ‘preliminary definitions’ of the sports film, Bruce Babington cogently argues for flexible entry requirements in ‘a genre of considerable plasticity’: ‘Because of sport’s place in so many lives, its carrying so many meanings both utopian and dystopian, many films that cannot be called sports films feature sequences where a sport is invoked in ways more developed than mere passing allusions’ (2014, p. 6). The same ‘generosity’ will be employed for this study. For instance, a boxing bout features only briefly in the Norman Wisdom vehicle One Good Turn (1955), but it encapsulates the sacrifices Norman will make to fund a gift for a young orphan. The boxing fits Wisdom into an established tradition of comics taking to the ring and, not least, the scene’s slapstick cannot conceal that Wisdom knows how to box, a skill denied many actors whose fighting limitations, despite every trick of editing and direction, reduce if not K.O. the credibility of their action sequences. David Thomson argues that without the requisite ‘mise-en-scene that employs spatial relationships’, every sports fan can ‘smell the fake’ on film (1996, p. 13). Wisdom was no fake and therefore makes the weight. This actor/boxer dichotomy is a contributory factor in many boxing films wittingly prioritising out-of-ring events, thereby offering a deeper sporting and wider social focus—and potential audience appeal. This feeds into a further problematisation—again shown with the Pitt and Kray biopics—since all mass media genres are commonly interpreted as ‘reflecting’ or ‘re-presenting’ values dominant at the time of their production and exhibition (Turner, 1993, p. 131). More specifically, David Rowe advocates that ‘all films that deal centrally with sports are at some level allegorical; that they address the dual existence of the social and sporting worlds as problematic, and that they are preoccupied with the extent to which (idealised) sports can transcend or are bound by existing (and corrupting) social relations’ (1998, p. 352). Thus, The British Boxing Film, through its close examination of genre, functions equally as a work of social history, not only mapping changes in the depiction of boxing in British film but

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simultaneously exploring how evolving attitudes to and within the sport can be interpreted as a broader social barometer of the values expected of the cinema-going public, offering commentary on issues of class, race and gender, with particular emphasis on British codes of masculine identity. This notion of identity extends beyond a local or regional compass and, in referencing the ‘British’ boxing film, this study follows up on ‘genre’ with the equally heavyweight concept of ‘nation’, a contentious issue both within the sport and cinema. For example, the first modern-era British-­ born world heavyweight champion (1897–1899) was the Rector-filmed Bob Fitzsimmons (89-12-14): he was raised, however, in New Zealand and Australia and won as an American citizen. There would not be another undisputed British-born world heavyweight champion until 2002 with Lennox Lewis (41-2-1): he was, however, raised in Canada and won his 1986 Olympic gold-medal in Canadian colours, only returning to the UK fight-scene on turning professional.2 Can they therefore count as ‘British’ champions? Similarly, what ultimately makes a film ‘British’? Raymond Durgnat began his pioneering study of post-war cinema A Mirror for England (sic) by stating that, in choosing films for discussion, ‘our criterion has had to be rather arbitrary and subjective: is it about Britain, about British attitudes, or, if not, does it feel British?’ (1970, p.  5). A firmer prescription will here be applied, with an avowed focus on films that textually/aesthetically possess British-based boxing content, and that contextually/industrially present British film-defining contribution levels to both cast-and-crew and production finances. Durgnat cannot be totally dismissed, however: much as the judges’ decision in a boxing contest can, at times, breed controversy, there are herein occasional anomalies, as with Jim Sheridan’s top-ranking The Boxer (1997), its narrative set in Northern Ireland, but financed from the Republic of Ireland and America, or with Denis Kavanagh’s bottom-of-the-bill Fighting Mad (1957), UK-financed but narratively decamping to the Canadian outback. Overall, though, this volume’s body of boxing films, regular or ‘ringers’, will show, after a largely conformist and even reactionary ideology, a late-flowering resistance to the ‘conceptual space’ also known as ‘Britain’, reinforcing Seán Crosson’s contention that ‘sport has on occasion provided a means for filmmakers to contest hegemonic constructions of the nation’ (2013, p. 131). This dual perspective of social history and genre study is reflected at a structural level, as The British Boxing Film follows a broadly chronological progression while teasing out the overarching development of a generic

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‘life cycle’. Theories of genre development often promote a three-part process, codified by Thomas Schatz as ‘experimental’, before the genre has a discernible self-identity, ‘classical’ when its conventions are stable and most coherent, and ‘mannerist’ when its original purpose has been outlived and its conventions are openly cited, even subverted (1981, pp. 36–41); Richard Dyer, labelling film genres as successively ‘primitive’, ‘mature’ and ‘decadent’, offers an equivalent if more biologically-inflected (and potentially boxing-apposite) trajectory (1992, p. 61). While aware of the dangers inherent in any rigid delineation of development—excluding films that realise a precocious self-identity or remain unstable when the genre has cohered, the paradigm retains a relevance to the boxing film and will be employed here, with the study divided into three chronological sections, each containing two chapters. Part I, ‘The Silent Treatment’, explores the representation of boxing from its earliest motion-picture footage to the late-1920s, analysing in particular how this new medium moved beyond the basic film grammar of newsreel ‘topicals’ to enhance the dynamism of boxing contests and situate them within an expanding narrative dimension. Part II, ‘The Sound Treatment’, surveys the 1930s–1950s, showing how an essentially visual action-based sport worked to find its place within a newly auditory medium, dovetailing initially with comic set-pieces by performers from the music-hall tradition and then with boxing literature’s advance of a critical social realism. Part III, ‘The Colour Treatment’, first shows how the sport’s late-century decline from the national imagination led to increasingly innovative representations of ethnicity, gender and sexuality that work to expose the instability of the very concept of ‘the boxer’ and ‘being British’. It then examines how the late-1990s onwards (in keeping with the recurrent narrative template) brings a sporting resurgence—but also a boxing genre that (replicating the dynamic of a century earlier) becomes increasingly reactive to the dominant American paradigm, adding aesthetic self-­ consciousness and rampant intertextuality. Across these temporal divisions, each chapter headlines a film deemed its decade’s ‘Boxing Film Champion’, a fuller case-study exploring an innovative and/or influential contributor to the genre through another tripartite structure used across the book, its production history, the film ‘text’ itself (including a plot summary since many films have been dislodged from Britain’s cinematic memory), and its consumption, both critical and commercial. And this is  where this writer, like the boxer, must finally strike out alone. While the films featuring in this study have their production and

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reception contexts predominantly researched from written records, the same approach must hold for the textual reading of most British boxing films released up to 1939. The historical disregard for moving-image media has, at conservative estimates, led to the loss of over three-quarters of silent films and over half of the cheap support features churned out under the 1927 Cinematograph Films Act. Such percentages are, perforce, replicated in this study, rendering most aesthetic assessments a piecemeal procedure (cautiously) composed from local and national press reviews and interviews, company catalogues, publicity material and participant memoirs. Alongside this ‘new film history’ approach, supportive academic exegesis is even scarcer than extant early exempla and The British Boxing Film has little precedent to inform its aesthetic judgements. As noted from its early history, the importance of the partnership between film and boxing is treated as quasi-synonymous with Hollywood. The (partial) exception is Dan Streible’s meticulously researched Fight Pictures which, exploring how boxing ‘came to silent-era screens and became part of American popular culture’ (2008: cover), nonetheless acknowledges that fighting pictures up to 1915, factual and fictional, also featured in Europe. Leger Grindon’s boxing monograph Knockout (2011), sub-headed ‘The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema’, duly treats the Hollywood boxing film from the coming of sound. Travis Vogan’s The Boxing Film (2021), however, assumes total synonymity as, though dispensing with geographical descriptors, it again focuses exclusively on the US, now mostly on African American representation.3 Changing weight from full-­ length boxing-film studies, Ronald Bergan’s pioneering Sports in the Movies opens with ‘Boxing: Pugs, Mugs, Thugs and Floozies’, but the chapter is again US-centric, offering a single paragraph (plus image) on Alfred Hitchcock’s The Ring (1928) (1982, p. 18). Seán Crosson’s Sport and Film includes sizeable sections on both ‘The boxing film’ and ‘The British sports film’ but only (elsewhere) name-checks UK-based pioneers Birt Acres and Robert W.  Paul (2013, p.  36). Bruce Babington’s The Sports Film offers a more international treatment of the sport, including ‘some Asian boxing films’, but only mentions Basil Dearden’s The Square Ring (1953) (2014, pp.  19, 41). Moving broader still, Kasia Boddy’s comprehensive Boxing: A Cultural History contains a 77-title-strong filmography, but only lists (without analysis) Sheridan’s The Boxer and Alex De Rakoff’s distinctly lightweight The Calcium Kid (2004) (2008, p. 468). Studies of British boxing films thus constitute a distinctly thin undercard. Against this, the genre’s UK ubiquity means that single films, their

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directors and studios are referenced (and occasionally explored) in disparate academic studies: none, though, place their exegesis within the informative diachronic context of ‘the boxing genre’, which thus offers an alternative and, I trust, informative perspective on specific films. For example, The Ring (when not ignored) is invariably viewed as a minor effort in a leading auteur study, while The Square Ring is habitually placed as a lesser entry in Ealing Studios’ filmography: this recontextualisation reappraises these films as major works for both British film studies and the social history of sport. Thus, in this particular academic division The British Boxing Film presents itself as the first full-length study devoted to the representation of a seminal British sporting practice in British cinema, and a study that proposes a detailed and nuanced counter-argument to existing reductive (when not dismissive) views on the UK’s contribution to the genre. One last (and important) counsel before this fight-back begins. This volume completes a trilogy on British sporting film and, like its Palgrave predecessors on football (Glynn, 2018) and horseracing (Glynn, 2019), is written by a Janus-faced exponent, here a film historian and boxing follower. The historian aims, through precisely referenced contextual and (where possible) textual analysis, to establish a viable British subset of the sports film; the follower, while begging indulgence if occasionally aping film reviewers’ penchant for boxing metaphors, seeks to convey the enthusiasm, the ambivalence, the disappointment or indeed the occasional embarrassment experienced in viewing these films, always remembering that the vast majority’s foremost function was, and will remain, affective fun and entertainment. Let’s box.

Notes 1. Where known, the professional career records of boxers are shown, in order of wins, losses and draws. 2. Lennox: The Untold Story (Rick Lazes, Seth Koch, November 2020), narrated by Dr Dre, provides a reverential if not, despite its title, particularly revelatory documentary portrait of Lewis’ life and achievements. 3. Danny Leigh’s British-made television documentary Boxing at the Movies: Kings of the Ring (BBC4, tx. 3 March 2013) again assumes US synonymity, making no mention of British contributions.

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References Abel, R. (Ed.). (2005). Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. Routledge. Babington, B. (2014). The Sports Film: Games People Play. Wallflower. Bazin, A. (1971). What Is Cinema? Vol. 2 (H.  Gray, Trans.). University of California Press. Bergan, R. (1982). Sports in the Movies. Proteus. Boddy, K. (2008). Boxing: A Cultural History. Reaktion Books. Bonzel, K. (2020). National Pastimes: Cinema, Sports, and Nation. University of Nebraska Press. Bordwell, D., and Thompson, K. (2010). Film Art: An Introduction (9th ed.). McGraw Hill. Colls, R. (2020). This Sporting Life: Sport and Liberty in England 1760–1960. Oxford University Press. Crosson, S. (2013). Sport and Film. Routledge. Desjardins, M. (2006). Free from the Apron Strings: Representations of Mothers in the Maternal British State. In L.  D. Friedman (Ed.), Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism (2nd ed.). Wallflower. Durgnat, R. (1970). A Mirror for England: British Movies from Austerity to Affluence. Faber and Faber. Dyer, R. (1992). Only Entertainment. Routledge. Evans, P. W. (2005). Carol Reed. Manchester University Press. Feuer, J. (1992). Genre Study and Television. In R. C. Allen (Ed.), Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism. Routledge. Gifford, D. (1973). The British Film Catalogue 1859–1970: A Guide to Entertainment Films. David and Charles. Gledhill, C. (2000). Rethinking Genre. In C.  Gledhill & L.  Williams (Eds.), Reinventing Film Studies. Arnold. Glynn, S. (2018). The British Football Film. Palgrave Macmillan. Glynn, S. (2019). The British Horseracing Film: Representations of the ‘Sport of Kings’ in British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan. Grant, B. K. (2007). Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology. Wallflower. Grindon, L. (2011). Knockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema. University of Minnesota Press. Holt, R. (1989). Sport and the British: A Modern History. Oxford University Press. McKernan, L. (1996). Sport and the First Films. In C. Williams (Ed.), Cinema: The Beginnings and the Future. University of Westminster Press. Rowe, D. (1998). If You Film It, Will They Come? Sports on Film. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 22(4), 350–359. Schatz, T. (1981). Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking and the Studio System. Random House.

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Shafer, S. (1997). British Popular Films 1929–1939: The Cinema of Reassurance. Routledge. Smith, A. (2012). Beautiful Brutality: The Family Ties at the Heart of Boxing. Bantam Press. Streible, D. (2008). Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema. University of California Press. Thomson, D. (1996, September). Playing for Real. Sight and Sound, 6(9). Turner, G. (1993). Film as Social Practice (2nd ed.). Routledge. Vogan, T. (2021). The Boxing Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History. Rutgers University Press.

PART I

The Silent Treatment

CHAPTER 2

Opening Rounds: 1895–1918

2.1   Celebrities and Comics Boxing may not have monopolised pioneer status in early British cinema as in America—being superseded, I argue elsewhere, by the more socially respectable ‘sport of kings’, that is, horseracing (Glynn, 2019, pp. 17–25)— but it remained a seminal player in the nation’s development of this new medium. Denis Gifford’s landmark British Film Catalogue, a record of ‘every British film produced for public entertainment since the invention of cinematography’ (1973, p. 7), places two boxing titles amongst the first five-ever British productions. Gifford records these films as being exhibited in January 1896, but his listing needs nuancing. The originally partnered Boxing Match and The Boxing Kangaroo both actually date from February–June 1895 and were not technically works of cinema, being made by Birt Acres, US-born of English parents, for exhibition on his London-born business partner Robert W. Paul’s replica Kinetoscopes, cash-activated individual viewing boxes set out in an American-style ‘kinetoscope parlour’, and exhibited at Imre Kiralfy’s Empire of India Exhibition in London’s Earls Court from May to October 1895. Paul-­ Acres’ original Boxing Match, a bout wherein each competitor is simultaneously floored, is lost, and Gifford (amongst others) conflates this film with Acres’ later (recently rediscovered) solo film, shot with several other shorts on his own invention, the (unreliable) Kinetic Camera, at a Military Tournament near Cardiff in June/July 1896.1 Alongside titles such as © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2_2

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Sword v. Bayonet and Cleaving the Turk’s Head, Acres filmed two army boxing bouts (Photographic News, 7 August 1896, p. 503). Again, one of these is lost, but the surviving Boxing Match aka Glove Contest features a staged contest between Sergeant-Instructor F. Barrett and Sergeant Pope and includes (as Gifford summarises) a first round of fighting, interval and climactic second-round knockout (Fig. 2.1). The thoroughly unconvincing nature of this final punch means that, with impeccable generic prescience, the first extant competitive boxing scene in British film history also captures the first ‘thrown’ fight on celluloid. Gifford’s second listing is more accurately labelled: The Boxing Kangaroo (similarly rediscovered) is a 25-second recording on the Paul-­ Acres camera of a young boy boxing with a small kangaroo on stage while a ringmaster/referee looks on. Again, though, the piece has an involved exhibition history and one that supports Luke McKernan’s theory that sport especially ‘represented the changeover from film as a medium of scientific study to a medium of entertainment’ (1996, p. 109). While initially deployed in the Kinetoscope peep show, Acres’ boxing film was, with other titles, exhibited by Paul to demonstrate his new screen-projecting ‘Theatrograph’ to London’s Royal Institution on 28 February 1896. The Albemarle Street venue indicates that the rapidly advancing medium’s potentialities were still adjudged, even by the financially astute Paul, as

Fig. 2.1  Boxing Match (1896)—boxing film beginnings

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more relevant to scientific employment than mass entertainment. An extensive press article the next day began with ‘A Chat with the Inventor’, then described ‘The Theatrograph at Work’—‘At one end of the library a long screen was suspended and at the other end of the room was an optical lantern fitted with an electric arc lamp’. Its final content-reviewing section, sub-headed ‘The Well-Known Boxing Kangaroo’, related how ‘As soon as the machine was set in motion the kangaroo and his opponent began to box in a vigorous manner. The whole scene was remarkably life-like, and elicited much applause from the audience’ (The Morning, 29 February 1896).2 Amongst that enthusiastic audience was Lady Florence Harris whose husband, Sir Augustus Harris, was general manager of West Kensington’s Olympia, a six-acre exhibition centre regarded as ‘London’s greatest pleasure resort’. The impresario met with Paul and persuaded him to allow the commercial exploitation of his Theatrograph ‘novelty’, at sixpence a time with profits shared (Christie, 2019, pp. 52–53). Shown in the centre’s Palmarium annexe it proved hugely popular, to the extent that Frederick Talbot, an early commentator on British cinematography, would later, somewhat partially, contend that ‘it was the first picture palace in the world, that is to say, the first establishment devoted exclusively to the projection of moving pictures as a complete entertainment. From it the whole modern development of cinematography may be said to have sprung’ (1912, p. 40). As evidenced in the accompanying advertising—‘Animated Pictures. Most startling scientific marvel. Life-like series of Trilby, Boxing Contest, Skirt Dancer, Comic Singer, &c.’ (Daily Chronicle, 23 March 1896)—a central constituent in the show’s commercial appeal and thereby the burgeoning popularity of cinema was its filmed record of the practice of boxing. Following their first steps into amateur and animal contests, Acres and Paul—who worked separately towards projected film after an acrimonious split in July 1895—both belatedly copied American practice by marketing well-known professional fighters on film. Acres’ A Prize Fight by Jem Mace and Burke (December 1896)3 featured an important figure in boxing’s transition from bare-knuckle to its more reputable post-Queensbury status—James ‘Jem’ Mace, variously England’s welterweight, middleweight and heavyweight champion (1860–1866), who  decamped to America where he won the world heavyweight title (1870–1871) and, as a trainer, discovered the famously-filmed Bob Fitzsimmons. Timing, though, is important in cinema as in sport, and while today adjudged ‘the father of boxing’ and ‘the first worldwide sports star’ (Gordon, 2007), by the

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mid-1890s Mace was very much ‘yesterday’s man’, an impoverished 65-year-old eking out a living through exhibition fights in Victorian travelling circuses when Acres filmed his London bout against Dick Burge (sic) on 14 October 1895. The piece, shorn of pugilistic prowess, would at best have offered a nostalgic prurience. (Nor did it presage an upturn in fortunes since Mace returned to the screen 13 years later—2 years before his penniless death—as an old boxer on the comeback trail in London Cinematograph Company’s optimistically titled There’s Life in the Old Dog Yet (S. Wormold, October 1908).) Robert Paul, by contrast, filmed the distinctly less superannuated Boxing Match Between Toff Wall and Dido Plum (July 1897), a record of one of 19 London-based three-round exhibition fights featuring Charles ‘Toff’ Wall (10-0-0) against Dido Plumb (sic) (28-5-2) held between 1893 and 1901, when both men were still competitive and sequentially recognised as England middleweight champions. With Paul’s film a far more relevant contest to contemporary aficionados, the estranged filmmakers’ respective fight choice is indicative of how Acres’ solo career would soon hit the deck, lacking the commercial instincts of his increasingly successful former partner. Again aping American practice, these ‘celebrity’ pieces were quickly followed into the ring by the popular film mode of comedy. British Mutoscope and Biograph Company’s (extant) Has He Hit Me? (William Dickson, October 1898) offers a 38-second travesty of boxing technique from brothers Tom and Fred McNaughton, a popular (and well-connected) music hall duo (Tom was brother-in-law to stage legend Marie Lloyd). The Brothers, well-built ‘straight-man’ Fred looking the part in old-time boxing attire with black tights and a silk bandeau around his waist, Tom gurning and paunchy in an ill-suited striped bathing costume, spar frantically but barely lay a glove on one another: Fred gives an unsporting kick up the rear and seconds later is floored with a blow to the face—the punch seems (inadvertently?) genuine—and Tom the ‘underdog’ wins. The work is a reconstruction of the duo’s burlesque stage act, its capture by Dickson on his 68mm camera offering an improved image quality if not boxing technique or narrative progression. In similar slapstick vein, Warwick Trading Company’s three-scene Comic Boxing Match (Anon, April 1899) has 6ft  3in ‘Whirlwind Charlie’ boxing the 3ft  6in ‘Carisbrooke Kid’—with the fight taking place on board the Africa-bound ship ‘Carisbrooke Castle’ for added turbulence. The company’s catalogue details the final reel’s knockout of Whirlwind Charlie and avers that ‘The contest is most amusing, and takes well with any audience’ (WTC Cat. 1899, no. 5205–5207).

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When not portraying winning against the odds, the pugilistic arts were either disrupted—as in Warwick’s The Interrupted Prize Fight (Anon, March 1902)—or else displaced. Trick photography is foregrounded in Paul’s Animatograph Works’ one-minute (extant) The Pocket Boxers (W.R. Booth, March 1903) where two boxing aficionados, sharing a pint in a public house, consult the newspaper and convey their disagreement over the merits of respective prizefighters. To settle the matter, they shake hands on a wager, then take out of their inside-jacket pockets two miniature boxers, place them on the table, and watch them fight to a swift conclusion: replacing the boxers in their jackets, the satisfied winner then scoops up his winnings. Exemplifying former stage-illusionist Booth’s technical ingenuity, the film essentially employs the same strategies as modern green-screen technology with the discrete footage of the boxers superimposed on the table-top and the pub’s dark curtain serving as a backdrop, thus effectively bringing the National Sporting Club (NSC) into a village tap-room (Fig. 2.2). Ingenuity (and availability) make it the Boxing Film Champion for the decade.

Fig. 2.2  The Pocket Boxers (1903)—NSC + SFX

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Cricks and Martin’s (extant) nine-minute Boxing Fever (A.E. Coleby, August 1909) offers a more quotidian (Croydon) setting as the central protagonist (Coleby), overcome with the titular frenzy after winning £5 by knocking out champion ‘Bill Basham’ at Professor Bout’s fairground booth, then punches—and is consequently chased by—everyone he meets, the bout’s referee, the booth’s doormen, two High Street sandwich-board men, a cyclist (who in an effective trick shot reverses back along the street), a bookstall customer and newspaper vendor, a policeman and soldier (who ends up in the river), even a donkey and its cart-driver. Finally evading his pursuers and staggering home drunk after a three-hour public house stop-­ over, he meets his match and pleads for forgiveness when repeatedly knocked down by his hefty wife. The carnivalesque ‘punchline’ clearly chimed with audiences and was re-released in 1912—‘We have here a wildly mirthful “comic”, which is exuberant and riotous, but really funny throughout’, enthused the trade review, which especially commended the proto-docudrama shooting strategy: with ‘ordinary passers-by’ not removed from street scenes, ‘Their open-mouthed, frank astonishment at the antics of the pugilistic hero adds distinctly to the humour of the picture, while it by no means lessens its realism’ (Bioscope, 7 March 1912, p. 709). Bordwell and Thompson define film narrative as ‘a chain of events linked by cause and effect and occurring in time and space’ (2010, p. 79). This ‘chain of events’ aspect proved an early winner in boxing comedies, though any semblance of realism quickly faded. Reversing Coleby’s trajectory, Billy’s Book on Boxing (H.O.  Martinek, January 1911) from the British and Colonial Kinematograph Company (BandC) shows Billy, a corpulent City gent bitten by the boxing bug after reading a self-defence manual, taking to the street and unsuccessfully challenging a labourer, postman, photographer, washerwomen and boy half his size: punch-drunk he wanders into a booth on the common and is knocked down by the ‘real deal’, a fairground boxer. ‘The comic element is well sustained,’ noted the Dundee Courier (25 April 1911). In Martin’s Billy’s Boxing Gloves (David Aylott?, May 1913) a boy’s newly bought gloves come with a note claiming they were found in a tomb at Pompeii and the wearer can defeat all comers bar ‘a man with a Roman nose’. Young Billy is repeatedly successful at a boxing exhibition, until he picks on the wrong-nosed opponent, is knocked out, and dreams he is defeated by a gladiator at the Coliseum. Ten years on from The Pocket Boxers, (topically intertextual) trick photography could still enchant, with the ‘sudden change to Quo Vadis? [Enrico

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Guazzoni, 1913]’ heralded as ‘one of those remarkable occurrences only possible on the screen’ (Cambridge Independent Press, 15 August 1913). Other fistic funnies were ever-mindful to offer moral assurance, with the unduly belligerent invariably brought to book and/or earnest endeavour rewarded. In Gaumont’s The Boxing Waiter (Alf Collins?, October 1909) Ted Knockout, a boxer struggling to make ends meet, accepts a waiter’s position—£1 a week, and all he can make. His insistence that customers take whatever he brings and pay handsomely or face the consequences culminates in Knockout being thrown through the restaurant window by the manager, staff and clientele. ‘The theme is quite a new one and a splendid laughter-maker,’ opined Bioscope (14 October 1909, p. 39). Cricks’ Asking for Trouble (Edwin J. Collins, April 1914) shows a hotel regular entering a boxing match and putting lead in his gloves in the hope of winning the £50 prize. Barely able to lift let alone use his fists, the boxer’s comically laboured swings bring only defeat and public disdain. ‘A very laughable comedy’, remarked the Dublin Daily Express (16 November 1914). Joining the party were the music-hall-formed brothers Fred and Joe Evans who, through the persona of clown-faced ‘Pimple’, would turn out hundreds of topical film skits from their small studio at Eel Pie Island, Twickenham. Hugely popular and ‘a significant feature of the middle silent period of British cinema’ (Hammond, 2000, p. 58), their Pimple’s Sporting Chance (Fred and Joe Evans, July 1913) for Folly Films has Pimple (Fred Evans) enter a contest at the ‘Palace of Boxingland’ and, with Capt. Scuttle (Joe Evans) as his second, win £10 with which he gallantly saves the widow Mrs Jones from eviction. ‘The “merry mill” in the boxing scenes is quite as exciting as many a real fight, and Pimple’s comicalities in the ring will provoke genuine laughter,’ promised Bioscope (3 July 1913, p. 67). This ‘romantic’ theme again showed stamina. The Evans brothers also separately created several slapstick characters, and in the second outing of Joe’s ‘Terrible Two’ series for Phoenix, his Lemon (Joe Evans) vies with rival Dash (James Read) for a woman’s affections first by serenading her, then holding a burlesque boxing match in The Terrible Two on the Mash (Joe Evans, October 1914). ‘Although not upon original lines, there is much broad humour in the issue,’ noted Bioscope (22 October 1914: sup. xi). Hepworth Manufacturing Company’s They’re All After Flo (Frank Wilson?, March 1915) shows young rivals (Lionelle Howard and Tom Butt) take up boxing to win the affections of their undecided titular love-­ interest (Chrissie White): ‘a very acceptable comedy’, ventured the

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Sheffield Evening Telegraph (15 June 1915). A woman was again the boxing motivator in the London Film Company’s more substantial The Third String (George Loane Tucker, February 1914), adapted from the short story by ‘Monkey’s Paw’ creator W.W. Jacobs. Here Ginger Dick (Frank Stanmore) poses as prizefighting champion ‘the Australian Killer’ in order to impress local barmaid Julia (Jane Gail) but is then forced to fight Bill ‘the Wapping Basher’ Lumm (Charles Vernon), equally smitten with Julia: of course, against the odds, Ginger flukes a knockout punch, but Julia sees the deceit and goes off with the landlord (Charles Rock) who astutely arranged the fight. Bioscope thought it ‘of the more broadly farcical type’ but, importantly, able to ‘create amusement with every class of audience’ (5 February 1914, p. 521). Boxing on film, at least in comic mode, evidently appealed across the social strata.

2.2   Politics and Pugilism Not all the era’s boxing burlesques can be categorised as context-free chases and comeuppances. The boxing trope had briefly assumed a more political and satirical slant in (the extant) A Prize Fight or Glove Contest Between John Bull and President Kruger aka The Set-to Between John Bull and Paul Kruger (John Sloane Barnes, March 1900), produced by the director with Anglo-American Exchange and presenting a symbolic boxing match to resolve the previous October’s outbreak of the second Boer War. With a strong claim to being Britain’s first filmed ‘political pantomime’—that is, a work ‘produced as a satire on a particular political issue or event’ (Baker, n.d.)—this one-minute piece of unabashed wartime propaganda, shot with little subtlety in storyline or cinematography by the otherwise unknown Barnes, shows the two sides fighting, in very different fashions, to a finish. John Bull, Britain’s national personification (in customary Regency attire though here shorn of his trademark Union Jack waistcoat and corpulence), has America’s emblematic equivalent, Uncle Sam, in his corner, while the frock-coated President of the South African Republic aka ‘Oom Paul’ (the acknowledged personification of Afrikanerdom) has a French and Russian General on his side. John Bull, of course, fights within the rules even when under pressure, but round two sees the dastardly Kruger play dirty, start kicking, and even wave a white flag of surrender then hit John Bull when he turns his back, while the French general also joins in—all to no avail as the third round sees the embodiment of British values deliver a full—and fair—knockout blow, and

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receive the congratulations of his followers. With the Warwick Trading Company catalogue terming the characters ‘intensely amusing’ in ‘A most interesting boxing match, in which the whole history of the Transvaal War is typified’ (WTC Cat. 1900, no. 6065a), the piece bears comparison with Robert Paul’s (extant) coeval ‘trick film’ Kruger’s Dream of Empire (1900). Both, unlike much of the topical material produced during the campaign, was domestically staged and employed humour—though widely differing levels of technical skill—in order ‘to develop an imperial polemic’ (Popple, 2002, p. 20). A decade later, socio-political resonances would again come to the fore in a cluster of boxing films that presented a generic synthesis of ‘comedy’ and topicality. This time the source was across the Atlantic in what was arguably the most socially significant sporting occasion of the early-­ twentieth century, the world heavyweight championship boxing match held in Reno, Nevada on 4 July 1910 where the black American champion John Arthur ‘Jack’ Johnson defeated white American ex-champion James J. Jeffries in the final 15th round. Their meeting, dubbed by the press ‘the Fight of the Century’, also occasioned the apex of US silent boxing movies with the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) investing $100,000 to record what had been openly billed as a contest to reassert racial supremacy. The significance of this and Johnson’s other filmed fights have received exhaustive investigation (Runstedtler, 2013, pp.  68–100; Streible 2008, pp.  195–265). In essence, since Johnson gained the heavyweight title in late-1908, America’s press had demanded a ‘Great White Hope’ to crush the physical—and symbolic—threat posed by ‘the Galveston Giant’, a supremely efficient boxer with his exceptional defensive, counter-punching style. After Johnson defeated several white challengers (beginning with a March 1909 exhibition fight in Vancouver against future actor Victor McLaglen), an atmosphere of near-national moral panic led to Jeffries being persuaded to come out of a six-year retirement, and months of unprecedented build-up media coverage included film releases of both men in training. The fight, however, conducted before a live audience of 20,000, proved a humiliation for white America, its duration indicative less of (the clearly outclassed) Jeffries’ staying power than Johnson’s commercial acumen, his desire to maximise the contest’s potential afterlife leading him to toy lengthily with his opponent, until, after two knockdowns, Jeffries’ corner threw in the towel. The real violence followed as the fight’s result triggered anti-black race riots across America and the deaths of 24 people. This severely stymied MPPC’s

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venture since many felt that the Jeffries-Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Contest (July 1910), capturing every demeaning detail through nine cameras over two hours, would occasion further unrest and, after wide debate and heavy lobbying by groups such as the United Society of Christian Endeavour, it was banned in many cities and most southern states, thus granting a motion picture unprecedented attention/notoriety.4 As well as occasioning numerous ‘bootleg’ re-enactments, its constant discussion (compounded by Johnson’s filmed victory over ‘Fireman’ Jim Flynn on 4 July 1912) led the US Congress to pass the 1912 Sims Act, which banned the interstate transportation of all prizefight pictures—a ban not lifted until 1940 (Streible 2008, pp. 221–232). An imitative condemnation—and calls for censorship—instantly crossed the Atlantic. Britain’s first national regulation of cinema venues, the 1909 Cinematograph Act, came into effect on 1 January 1910 with its enforcement entrusted not to the state itself but the country’s local councils. With moral guardians fearing social unrest similar to that witnessed in America, Britain’s Home Secretary, the Right Honourable Winston Churchill, was heavily petitioned to ban the Jeffries-Johnson Contest, but he lacked the legislative authority to act. Instead, stepping up to lead the crusade against its UK exhibition came the Walsall Watch Committee which, with the new Act to hand, issued a resolution condemning the showing of any such film as ‘tending to demoralise and brutalise the minds of young persons especially, and that the holders of licences granted by the Council should be required not to exhibit them’ (Bioscope, 21 July 1910, p. 21). Birkenhead and the London County Council (LCC) immediately followed suit, the latter issuing a declaration that ‘in the opinion of the Council the public exhibition, at places of entertainment in London, of pictures representing the recent prizefight in the United States of America is undesirable; and that the proprietors of London music halls and other places licensed by the Council for cinematograph performances be so informed’ (2 LCC Minutes. Proc. 99, 12 July 1910). Because it was quicker in backing up its words with deeds, the LCC ‘can claim the dubious honour of officially censoring a film for the first time in Britain’ (Matthews, 1994, p. 18). As in America, this first-ever legislative censorship was of a boxing film. Whether interpreted as a sensible public order initiative or barely concealed institutional racism, such actions served only to increase the British public’s interest in the Jeffries-Johnson fight and, to fill the void, several cinematic spoofs rushed into production. First into public competition stepped Barker Motion Photography’s Black and White (Anon, July 1910)

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and Kineto’s The Great Fight at All-Sereno (W.R. Booth, July 1910): ‘The pictures amusingly burlesque the great contest’, explained Bioscope (13 October 1910, p.  21). This context also saw the boxing debut for the Evans brothers as Pimple added to the ‘fight of the century’ parodies with Davison Film Sales’ Pimple Meets Jack Johnson (Joe and Fred Evans, August 1910). Always abreast of current news issues, here perhaps the brothers were too precipitate, the trade later decrying ‘a poor specimen of Pimple’s unique method of laugh getting, hurriedly done for the camera on the front at Worthing’ (Bioscope, 7 December 1916, p. iii). Quality, though, evidently mattered little as the public’s passion for anything related to the famous fight allowed the recycling of already well-worn tropes. Gaumont’s The Great Black v. White Prize Fight (Anon, July 1910) presented another burlesque, this time fought by pair of well-trained, punch-packing glove-­ wearing opponents that happened to be cats—a popular contest since the exhibition of Robert Paul’s Theatrograph at London’s Egyptian Hall on 19 March 1896 had included Edison’s 1894 Kinetoscope recording of Boxing Cats (Barnes, 1976, pp. 117–118), by default the world’s first-ever ‘cat video’. With Johnson unbeatable in the ring and, for white America, unbearable outside it, openly flaunting social propriety via his flamboyant dress sense and dating of white women, his pursuit by the federal authorities (culminating in a 1912 arrest and conviction for violating the Mann Act, ‘transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes’) necessitated Johnson leaving America to fight overseas. His socio-sporting relevance for the British public intensified when he was matched to defend his championship at the Empress Hall in London’s Earls Court Exhibition Centre on 2 October 1911 against Stepney-born William Thomas aka ‘Bombardier’ Billy Wells (48-11-0), British and Empire heavyweight title-holder (1911–1919) and first heavyweight winner of a Lonsdale Belt. As with the Jeffries contest in America, Johnson versus Wells generated considerable excitement—and exploitation potential. With a purse set at £8000—the largest ever in Britain and secured against film revenues—Johnson toured the UK’s music halls which filled to watch his sparring demonstrations. Cameras followed him everywhere and ‘the world’s first black movie star’ (Runstedtler, 2013, p. 69) was filmed by Kineto in How the Champion of the World Trains, Jack Johnson in Defence and Attack, while newsreel footage survives of Jack Johnson Paying a Visit to the Manchester Docks (both June–September 1911). At the same time, Wells, talent-spotted while serving with the British army in India and fast-tracked by a profession

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ever-desperate for that viable ‘White Hope’, whipped up national expectations. He was championed to beat Johnson by the Edwardian era’s most prominent referee, Eugene Corri; he trained publicly in the North of England; he even published a training manual for aspiring young boxers (Wells, 1911). Finally, in an unorthodox preparation regime, he toured London theatres in a specially commissioned historical play entitled ‘Wanted, A Man’ wherein Wells, playing honest servant Jack Bandon, defeated caddish Squire Hazelton in a bare-knuckle contest and drew wild cheers when he pointedly declaimed that ‘I’m afraid of no man white or black’ (Horrall, 2001, p. 134).5 Others were afraid, however, very afraid. Again mirroring transatlantic reactions, a movement, headed by Methodist minister Reverend Frederick Brotherton Meyer and supported by inter alia the Archbishop of Canterbury, Boy Scout founder General Baden-Powell and Labour Party leader Ramsey MacDonald, combined with London councillors to campaign against the fight. Their protests were ostensibly at the indecent size of purse (£250 was then a sizeable annual income) and to protect the relative stripling Wells, ‘before he has come to his full strength and is out of his noviciate’ (Times, 12 September 1911). Colonial administrators more openly complained in a published letter that the fight, and especially the film of it intended for international dissemination, would, if as expected Johnson won, ‘incite racial problems across the British Empire’ (Times, 16 September 1911). Objections to the contest and its filming—for its effects at home and abroad—cohered in an orchestrated letter campaign: (100-­ plus letters held at London’s Metropolitan Archives largely comply to a common template). A typical example, sent by the Woolwich Tabernacle Brotherhood and dated 19 September, protested that ‘the so-called “Boxing Contest” … must exercise a baneful influence both upon those who take part in it and upon those who witness it. The reproduction of the details by means of the Cinematograph will extend that deleterious influence especially among the Young in all parts of the World. We, therefore, appeal to His Majesty’s Government, to the Home Secretary and to the London County Council to prohibit this degrading spectacle’ (Committee Presented Papers of the LCC Theatres and Music Hall Committee, LCC/MIN/10951, 11 October 1911). With the mere prospect of a boxing film adding to the momentum of (mostly middle-class) opposition, Home Secretary Churchill, who here did have jurisdiction, declared on 26 September that the fight would be ‘illegal’ and the Director of Public Prosecutions duly issued writs against both boxers (and their

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managers) for an attempted breach of the peace. With the venue’s licence also threatened, the fight was cancelled, all parties were bound over to keep the peace and, with Wells promising never to fight Johnson anywhere in the UK or British Empire, the Home Office dropped the case—but effectively established a ‘colour bar’ that would remain in British boxing until 1948.6 Though deprived of its genuine prizefight, the film medium would again not let popular momentum slip.7 The ‘phantom’ Johnson-Wells contest first prompted The Great Fight for the Championship in Our Court (Anon, November 1911), a speedily produced meta-burlesque from the Charles Urban Trading Company, where a cameraman films amateur boxers Biff and Bang standing in for Johnson and Wells at a venue standing in for the semi-titular Earls Court. The international cultural import of Johnson even prompted early cross-media constructions. The gnawing (white) unease at the American boxer’s prowess had been musically rendered in Harry Bluff’s popular 10-inch shellac recording of ‘The Night I Fought Jack Johnson’. Set to a medley of music-hall favourites, Bluff’s song (penned by Harry Casting) relates a boxing match where ‘the house was packed’ but the lighting so bad that ‘I couldn’t see Johnson when Johnson walked in’ since ‘his face is as black as our chimney stack’: he therefore requests the referee to ‘make a mark / whitewash his face, please, as I can’t see his nose in the dark’; Johnson proceeds to overwhelm the singer. In what could claim to be Britain’s first-ever music video, the song’s lyrics were acted out in The Night I Fought Jack Johnson (Anon, February 1912), an (extant) ‘singing picture’ from Hepworth and a piece showcasing the Vivaphone, Hepworth’s own synchronised sound-on-disc system which employed a phonograph to accompany the visuals. After the opening round’s verses and a few wild, inaccurate swipes, the singer (Bobbie Bennett) comes to the side ropes and appeals straight to camera for mercy; in the other corner Johnson’s seconds whiten his face with shaving foam. Thereafter the singer’s appeals to the audience alternate with footage of the implacable Johnson stalking his frantically fleeing opponent around the ring. Though presented in comic mode, these exaggerated movements evoke the reported words of Rev. Meyer on Johnson-­ Wells: ‘The present conflict is not wholly one of skill, because on the one side there is added the instinctive passion of the negro race, which is so differently constituted to our own, and in the present instance will be aroused to do the utmost that immense animal development can do to retain the championship, together with all the great financial gain that

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would follow’ (The Sportsman, 20 September 1911, p. 1). While the purported chanteur sports a boating jacket, shirt and tie in the ring, Johnson is again portrayed by a white actor in a black leotard with burnt cork make-up on his face. This casting should have sufficed to placate the Times-complaining Empire administrators since, as well as emasculating the threatening ‘other’ via comedy (much as Barnes’ political pantomime had attempted with President Kruger), it instances what Jim Pines terms ‘one of the characteristics of colonial and mainstream race relations discourse’ by ensuring that the racial ‘other’ is ‘silenced’, here doubly so since not only does ‘Johnson’ have no voice/song of his own, but also the foreign ‘subject does not have access to the means of self-representation’ (2008, p. 211). Thus, for all his ‘instinctive passion’ and ‘animal development’, Johnson is safely controlled on film, socially if not sportingly defeated. This cross-channel cross-race dynamic coalesces in the life and legacy of Tyler Film Company’s The Man to Beat Jack Johnson (Anon, October 1910). This (extant) three-minute film has four-year-old Willy Sanders demonstrating his boxing skills against the inadequate defences of his seated father (Mr Sanders): ‘Thanks, but I expected more’ reads the final title card as Willy celebrates a knockout. With the air of an adapted stage routine, the piece is aesthetically drained of engagement and energy by its static camera and long takes interrupted only by stilted intertitles. Nonetheless, while exploiting the Johnson name, it could be positively read as parodying the increasingly desperate hunt to find a credible white challenger to his title. ‘The devotees of the ring will be mildly surprised but highly amused’, thought The Stage (20 October 1910), and the short helped launch mopheaded Liverpool-born Sanders’ career as a child star, notably in the 1911–1914 ‘Little Willy’ series for the French Éclair company.8 The threat of Jack Johnson and his ‘unforgivable blackness’ endured, however.9 Rachael Low notes that ‘the recording of championship fights’ was ‘A branch of topical filmmaking which had been of especial importance ever since the earliest days of cinema’ (1948, p. 149),10 but the one-­ two of increasingly moral opposition (e.g. Johnson-Wells), and the financial gamble in recording contests of uncertain duration (e.g. Wells’ December 1913 first-round knockout by Georges Carpentier) had left the boxing match feature on its last legs—to be finished off by the Great War. Nonetheless, the film of the Paris-held Johnson-Moran Fight (June 1914), another unequal drawn-out title defence against the little-known white (no-)hope Frank Moran, put Johnson back firmly in the public eye and

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Phoenix/Folly Films’ opportunistic Pimple Beats Jack Johnson (Fred and Joe Evans, August 1914) put Pimple (Fred) back in the ring, now dreaming that, ‘fighting under the Marquis of Queerfellow’s rules’, he defeats the black boxer—in the 347th round. Again with the champion in blackface, the film was unproblematically adjudged ‘A funny burlesque on the recent boxing craze’ (Leeds Mercury, 15 September 1914). With war against Germany declared on 4 August,11 Paul Matthew St. Pierre sees the Evans’ concurrent boxing spoof film as ‘anticipating how in a dream the Little Tramp defeats Kaiser Wilhelm and Field Marshal von Hindenburg in Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms (September 1918)’ (2009, p. 27). Though it is difficult to read the Pimple film as wittingly attempting symbolic geo-­ political parallels (cf. Barnes’ Boer War Prize Fight), its theme of the ‘plucky’ small man defeating the much-feared rival may have resonated sufficiently, especially as the war dragged on beyond Christmas, to earn a 1916 reissue. There may, of course, be a more visually self-evident and less defensible reading for this enduringly popular theme, and the racial imperative continued into Heron Films’ The White Hope—On Championship (Andrew Heron, September 1914) which offered another burlesque boxing match revisiting not just the comic potential of a tall versus short contestant but (yet again) the vexed question of colour. Highlighting how ‘A number of topical allusions enhance the value of the subtitles’, Bioscope thought it ‘of a distinctly attractive nature’ (17 September 1914, supplement viii). More was still to come.

2.3   Boxing Melodrama Alongside prizefight films and pantomimic displays ran a strain of more earnest, often sentimental depictions of the boxer and the potential rewards for heroism, especially as fiction films tentatively advanced to feature length through the 1910s. In Britannia Films’ Battling Kelly (A.E. Coleby, October 1912) the titular ageing ex-lightweight champion has fallen on hard times and his wife has fallen ill: offered a last-minute stand-in bout against Young Iron, Kelly is soon in trouble but ‘desperate at the thought of what he has at stake, becomes apparently imbued with some mysterious power and, after a number of exciting rounds is declared the winner. He hurries home to his wife with the purse, and from that time brighter days dawn for Battling Kelly’ (Bioscope, 24 October 1912, supplement xiv). The Knockout Blow (Floyd Martin Thornton, December 1912) offered a ‘throwback’, promoted by Kineto as ‘A famous hard-fought

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encounter in the boxing ring’, while Cricks’ one-reel Reuben Gilmer-­ scripted The Winner (Charles Calvert, December 1915) presented a ‘modern story with a strong love element’, but this was seen as ‘merely a peg on which to hang … A really magnificent boxing match’ (Bioscope, 23 December 1915, supplement i). Termed by the trade review as ‘an ideal single-reel photoplay’, The Winner’s ‘realistic prizefight’ may have been enhanced by being officiated by ‘well-known referee Mr. J.  Palmer’, but the film concludes with its heroine promising to marry the fight’s crestfallen loser, and myriad productions, aiming to match comedy’s audience reach, sought a similar cross-gender appeal with their combination of (in the broadest terms) male-centred bravery with female-rewarding romance. Several also brought into play the uniquely British aristocratic/haut-bourgeois boxing hegemony. With increasingly elaborate decors and plotting allowing for what Walter Bagehot termed ‘the theatrical show of society’ (2001 [1867], p. 5), these films unambiguously advocated gender and class stability, marriage and the benefits of Empire and capitalism. This new suturing of (upper-class) romance with the ring is exemplified in BandC’s Lieutenant Daring Defeats the Middleweight Champion (Charles Raymond, August 1912). Looking to emulate America’s more cost-effective production-line methods, BandC were pioneers in the British creation of adventure series films. With examples such as master criminal Three Fingered Kate (1909–1912) and the swashbuckling Don Q (1912–1913), these series, with their gradual shift from a cinema of attractions to unfolding narrative, facilitated the medium’s transition from single-reel short to feature-length format. As such they have a historical importance and, as John Hawkridge avers, ‘In terms of popular success none was more important than the Lieutenant Daring series’ (1996, p.  132). A dashing Lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, Daring’s ‘picture personality’ was portrayed by four different actors across 15 action-adventure films between 1911 and 1914, but the sea-dog’s most forceful interpretation was provided by robust ex-­ circus acrobat Percy Moran. Like Clarendon’s lengthier Lieutenant Rose RN series (1910–1915), the well-bred Daring, in plots foregrounding his mastery of modern technology, would regularly protect the traditional values of King, country and Empire from foreign threat—for example, avenging an insult to the Union Jack from Corsican bandits or defending a missionary against revolting Jamaican plantation workers. Here, in his fifth outing (and Moran’s second), Daring rescues a woman drowning in a river, escapes from dastardly kidnappers, and motor-bikes his way

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cross-­country in time to win the combined Army-Navy boxing match and the hand of colonel’s daughter Ivy Mountford (Ivy Martinek—elsewhere Three-Fingered Kate herself). The hectic action and even the film’s summative title indicate an early ‘aesthetic uncertainty’ where narrative development is still subservient to the pleasure of spectacle (Marlow-Mann, 2002, p. 154), but one can conjecture the more secure fight scenes where Daring’s public school-taught and forces-honed classical upright style triumphs over the thrashing underhand machinations of his opponents— class (in all senses) will out. Reviews were certainly satisfied: ‘This is a story such as the “gods” love, introducing nearly every attribute necessary to the successful melodrama, and adding thereto a sauce of pictorial beauty uncommonly charming. Everything leads up to the great fight at the finish, of course, in which that popular hero, Daring, acquits himself with all the romantic valour his audiences have learned to expect from him’ (Bioscope, 11 July 1912, p.  139). The series’ appeal led not only to the protagonist being regularly parodied on film by the Evans’ ‘Lieutenant Pimple’ but also to Daring’s first six films being reworked in short-story form for the mass-circulation Pearson’s Weekly in 1912. At one with the gentleman spy vogue of the era, the invariable triumph of the Lieutenant’s imperialistic values over a devious and ultimately cowardly foreign ‘other’, provided, as David Stafford notes, ‘A deeply conservative reassurance to those troubled by the emergence of that urban and industrial society which so obsessed the pessimists of Edwardian England’ (1981, p. 509). Here, in short and in the ring, was the use of a popular and patriotic film character to reassert a set of socially—and racially—dominant values consistent with those articulated (with a difference of degree rather than of kind) in the fantasy film defeats of Jack Johnson. Here was a cinematic ‘Rule, Britannia!’ The same ideology—and another forces’ fighting man motivated by a sense of duty—drives The Last Round (Bert Haldane, June 1914) from Barker Motion Photography. Size, however, matters and although the 45-minute film is lost its press book’s detailed (660-word) plot summary demonstrates how, as it moved towards feature-length format, the boxing film developed a commensurate complexity of narrativisation and character interaction. Rowland Talbot’s scenario thus merits outlining. The film begins with Captain Jack Fordyce (Thomas H.  Macdonald), ‘a young army officer and a fine fighter’, winning the army middleweight championship. His dinner that evening with his betrothed, Mary Mollet (Blanche Forsythe), and her father, Colonel Mollet (J. Hastings Batson), is troubled

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by the presence of Ralph Morton (Fred Paul), a ‘professional money lender’ who makes no disguise of his attraction to Mary. Morton informs the Colonel that he will foreclose on a £10,000 debt, ruining the Mollet family, unless Mary marries him. The distraught Colonel prepares to shoot himself, but Mary enters and, on learning her father’s plight, agrees to wed Morton, tearfully writing ‘a pitiful note’ to Jack breaking off their engagement. Jack learns from Mary of the Mollets’ debts and from his trainer of the discovery of a promising middleweight, Jim Connor (uncredited). When Morton, also interested in boxing, boasts at his club that he has found a man whom he will back for any amount to beat all comers, Jack accepts a wager which, if successful, will clear the Colonel’s debt and save Mary from Morton. However, when Morton sees Jack’s appointed fighter in training, he ‘resorts to treachery, and by that means disables him’. The finale is described thus: ‘At the club all is excitement. Morton’s man is in the ring, but neither Jack nor his man have yet arrived. At last Jack enters in fighting kit. He explains to the astonished members that as he did not name his man, he himself is at liberty to defend the bet. With that, he springs into the ring, and the fight commences. Jack is fighting for all his worth, for the man against him is no mean opponent. Finally, in the tenth round, Morton’s man is knocked out. Then follows the discomfiture of Morton; he is accused of murderous assault by Jim. The clearing of the Colonel’s debt closes the picture with Mary clasped in the arms of Captain Jack.’ The cross-gender and patriotic appeal was emphasised in reviews: ‘Such a subject as this, which combines splendid boxing scenes with a story in which “heart interest” is one of the most important ingredients, makes its appeal to every section of the audience … [The film] is British in the best sense—clean, vigorous and rapid in action from beginning to end’ (Bioscope, 9 July 1914, supplement xvi). The Last Round shows that, extrapolating from existing tropes, the character motivation and three-act plot template for the boxing melodrama were quickly in place. Here is the well-bred muscular (yet sensitive) British hero, fighting fair against the caddish forces of an ‘othered’ evil—given the era’s prevailing attitudes (Foxman 2010, p. 61) and 1924’s more explicitly referenced In the Blood (see Chap. 3), one can tentatively conjecture an anti-Semitic portrayal in Morton’s pointed categorisation as a ‘usurer’. Here are the various storylines culminating in the ring where a hard-fought and long-unlikely victory resolves the finances and honour of the grateful loved-one and wider family, allowing victor and his bride-to-be to embrace: the end.

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2.3.1   1910s Boxing Film Champion: The House of Temperley (1913) Only the contemporary setting would prove optional in the paradigm exemplified by Haldane’s film. If America, and worse still African America, was dominating twentieth-century boxing, British cinema could escape that uncomfortable reality not only by rewriting current events but by retreating into history and reclaiming the sport for Britain (more precisely England) by recladding it in (high-class) period costume. The outlier for an extensive post-war cycle of historical boxing romances can be found in Britain’s first feature-length boxing film—and the country’s eighth-ever feature film (Ash, 2003, p. 10), London Film Productions’ The House of Temperley.12 Directed by Harold M. Shaw, this ambitious five-reeler (4000 ft) constitutes an early example of ‘event cinema’. It was the first film shot at Twickenham Film Studios in St. Margaret’s, Richmond-on-­ Thames, newly converted from a skating rink and then the largest studio in the UK (Warren, 1995, p.  163); it had the ‘worthy’ provenance of being (loosely) adapted from boxing aficionado Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1909 stage reworking of his own 1896 Strand-serialised historical novel Rodney Stone; it enjoyed concerted pre-release publicity—an eight-page spread in the inaugural Illustrated Films Monthly (1, 1, September 1913, pp. 129–136) offered film stills and a lengthy plot summary, while even Doyle offered a personal endorsement, declaring it ‘Infinitely better than my own play’.13 With a complex shape to match The Last Round, Shaw’s film relates how, when the gambling excesses of Sir Charles Temperley (Ben Webster reprising his stage role) endanger his family estate, he promises his young brother, Captain Jack Temperley (Charles Maude), that he will give up card-playing. Nonetheless, unscrupulous cardsharp Sir John Hawker (Charles Rock reprising) persuades Charles to gamble heavily on a boxing contest, each putting up their nominated man. Hawker has a promising protégé, young Gloucester Dick (Rex Davis reprising); Charles can only find veteran Ginger Stubbs (Wyndham Guise), a wartime servant to Captain Jack. Meanwhile Lady Temperley (Claire Pauncefort) has persuaded her ward Ethel Morley (Lillian Logan), herself an heiress, to become engaged to Charles, even though she loves Jack who, heartbroken at the news, determines to leave the country after the fight. When Hawker hears of Stubbs’ progress in training, he arranges his capture on the eve of the fight. With the referee about to award the tie to Gloucester Dick, Jack, himself a skilful amateur, throws his hat into the ring, fights for Sir Charles

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and, despite Hawker’s attempted interruptions, eventually wins the contest. Knowing of the love between Ethel and Jack, Charles occasions a duel with the renowned dead-shot Hawker, but when the latter fires too early and without his usual accuracy, the wounded Charles returns a fatal shot and gives his blessing to the union of Ethel and Jack. Trade shown at London’s West-End cinema on 19 September, The House of Temperley with its mix of Regency romance and stirring sporting action was an immediate success and, nationally released in early November, unusually for the time remained in cinemas for several months, continuing up to the 1914 outbreak of war—it was then reissued in May 1918. American exhibition, largely predicated on Doyle’s name, came in May 1914. Although, as Rachael Low notes, the film would prompt industry soul-searching for its heavy US involvement, including its director Shaw who had worked for Thomas Edison (1948, p. 111), the critical response was uniformly positive—and unstintingly patriotic. The UK trade press, in a three-page paean to the London Film Company, immediately boasted that, with ‘this wonderful picture which is, without question, one of the most remarkable film plays ever created … it is no longer possible to deny that British producers have taken their place in the very first ranks of cinematography’ (Bioscope, 18 September 1913, p. 908). The general press followed suit: ‘The word “British” is written all over the picture’ which ‘is a triumph of cinematographic art’, lauded The Era (24 September 1913); the film ‘heralds an important new epoch in the British Cinematograph Industry’, noted the Standard (22 September 1913); full houses ‘show that the home-made film is quite as good as any products of the Continent and America’, trumpeted the Pall Mall Gazette (11 November 1913). It certainly earned a distinct cultural imprimatur, receiving a swift Pimple parody in Folly Films’ The House of Distemperley (Fred and Joe Evans, March 1914). Word even spread beyond film-fan circles. By the 1910s magazines aimed at theatregoers had started to feature film productions—an indication of moves ‘to establish cinema as a respectable form of entertainment’ (Moody, 2016, p. 48)—and a ‘Picture Playgoer’ feature in Playgoer and Society Illustrated thought the film ‘perfect in every detail’ with particular praise heaped on its perceived indigenous qualities: ‘The story of The House of Temperley, as is well-known, is British from every point of view, and as it was enacted amid English surroundings, with every national characteristic, its realism was complete’ (9, 50, September 1913, p.  71). Foregoing just how fully British the production was, it is evident that, at

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the time, the quest for realism via an agreed authenticity of screen image was adjudged the medium’s defining and in itself meritorious characteristic—and Shaw’s boxing sections would have contributed to this highly regarded sense of realism. For ‘period flavour’ the film offers cameo appearances from well-known boxers of the era (trimmed from the play’s roll-call), all meeting up at ‘The Union Arms’. This famed saloon in Panton Street, Piccadilly, was run for many years by Tom Cribb aka ‘the Black Diamond’ (here played by casting manager John East), a key figure in British prizefighting as world bare-knuckle champion, an anti-­ Napoleonic symbol of courage and fortitude, and in 1810–1811 twice victor in historic battles over black American Tom Molineaux (Odd, 1983, pp.  187–188)—cf. Chap. 3’s analysis of When Giants Fought (1926). Present also are Shropshire’s boxing pioneer Joe Berks (fight coordinator F. Bennington) and The Young Mr. Pitt’s ‘Gentleman’ John Jackson (Cecil Morton York). Alongside this ‘real-life’ roll-call, The House of Temperley researched an accurate depiction of its lengthy fight scenes. The Illustrated Films Monthly’s summary of its Crawley Downs conclusion (Fig.  2.3) emphasises the period detail: ‘A fierce battle followed. Prizefights of those days were, of course, different from modern glove contests. The

Fig. 2.3  The House of Temperley (1913)—regency realism

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opponents wore no gloves, wrestling was not altogether prohibited, and a knock-down or fall ended the round. After the round, if either of the men was unable to come to the “scratch”—a line drawn across the middle of the ring—after half a minute’s rest, the fight was declared against him. At last Jack’s superior strength and experience began to tell, and Gloucester Dick was ignominiously knocked out of the ring’ (September 1913, pp. 135–136). Here was the cinematic realisation of Doyle’s paean to past virtues, his nostalgic vision of a pugilistic patriotism. While acknowledging the rising corruption of Hawker and his ilk, Doyle’s narrative upholds ‘The ale drinking, the rude good-fellowship, the heartiness, the laughter at discomforts, the craving to see the fight … they seem to have been the very bones upon which much that is most solid and virile in this ancient race was moulded’ (1896, p. 251). * * * With cinema a consistently influential agent of value construction, the patrician call to ‘solid and virile’ values ceded ground as wartime’s need for greater social unity was refracted in boxing melodramas that foregrounded both gender and generational—but still not racial—teamwork. War as a period that loosens society’s strict gender roles was played out in Regent Film’s four-reel Battling Brown of Birmingham (Charles Weston, April 1915) where the heroine (Alesia Leon) frees her wrongly imprisoned fiancé, the eponymous Fred Brown (Rowland Moore), and encourages him ringside to win the big fight against an American champion: with the purse Brown places his invalid sister in hospital and enlists, whereupon his bravery at the front earns him a Victoria Cross. Its wartime message aside, the film was hailed in its home town as ‘a sensational drama containing one of the finest fights ever presented on the screen’ (Birmingham Daily Gazette, 11 December 1915). Its contemporary setting was unusual, however, as elsewhere the historical template remained in place for wartime thematics. With the Great War intensifying a need for self-sacrifice, the cross-generational one-reel How I Won the Belt (Harcourt Brown, September 1914) from SB Films offered a timely equation of boxing’s youthful hypermasculinity with the melodramatic values of altruism via elderly ex-champion Tom Sayers (Jack Collinson). Sayers first recalls his famous hard-fought final bout in 1860 against (white) American John Camel Heenan (Billy Ross) and then dies bravely saving his drowning granddaughter. The first casualty of war is truth? Sayers’ real fight had been abandoned as a draw and he died five years later of consumption:

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here the audience was given pure ‘patriotic’ fiction of the older generation sacrificing itself for the young. In similar vein, London Film’s three-reel The Last Challenge (Harold M. Shaw, March 1916) starred 52-year-old ‘retired middleweight champion of England’ Bill ‘Chesterfield’ Goode (10-5-2) as a former champion-­ turned-­ innkeeper who returns to the ring to fight—and defeat—Sam Howard, the undesirable young rival of his daughter’s fiancé. Doing their bit, the film featured several sporting cameos including 1889–1895 English heavyweight champion Jem Smith (9-5-0) and the Robert Paul-filmed Toff Wall, with the final fight refereed by Eugene Corri: these ‘boxing celebrities’ were seen to play their part in ‘a particularly interesting and powerful drama’ (Evening Despatch, 7 August 1916). Moving down the generations, Hepworth’s two-reel Coward! aka They Called Him Coward (Frank Wilson, January 1915) shows young woodman Jack Harsdon (Stewart Rome) preparing for a world championship fight under the patronage of Lord Linton (Lionelle Howard). Appraised that Jack’s new baby is going blind, Linton agrees with Jack’s wife (Chrissie White) to secure specialist care, but to keep the news secret lest it distract Jack’s preparations. The fighter comes to suspect his wife of being unfaithful and determines to throw the contest to ruin his supposed rival, but the titular taunts rouse him to a hard-earned victory. Post-fight, he tears up Linton’s cheque, but all is resolved as he learns that the eye operation has been successful. Reviews hailed ‘a most attractive drama’ with ‘an exceptionally stirring boxing match’ featuring ‘several splendid rounds and all so well managed that there is not the slightest semblance of “fake”’ (Bioscope, 11 February 1915, p. 567). For Rachael Low Hepworth had ‘simply used the ring as the background for a normal drama of marital jealously played by their stock actors’ (1948, p. 181), but again the wartime message is clear, to trust one’s elders (and betters)—noblesse will oblige. For genre development, the reportedly convincing ring-action would have been enhanced by a trailblazing piece of casting, with Harsdon’s opponent played by well-­known Geordie professional and 1914 British middleweight contender Nichol Simpson (as himself) (22-26-4). Much more of this sportsman/actor hybridity was to follow, beginning with one of Hepworth’s early feature-length efforts. Amidst this drive for hegemonic harmony, The White Hope (Frank Wilson, November 1915), adapted by Victor Montefiore from W.H.R.  Trowbridge’s, 1913 novel, worked to synthesise the genre’s cross-class support (and voguish upper-class milieu) with the Jack Johnson legacy. Thus, even in wartime, it continued the (perplexing) preoccupation with the pursuit of racial superiority—but ‘at least’ signalled an

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improved access on earlier screen representations. The four-reel ‘all-­British photo-play’ follows Jack Delane (Stewart Rome again), a professional contender for the world middleweight title who is befriended and supported by Durward, Earl of Carisbrooke (Lionelle Howard again). A romance develops between the fighter and Durward’s sister, Claudia (Violet Hopson), but her snobbish grandmother convinces Jack to end the relationship. Jack loses all motivation until his trainer Shannon (John MacAndrews) writes to Claudia: accompanied by Durward her presence ring-side inspires her true love to win both her hand and the fight—against his black opponent, Sam Crowfoot. In melodrama’s more mimetic idiom Crowfoot was played (and the fight scenes arranged) by Melbourne-born black boxer George Gunther, aka the ‘Australian Kangaroo’ (30-21-10), a fast-punching fighter who had relocated to Europe via Boston (and— though not mentioned in any film material—saw action on several fronts after joining the French Foreign Legion in 1914). If Gunther’s casting represents an advance on the blackfaced Jack Johnson spoofs, character depictions remain (subtly) hidebound. Surviving stills suggest that Crowfoot receives a far from warm welcome at the fight venue (shot at Hepworth Studios in Walton-on-Thames), not only from the (well-­ heeled) audience dotted with uniformed army officers, but especially from the contest’s ‘impartial’ referee, whose disdainful scowl as the boxers touch gloves is undisguised (Fig. 2.4). The expression concisely visualises the unambiguous tone of Trowbridge’s novel: ‘Crowfoot’s colour was against him and his reputation as a bruiser and foul-fighter made his defeat appear just and well-merited.’ One can imagine the film’s equally emphatic realisation of that wish-fulfilment conclusion with the crowd ‘cheering their “white hope” wildly’ as the ‘grinning’ black champion is dispatched (1913, p. 291). All was to the liking of the critics, for whom ‘the story is of considerable interest’, the romantic leads display ‘a charm of personality’, while the Sporting Club finale, conveniently concluded in ‘a reasonable number of rounds … is much more dramatically effective to the uninitiated than many a film record of an international event’ (Bioscope, 11 November 1915, p. 711). The feature-length Kent the Fighting Man (A.E.  Coleby, July 1916) from I.B. Davidson (operating wartime under the Tiger Film label) took this casting strategy a step further in the first of a bespoke boxing double. Adapted by Rowland Talbot from the novel by George Edgar, the five-reel ‘sporting photo play’ follows John Westerley who, plied with drink and fleeced by a gang of cardsharpers, compounds family dishonour when he

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Fig. 2.4  The White Hope—the eyes have it

forges his father’s signature to pay his debts. He turns to boxing and regains the trust both of his father and his sweetheart Constance (Hetty Payne) when he financially ruins the sharpers by tricking them into betting on his opponent Button (Fred Drummond) whom he then defeats in the ring. Though the plotting was unexceptional, the key attraction here was the ‘heavyweight’ casting, in the lead role, of the ever-popular Bombardier Billy Wells, here combining several boxing bouts (all shot at Davidson’s Leyton studio) with a sustained straight acting role. In a major advance on earlier boxer roles, genuine acting skills were needed here with working-­ class Wells portraying, mostly outside the ring, the well-bred Westerley. The film was praised as ‘thoroughly English in sentiment as in setting’, with its five-round contest ‘fought with realistic vigour and superb skill’ (Bioscope, 20 July 1916, p. 210). Its coup, though, was adjudged the performance of Wells who, alongside ‘doing the biffing business to perfection … plays the “hero” with a style which could give points to many a cracked-up film “star” from Yank-land’ (Sporting Times, 11 November 1916). In addition, significant publicity was afforded (unlike with Gunther) to Wells’ wartime service, with film material regularly accompanied by a portrait of the Bombardier (now a sergeant) in army uniform. It worked—empire-wide, Australia lauding ‘a thrilling picture’ wherein Wells

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‘who is now training recruits in England, stamps himself as a most capable actor’ (Adelaide Advertiser, 1 February 1917). Director and star would again work together in Davidson’s The Great Game (December 1918), Wells further broadening his range by underplaying his boxing (one early bout) for a horseracing plot where, as squire’s son John Cranston, he secures a fortune and a wife (Eve Marchew) by winning the Epsom Derby. ‘Certain to score a great success … because of the personality of the principal player, Billy Wells’, noted the Daily Express (30 November 1918). Between his hits with the Bombardier, Coleby repeated the casting strategy in Tiger’s five-reel A Pit Boy’s Romance (A.E.  Coleby, Arthur Rooke, March 1917). Here Welsh boxing collier Jimmy Davis travels to London in pursuit of his childhood sweetheart Mifamwy Griffiths, a budding actress lured away then caddishly abandoned by theatre-manager Lawrence Ayres (Arthur Rooke). Following numerous adventures, Jimmy financially ruins his rival by defeating Ayres’ heavily backed American protégé at the NSC and is reunited with his now bride-to-be. This time Coleby hired renowned flyweight Jimmy Wilde (137-4-1) to star as the avenging Davis. This was arguably a less demanding role than those assigned to Wells, since Wilde had himself worked down the pits before progressing, via miners’ clubs and fairground boxing booths, to become British, European and, in 1916, the IBU’s first officially recognised world champion at the newly created flyweight class.14 This time Bioscope found the melodrama ‘old and somewhat crudely presented’ but again praised the climactic fight scene as ‘admirably stage-­ managed’ with ‘all the appearance of being the real thing’—an appearance enhanced by the casting opposite Wilde of fellow professional Tommy Noble (81-66-17), future British, European bantamweight champion (1918–1919) and (unrecognised) world featherweight champion (1920). The trade review also noted the genre’s (potential) function as a historical record: ‘Incidentally, it gives one an excellent idea of Wilde’s pugilistic methods—his agility in defence and intrepidity in attack, even when his opponent is much bigger and heavier than himself’, a summary consistent with sporting reports on the huge punching power of the 5ft 2.5in ‘Mighty Atom’ (Odd, 1983, p. 259). While surrounding publicity again emphasised how the boxer/lead was doing his bit for king and country (as a sergeant instructor at Aldershot), this time his war service was textually referenced: ‘The presentation of Wilde in khaki, bowing his adieux, makes an excellent “curtain”, which brought a round of applause at the trade

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show, and will certainly be not less well appreciated by the general public’, noted Bioscope (29 March 1917, p. 1321).15 The more blue-blooded strain of the boxing melodrama reached its convoluted wartime apogee in The Happy Warrior (Floyd Martin Thornton, August 1917), a six-reel production from the newly formed Harma Photoplays and another adaptation, from the best-selling historical novel by A.S.M.  Hutchinson. The title was taken from William Wordsworth’s Nelson-inspired poem of 1806—‘Who is the happy warrior? Who is he / What every man in arms would wish to be?’—while the narrative delivered ‘pure’ Edwardian melodrama, that is, a ‘Romantic realism’ offering ‘credible accuracy in the depiction of incredible, extraordinary views’ (Singer, 2001, p.  50). The film follows Percival Burdon (ex-wrestler James Knight), the orphaned and dispossessed son of a lord. Adopted by his aunt Maggie (Minna Grey) who keeps the family secret to herself, Percy grows up strong and independent (i.e. with true Burdon blood). He becomes close friends with the putative Burdon heir Rollo Letham (a feature debut for Leslie Howard) and falls in love with local girl Dora (Evelyn Boucher) but, with Maggie refusing to let him work (because of his real social position), a frustrated Percy runs off with a travelling gypsy circus where he becomes a master boxer and partner in the business. Despite the prevailing genre message of social solidarity, even in wartime this cannot constitute a class-subverting ‘rags to riches’ narrative arc as, on becoming 21-year-old, Percy is appraised by Maggie of his true status. However, self-sufficient due to his pugilistic prowess—a lengthy fight against athletic Foxy (Harry Lorraine) is the film’s centrepiece—Percy marries Dora and, revealing his generous spirit, cedes his barony to the more financially constrained Rollo. ‘A stirring story of the boxing ring … intelligent to the most unsophisticated and interesting to the critical few’, enthused Bioscope (30 August 1917, p. 923), clearly convinced by another iteration of the deference-inducing noblesse oblige credo.16 Would, though, such hegemonic depictions of largesse survive the ceasing of hostilities?

Notes 1. Acres’ films were identified in 2011 from a collection shown in early October 1896 at Hull Fair by Midlands photographer George Williams. On The George Williams Collection, the earliest documented showing of films at a British fairground, see ‘Europa Film Treasures’ https://web. archive.org/web/20110604135343/http://www.europafilmtreasures.

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eu/PL/391/a-­b rief-­h istory-­a _1896_fairground_programme_-­_ the_ george_williams_collection [retrieved 17 February 2021]. 2. The then-popular entertainment of a boxing kangaroo had already made its film debut, in Germany with Max Skladanowsky’s Das Boxende Kanguruh (1895). 3. All films discussed in Part One are lost unless otherwise stated. 4. In 2005 the Jeffries-Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Contest was added to the US National Film Registry, designated a work of ‘enduring significance to American culture’. 5. Wells would claim, without much conviction, that his raucously/racistly received lines were in the play ‘by coincidence’. ‘Why I am fighting Jack Johnson’ (Boxing, 5 August 1911, pp. 329–330). 6. Public order rather than overt racism as determining the cancellation of the Johnson-Wells fight is put forward by Jeffrey Green, ‘Boxing and the “Colour Question” in Edwardian Britain: the “White Problem” of 1911’. International Journal of the History of Sport, 5, 1, May 1988, pp. 115–119. Notwithstanding, the BBBofC constitution’s rule 24, paragraph 27, given government backing when introduced in 1929, stated that both contestants for one of its titles needed to have been ‘born of white parents’. 7. Gifford erroneously lists a Jack Johnson vs Bombardier Wells fight film made by Will Barker in 1911 (1973, p. 576)—its inclusion most likely resulting from the proposed film’s heavy advance publicity. Rachael Low also errs when citing ‘accusations of brutality’ in both the Johnson-Jeffries and Johnson-Wells fight films (1948, p. 29). 8. Sanders’ near-50 shorts for Éclair would include the loosely renamed but more racially pointed Willy Challenges Jim Jackson / Petit Willy Défie Jim Jackson (Joseph Faivre, September 1911) and, though scant consolation for the Earls Court abandonment, Little Willy Versus Bombardier Billy Wells / Willy Contre le Bombardier Wells (Victorin Jasset, February 1913). See Horrall, 2001, pp. 136–137. 9. For Johnson’s career, see Ken Burns’ documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (PBS, tx. 17–18 January 2005), based on the same-named biography by Geoffrey C.  Ward (New York, Knopf Doubleday, 2004). 10. Low highlights five UK fight films as important: Urban’s Gunner Moir-­ Tommy Burns (December 1907) and Johnny Summers-Jimmy Britt (February 1909); the NSC’s Freddie Welsh-Packey McFarland (July 1910); Warwick’s Jim Sullivan-Georges Carpentier (February 1912); and Carpentier-Wells (June 1913). Print records additionally show: Digger Stanley-Walsh Fight, Summers-Welsh Fight, Jim Driscoll versus Seamus Hayes, Hague-Langford Fight (all 1909); Welch and Daniels Fight, Joe Bowker versus Digger Stanley, Thomas versus Jim Sullivan, Stanley-Condon

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Contest, Jim Driscoll-Freddy Welch, Nelson-Moran Fight (all 1910); MoirWells Fight, Jim Driscoll v. Spike Robson, Ian Hague v. William Chase (all 1911); Ritchie-Welsh Fight, Carpentier and Gunboat Smith, Jimmy Wilde vs. Joe Symonds (all 1914); and Jimmy Wilde vs. Tancy Lee (1915). 11. An indication that the declaration of war had not entirely shifted public preoccupations would be played out early in Gainsborough’s family saga Blighty (Adrian Brunel, 1927), when wealthy Ann Villiers (Lillian Hart-­ Davis) reads the morning paper and expresses concern, but not at the featured headline on Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination: ‘Jack Johnson beat Moran on points!’ her intertitle instead exclaims. 12. ‘A feature film either has a running time of more than an hour or comprises more than 3000 ft. (914 m) of film. In the pioneer era, a reel of 35-mm film contained about 1000 ft. (305 m), run at around 60 ft. (18 m) per minute, hence a four-reel film had a running time of just over an hour’ (Ash, 2003, p. 10). 13. On the troubled realisation of Doyle’s source ‘Melodrama of the Ring’, perceived as ‘a great lumbering ox of a play’, see Daniel Stashower (2000) Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle. London: Penguin, pp. 268–269. 14. Wilde is widely acknowledged as both the sport’s greatest ever flyweight and, more arguably, ‘the greatest fighter from the United Kingdom’ (Michael Rosenthal, Ring Magazine, 20 October 2019). He would achieve artistic ‘immortality’ when cited in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939) amongst potential study topics: ‘Compare the fistic styles of Jimmy Wilde and Jack Sharkey [American world heavyweight champion 1932–1933]’ (London: Faber and Faber, p. 307). 15. Wilde would do his bit for Welsh cinema when, in 1931, he ‘invested his hard-earned prize money in a cinema in the south Wales valleys’. Peter Miskell (2006) A Social History of the Cinema in Wales 1918–1951: Pulpits, Coal Pits and Fleapits. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, p. 7. 16. The film underwent a Hollywood remake in Vitagraph’s The Happy Warrior (John Stuart Blackton, 1925), starring Malcolm McGregor as Ralph, the titular entitled fighter.

References Ash, R. (2003). The Top Ten of Films. Dorling Kindersley. Bagehot, W. (2001 [1867]). The English Constitution. Cambridge University Press. Baker, S. (n.d.). Politics and Film 1903–1935. Retrieved December 27, 2020, from http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1196906/index.html Barnes, J. (1976). The Beginnings of the Cinema in England. David and Charles. Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2010). Film Art: An Introduction (9th ed.). McGraw Hill.

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Christie, I. (2019). Robert Paul and the Origins of British Cinema. University of Chicago Press. Doyle, A. C. (1896). Rodney Stone. Smith, Elder & Co.. Foxman, A. (2010). Jews and Money: The Story of a Stereotype. Macmillan. Gifford, D. (1973). The British Film Catalogue 1859–1970: A Guide to Entertainment Films. David and Charles. Glynn, S. (2019). The British Horseracing Film: Representations of the ‘Sport of Kings’ in British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan. Gordon, G. (2007). Master of the Ring: The Extraordinary Life of Jem Mace. Milo Books. Hammond, M. (2000). ‘Cultivating Pimple’: Performance Traditions and the Film Comedy of Fred and Joe Evans. In A. Burton & L. Porter (Eds.), Pimple, Pranks and Pratfalls: British Film Comedy Before 1930. Flicks Books. Hawkridge, J. (1996). British Cinema from Hepworth to Hitchcock. In G. Nowell-­ Smith (Ed.), The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford University Press. Horrall, A. (2001). Popular Culture in London c.1890–1915: The Transformation of Entertainment. Manchester University Press. Low, R. (1948). History of the British Film, 1914–1918. George Allen and Unwin. Marlow-Mann, A. (2002). British Series and Serials in the Silent Era. In A. Higson (Ed.), Young and Innocent? The Cinema in Britain, 1896–1930. University of Exeter Press. Matthews, T. D. (1994). Censored: The Story of Film Censorship in Britain. Chatto and Windus. McKernan, L. (1996). Sport and the First Films. In C. Williams (Ed.), Cinema: the Beginnings and the Future. University of Westminster Press. Moody, P. (2016). British Landscapes in Pre-Second World War Film publicity. In P. Newland (Ed.), British Rural Landscapes on Film. Manchester University Press. Odd, G. (1983). Encyclopedia of Boxing. Hamlyn. Pines, J. (2008). British Cinema and Black Representation. In R. Murphy (Ed.), The British Cinema Book (3rd ed.). BFI. Popple, S. (2002). ‘But the Khaki-Covered Camera is the Latest Thing’: The Boer War Cinema and Visual Culture in Britain. In A.  Higson (Ed.), Young and Innocent? The Cinema in Britain, 1896–1930. University of Exeter Press. Runstedtler, T. (2013). Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line. University of California Press. Singer, B. (2001). Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and its Contexts. Columbia University Press. St. Pierre, P. M. (2009). Music Hall Mimesis in British Film, 1895–1960: On the Halls on the Screen. Farleigh Dickinson University Press.

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Stafford, D. (1981). Spies and Gentlemen: The British Spy Novel 1893–1914. Victorian Studies, 24(Summer), 4. Streible, D. (2008). Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema. University of California Press. Talbot, F.  A. (1912). Moving Pictures: How they are Made and Worked. W. Heinemann. Trowbridge, W. R. H. (1913). The White Hope. Chapman & Hall. Warren, P. (1995). British Film Studios: An Illustrated History. B.T. Batsford. Wells, B. (1911). Modern Boxing. Ewart, Seymour.

CHAPTER 3

The Plot Thickens: 1919–1928

3.1   Actors Versus Boxers Post-war, as British film production expanded, boxing fare similarly grew in number, with five films centred on the sport released in 1920 alone. First came Broadwest Film Company’s five-reel A Son of David (Hay Plumb, February 1920), adapted from Charles Barnett’s short story. It follows Maurice Phillips (Joseph Pacey as a child, then an early role for Ronald Colman), a Jewish orphan adopted by local rabbi Louis Raphael (Arthur Walcott) and living in Whitechapel. Maurice is consumed by a thirst for vengeance after the death of his clockmaker father, whom he believes was murdered during a robbery by a man bearing a Star of David tattoo on his wrist. Growing up he channels his anger into becoming a professional boxer and, when competing against Sam Myers (Robert Vallis), a fellow-Londoner back from America, recognises the tattoo and, fighting furiously, effects a knockout. Confronted in his dressing room Myers confesses to the theft but swears he never struck Maurice’s father, who died of natural causes. His quest for revenge ended, Maurice is free to marry Louis’ daughter Esther (Poppy Wyndham). Offering a more nuanced depiction than the pre-war villainy of The Last Round, reviews praised ‘an interesting study of Jewish life and character’ and ‘a fine boxing film with a strong drama story of a boy who made fame with his fists’. Significantly, the adult leads were found to ‘act cleverly’ but, while previously indifferent to racial representations, the caveat was here entered that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2_3

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‘it would have been wiser to cast players of a distinctive Jewish type for these roles’ (Bioscope, 5 February 1920, pp. 114, 57). If such content—and casting critique—promised a post-war brave new world of greater social equality, this was quickly dispelled by Walter West Productions’ remake of The White Hope (Frank Wilson, October 1922). Employing much the same cast as in the director’s Johnson-era original, Stewart Rome reprised as boxer Jack Delane, winning both the title fight and the hand of squire’s daughter Claudia Carisbrooke (Violet Hopson again), all the while smoothing over the narrative’s supposed social divide with his ‘aura of gentlemanly charm’ (Bamford, 1999, p. 62). At least the climactic opponent, Sam Crowfoot, was again played by a black boxer, here ex-New York bantamweight Kid Gordon (0-3-0). Implicitly praising Gordon’s input, publicity highlighted the (invited) testimony of twice world welterweight champion Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis (234-46-23) that ‘the boxing scenes in this film are the finest we have yet witnessed on the screen’ (Bioscope, 5 October 1922, p. 6), and reviews agreed that ‘the fight is a first-rate one’ in a ‘well produced and pleasing picture’ (The Era, 19 October 1922, p. 20). They passed over how not just the main actors but also the reactionary ideology had not altered from 1915. Both films, while differently problematic, similarly missed the prevailing shift in casting strategy. Alongside the gentlemanly Rome, Rachael Low suggests that, with the hiring of professional actors as male lead in The Happy Warrior and A Son of David, ‘the search for boxer-actors seems to have been abandoned’ (1948, p.  181). While these films helped to launch the Academy Award-recognised careers of Colman and Howard, this was but a hiatus before the most important boxer-actor casting in silent film history. I.B. Davidson’s (extant) 90-minute The Call of the Road (A.E. Coleby, October 1920) has several significant factors. Resuming the period drama strain established in The House of Temperley, the film, set in 1820, follows the adventures of Lord Alf Truscott aka ‘The Lamb’, a squire’s nephew who, wrongly disowned for gambling activities, becomes a boxer, replaces a kidnapped contender to win a prizefight, rescues his uncle Silas (Ernest Douglas) from a highwayman and weds Rowena (Phyllis Shannow), a village girl who turns out to be Silas’ daughter. Critics warmed to ‘A fine sporting picture, treating of the open road, the card table and the prize ring of a century ago’. In what predominantly constitutes an urban genre, particular praise was meted out to ‘Delightful glimpses of country and sporting life in Georgian England’, full of ‘pictorial charm’ and ‘a note of consistency which is too often lacking in period

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productions’ (Bioscope, 14 October 1920, p. 53). Though British cinema was now 25 years old and producing feature-length fare, it remained in essence at a formative stage, aesthetically poised between a Victorian past and US-centred future, still negotiating notions of theatricality, pictorialism and storytelling. In her study of British modes of perception in this era, Christine Gledhill takes The Call of the Road as a case study and finds that music hall’s enduring influence leads to ‘serial discontinuity, producing the experience of filmic time as a collage of episodes and acts rather than a logically unfolding narrative’ (2003, p.  145). The plot, with its hell-fire club opening brawl, a duel, two boxing matches (one parodic, the other earnest), several cross-class disguises, two folk songs (to be delivered by a ‘hidden vocalist’) and a country-fiddler chorus is, Gledhill notes, ‘a tenuous concoction, stringing together a number of “acts” or “turns” that offer discrete pleasures’ (2003, p. 145). I would argue, though, that these indisputably centripetal tendencies are leavened, even largely counterbalanced by the unifying strength of the lead actor’s film performance. Director-producer Coleby was determined to continue the successful casting strategy of his earlier boxing features and, on visiting London’s National Sporting Club, saw potential in a Stepney-born itinerant performer who in his youth had toured Canada with a circus offering $25 to all comers to last three rounds, in 1909 had been the Vancouver exhibition opponent for Jack Johnson, and back home had been declared British Army heavyweight champion for 1918. Coleby proposed the boxer audition for the part of Truscott—he eventually agreed, impressed, and hence the film debut (alongside his younger brother Cyril) of 33-year-old Victor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen. It would prove a significant discovery. The inevitable problem with a sporting film is the overarching credibility of the central performance which needs both acting ability and athleticism. Normally a compromise is accepted: Jimmy Wilde could box but barely act, Ronald Colman could act but barely box; Billy Wells got closer than most. McLaglen, though, possessing the shape and movements of a boxer yet at ease conveying thrills and romance on screen, fully brought both aspects together. With a biography suggesting his inculcation in a culture of performance before fighting efficiency—he had, in truth, a patchy boxing record (16-8-1)— McLaglen succeeded in ‘squaring the circle’. Bioscope’s review highlighted McLaglen’s ‘most striking performance’ and praised how he ‘makes the bold, care-free, chivalrous Alfred a manly and genuinely attractive hero’, displaying ‘great prowess both as a pugilist and swordsman, and there is

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much human chear in his smile’. The acting debutant immediately retired from the ring to focus on his new career. It would prove a profitable change of direction: McLaglen would notch up over 100 feature film appearances, gain (in 1924) a contract for Hollywood where he established himself as a dependable character actor, notably in John Ford westerns, and would win the Academy Award for Best Actor as the Irish ‘Gypo’ Nolan in The Informer (John Ford, 1935)—a rapid rise from Leyton to LA.1 Initially, though, McLaglen served a concentrated cinematic apprenticeship in close on 20 British silents, his growing profile prompting, ‘more in sorrow than in anger’, a (class-conscious) trade couplet that ‘A man who’s been a pugilist and served behind a bar/Is just the chap they’re looking for to make a film star’ (Trade Show Critic Annual 1923, p. 35). After developing his range alongside Ivor Novello in the Shakespearean Carnival (Harley Knoles, 1921), McLaglen was back fighting in Master Films’ five-reel Regency-era melodrama Corinthian Jack (Walter Courtney Rowden, June 1921), adapted by the director from Charles E. Pearce’s 1920 sporting novel. McLaglen now played bare-knuckle boxer Jack Halstead, saving his beloved Nyra Seaton (Kathleen Vaughan) from both gypsy kidnappers and her villainous high-society suitor Sir Philip Tenbury (Warwick Ward). Set in 1823 with theatre, dancing, duelling and slavery added to its core plot of fighting and associated gambling, the film/novel’s fictional world was peppered with contemporary ‘real-life’ personalities, including ill-fated gambler/bookmaker William Weare (William Lenders) plus, briefly and uncredited, boxers Tom Spring, Bill Neate and (again) Tom Cribb. Re-presenting a highly picturesque mise-en-scene though one with more attention paid to the era’s florid dress-sense than its less mobile boxing techniques, the film produced a split decision even within review camps. Kinematograph Weekly thought ‘There is plenty of punch in the film, which should act as a box-office tonic’ (741, July 1921, p. 22): its sister publication dissented, finding it ‘A long way from being a masterpiece’ (Kinematograph Monthly Film Record, November 1920, p. 10). The period boxing drama cycle’s underlying reactionary thematic that good breeding will inevitably out—the clear sign of which is a well-taught boxing technique—explicitly informs Walter West Productions’ In the Blood (Walter West, February 1924), adapted from the best-selling novel by Andrew Soutar. McLaglen’s level of studio influence is by now evident in the fraternal slant to casting in West’s ‘picturesque costume romance with a strong sporting story’. The film relates how Tony Crabtree (Victor

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McLaglen), forced by the profligacy of his stepbrother to leave home, makes practical use of his sporting aptitude and becomes a prizefighter— cue scenes with ‘The Kansas Cat’ (Clifford McLaglen). Meanwhile his father Sir James (Cecil Morton York) bets his diminished fortune that an Englishman can defeat American boxer ‘The Panther’—played by Devon-­ born heavyweight and ex-Guardsman Charlie Penwill (51-38-2). When (explicitly referenced) ‘Hebrew moneylender’ Osman Shebe (Arthur Walcott), intent on landing the Crabtree estate, has his agents attack Sir James’ man ‘The Whaler’ (Kenneth McLaglen), Tony steps in and defeats the American, thus regaining his father’s trust and the girl he loves, Marian Deane (Lilian Douglas). It is all in the (reactionary) title—true British ‘class’ will out. Reviews across the UK liked the film’s ‘vivid pictures of “the fancy” in the early days of the last century’ and again warmed to Victor who ‘generally manages to put a punch into a picture’ (Leeds Mercury, 24 May 1924). McLaglen’s final British boxing melodrama was Davidson’s identikit (extant) The Gay Corinthian (Arthur Rooke, July 1924), again shot on location and at Leyton Studios and adapted by Eliot Stannard from the Ben Bolt novel recently serialised in the News of the World. McLaglen’s boxing Squire Hardcastle, a member of Piccadilly’s Corinthian Club, saves the honour and earns the love of Lady Carrie Fanshawe (Betty Faire) who runs away with a band of travelling gypsies on learning she is the subject of a marriage wager—made between evil Lord Barrymore (Cameron Carr) and an unknowing Hardcastle. With its conventional plot and amalgamated fictional boxers—cameos include ‘Gentleman Jeffries’ (Noel Arnott), nobbled by Barrymore but replaced by Hardcastle for the climactic bare-­ knuckle contest against ‘the Flaming Tinman’ (‘Guardsman’ Penwill again), a hard-fighting Romany character taken from George Borrow’s memoir/novel Lavengro (1851). Reviews noted how McLaglen made the ‘harum-scarum spendthrift’ Hardcastle into ‘a likeable fellow’ (Bioscope, 24 July 1924, p. 48), but Low cites the film amongst the ‘old-fashioned melodramas … sometimes sentimental’ yet ‘fast and full of action’, which were ‘popular enough in the cheaper cinemas but unable to compete with the new sophistication which was invading the whole industry’ and which hastened both Davidson’s demise and a slump in British film production (1971, p. 137). McLaglen, with greater longevity, escaped the slump by heading for—and headlining in—Hollywood. Indeed, McLaglen’s robust, instinctual performances had so grown in range and popularity that, on his departure for California, the British fan

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press could describe him as ‘a breezy, agile young screen actor’ and ‘boxer, wrestler, swimmer, horseman, fencer and strongman’ (Picture Show Annual, 1926, p. 123). That range, not just of genre but of sport, had been evident in Granger-Davidson’s (largely extant) The Sport of Kings (Arthur Rooke, December 1921) where, as hero Frank Rosedale, McLaglen was not only given several opportunities to use his fists—as when winning the Amateur Boxing Championship—but also to show his poise within the horseracing community, outshining previous all-rounder Billy Wells as he ensures his horse ‘His Majesty’ wins the big race, thereby releasing his love Elaine Winter (Phyllis Shannan again) from the shackles of her guardian James Winter (Douglas Monro). Once more publicity knew where to focus, issuing a British bulldog logo with the legend ‘Presenting the Renowned Actor Sportsman Victor McLaglen: British to the Core and proud of it!’ (Trade Show Critic Annual 1922, p. 42). Low selects The Sport of Kings to illustrate how the new decade’s (better) sporting films were ‘compelled by their very nature to develop greater fluidity’ of both camera angle and editing and (rightly) commends how ‘in the boxing match the main long-shot camera set-ups could be interrupted by close-ups of the fighter’s face when he was down for the count, and of faces in the audience, which would not have been possible in a news film of a real fight’ (1971, p. 257). Again, one can additionally emphasise how McLaglen’s authenticating performance aided the credibility of both long-shot and close-up insights. Reviews praised McLaglen’s ‘manly and straightforward performance of a very popular character’ and predicted that the film would ‘be popular in any country where the love of manly sport obtains’ (Bioscope, 19 January 1922, p. 36). So it proved, its star’s evident manliness helping the film to sell well throughout the British Empire. The desire to marry virile sporting action with romance would lead Rooke, Coleby’s successor at Davidson, to implement a regular sporting hybridity, often combining the boxing ring with the racecourse (Glynn, 2019, pp. 32–33). He was not, though, the first to attempt this sporting one-two, any more than Victor McLaglen was unchallenged in creating a post-war name as a boxer-actor. As main contender, British Exhibitors’ five-reel Won by a Head (Percy Nash, July 1920) starred Sussex-born Reginald Graham aka Rex Davis, a talented amateur boxer who retained popular goodwill having earned a Military Cross (in July 1918) for conspicuous gallantry during the Great War (Napper, 2015, p.  95). Here Davis played Chester Lawton, wrongly imprisoned for murdering his

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racehorse employer, Sir John Anstruther (Douglas Payne). With the efforts of private detective Morton Bell (Frank Tennant), Lawton is pardoned and wins not only a prizefight but the big race and a bride, Sir John’s ward, Phyllis Ridd (Vera Cornish). Low’s critique of Nash’s film as exemplifying a persistence of ‘melodramatic scripts crowded with incidents and characters in the old-fashioned manner, slow’ (1971, p. 138) could again be countered by the ‘fine manly’ central performance of Davis, clearly possessed of ‘screen presence’ and ‘undoubted star potential’ (Bamford, 1999, p.  68). The Knockout (Alexander Butler, November 1923) from G.B Samuelson tried a variant on the sporting hybrid in ‘a gripping story of laughter and pathos’ with Davis as costermonger Bill Berks who dreams not only of being a champion boxer—cue a first screen appearance for famed referee Eugene Corri and innovative slow-motion footage to show Bill being fouled—but also of buying a horse on which he wins the big race despite the machinations of a crooked rival. Anticipating early sound comedies, social elevation is shown as not necessarily bringing happiness when his wife Polly (Lillian Hall-Davis), believing Bill now loves another, drowns herself: Bill wakes, however, to find that none of it was real. Though tonally uncertain, reviews indulged ‘a lively sporting melodrama’ and enjoyed ‘Davis playing the coster-champion in his best fighting style’, but admitted ‘the dream ending has become an irritating device nowadays’ (Bioscope, 17 May 1923, p. 66). The public, similarly irritated, stayed away and, unlike with McLaglen, Davis’ star waned—leading to a concentration on an MBE-decorated military career. Davis had first stepped into the cinema ring as Gloucester Dick in The House of Temperley and, before his dream ending, featured in two more period boxing melodramas. Samuelson’s The Pride of the Fancy (Richard Garrick, Albert Ward, December 1920), adapted from George Edgar’s period novel, saw Davis’ Phil Moran win both the big fight—reportedly shown at full length—against James Croon (The White Hope’s Kid Gordon), and showman’s daughter Kitty Ruston (Daisy Burrell), but little critical kudos: ‘A melodramatic sporting picture with not much detail’ and ‘suitable for uncritical audiences’ was the dismissive trade verdict (Kinematograph Monthly, September 1920, p.  18). Earlier still, he had featured in the first of two films by Screen Plays Production Company that attempted genre variations in period setting (if not plotline). The first was a second (extant) version of Conan Doyle’s Rodney Stone (August 1920). Percy Nash, production manager on The House of Temperley, here directed a cut-price six-reel reworking, scripted by Corinthian Jack’s helmsman

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Walter Courtney Rowden. The use of the original novel’s title indicates a shift in focus as Robertson Braine played the eponymous Stone (entirely excised from the earlier film), here nephew to wasteful socialite Sir Charles Tregellis (Lionel D’Aragon), and friend to rising boxing star ‘Boy Jim’, played by Davis. However, much as Doyle’s serialised novel had been padded out with a detailed history of the sport’s development—largely culled from Pierce Egan’s five-volume Boxiana (1812–1829)—Nash’s film ‘remake’ offered an expedient emphasis on embryonic boxing rings rather than elaborate Hanoverian circles. The result, by comparison with Shaw’s version, was of diminishing aesthetic and commercial returns. Reviews praised how ‘The acting is exceedingly good’ with ‘the boxing being splendidly done by Rex Davis’ (The Era, 1 September 1920, p. 19), but baulked at the novel-retained interpolations of Rodney relating the story to his young grandson since the resultant ‘fadebacks become so tangled that it is difficult to follow the thread of the plot’ (Bioscope, 26 August 1920, p. 70f). Screen Plays’ second feature, the (extant) five-reel The Croxley Master (Percy Nash, September 1921) was again sourced from Doyle, this time adapting an 1899 Strand-serialised story that combined the writer’s enthusiasm for boxing with his training as a doctor. Innovative in its Victorian-era Welsh setting, the film follows Robert Montgomery (Dick Webb), a medical student serving as assistant to curmudgeonly Dr Oldacre (Cecil Morton York) and needing money to complete his studies then set up in practice. Having a background in amateur boxing, he enters a 20-round contest against the titular champion, a bruising veteran miner from the Croxley pit, and wins both the £100 purse and the girl, Oldacre’s daughter Dorothy (Dora Lennox). Without Davis, credibility was added to the boxing—if not acting—scenes by casting, as the Master, young Deptford-born heavyweight Jack Stanley (47-40-10). For the trade it was ‘a thoroughly useable picture … produced on popular lines and certainly has a punch to it’ (Bioscope, 15 September 1921, p. 64). This cycle of period pugilism reached its apex/nadir in International Artists’ A Gipsy Cavalier (September 1922), an (extant) 70-minute adaptation from John Overton’s novel My Lady April and one of three extravagant costume dramas made back-to-back in Britain by veteran Sheffield-born but US-reared John Stuart Blackton, founder of Vitagraph Studios. Blackton had been overall supervisor of production and distribution for the Jeffries-Johnson Contest and was considered ‘the big man from the States who was going to show the British how to do things’ (Low,

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1971, p.  126). Bracketed by The Glorious Adventure (1922) and The Virgin Queen (1923) (pioneeringly filmed in Prizmacolor with an imported specialist crew), this loose historical trilogy emphasised Blackton’s showmanship—and budget—with large sets, lengthy casts and crowds of extras, convoluted plots and ‘celebrity’ leads. Two of these leads came from the boxing ring: The Glorious Adventure featured Victor McLaglen as the principal (but not pugilist) rogue Bullfinch, while A Gipsy Cavalier was headed by ‘The Orchid Man’, France’s Georges Carpentier (90-14-6). ‘Gorgeous George’ had been European champion at four weights (including heavyweight when dispatching Billy Wells in 1913) and from July 1914 became ‘white heavyweight champion of the world’, a pretence title created in the wake of Jack Johnson’s seeming invulnerability.2 After winning military decorations as a pilot during the Great War, Carpentier returned to the ring and came to Beaulieu for location shooting on Blackman’s film enjoying international renown, having recently (2 July 1921) lost to Jack Dempsey in New Jersey for the world heavyweight crown—the first-ever championship bout with live radio broadcast. The fight, over in four rounds, was, in truth, a mismatch, but Carpentier, far lighter but much more handsome, secured his future as a multimedia heartthrob (Murphy, 2016, pp. 47–49).3 In the film’s cast-list British social realities overlapped with international sex appeal as skilled networker/knighthood-seeking Blackton brought in upper-class prime movers—limited in acting skills but again large in publicity value. Lady Diana Cooper (society beauty and wife of prominent Conservative politician Duff Cooper) sat out this one Blackton venture, but noblesse still obliged, with knighted Julien Carew here played by knighted Simeon Stuart (Bamford, 1999, pp.  115–116). The plot, equally class-inflected in joining bare-knuckle boxing with Romany machinations and set around the fashionable Bath of Beau Nash, follows Carpentier as dilettante aristocrat Valerius Carew who, framed on a murder charge, poses as gypsy boxer Merodach (allowing him early in proceedings to exhibit his toned body), and in a dramatic finale saves the titled Dorothy Forrest (Flora Le Breton) from her sinking coach when Beydach (William Luff), King of the Gypsies, vengefully floods an unwelcoming valley. Revealed as innocent, Valerius and Dorothy are united at a gypsy wedding. The film (and its star) received full if not uniformly fulsome reviews. For the Sunday Illustrated ‘Carpentier rivals Douglas Fairbanks in his athletic feats’ (3 September 1922); the less excited Sunday Pictorial noted

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that ‘The great boxer has not attempted to achieve what might be called conventional acting effects’ but ‘is just himself and his unaffected grace and natural charm is entirely captivating’ (3 September 1922). Overall, the Pall Mall Gazette found it a film to ‘merit the approval of cinema patrons the wide world over, and cannot help but to considerably enhance the prestige of British films’ (2 September 1922); by contrast, the Daily Herald thought it ‘chafed at the bit, so to speak, for threequarters of its two-hour length’ and wished ‘its overstaged preliminaries were as good as its exciting and convincing climax’ (5 September 1922). The doubters were proven correct. Carpentier is today widely considered the greatest-­ ever European fighter: sadly, despite his (fully displayed) good looks, his film career cannot boast such a reputation.4 He is (unsurprisingly) far more credible playing an engaged fighter than an English fop (Fig. 3.1), while, in a reverse momentum to the real boxing contests where his swift victories compromised their filmed records’ commercial viability, here his major fictional vehicle was, like Blackton’s colour partners, ‘monumentally

Fig. 3.1  A Gipsy Cavalier—if I were a Carpentier …

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slow and dull’ (Low, 1971, p. 126). Neither the more favourable/sycophantic reviews nor the trilogy’s lavish high-society premieres could hide the fact that, while Blackton had excelled in recreating the spectacle of Olde England, he had fallen behind the times with regard to cinematic structure and dramatic pacing. Having made little lasting impression on audiences or industry (or honours lists), he returned to America, taking with him not Carpentier—a rumoured five-picture deal failed to materialise—but McLaglen who launched his Hollywood career in Vitagraph’s western The Beloved Brute (Blackton, 1924).

3.2   Boxing Shorts Thereafter, the slump endured by the UK film industry from the mid-­1920s was mirrored in the British boxing film which largely returned to origins as shorts and animation—until, in keeping with the genre’s de rigueur narrative structure, it enjoyed a spectacular conclusion. One of the first filmed fights shown in the UK had been of boxing cats: now, hoping to replace America’s popular ‘Felix the Cat’ cartoons, came the ‘All British’ cartoon ‘Adventures of Pongo the Pup’ series, exhibited as part of the Pathé Pictorial newsreels. The third (extant) entry, Pongo’s Rodeo (Dudley Buxton, May 1925), shows the eponymous and impecunious pup (echoing The Third String) taking on Bill the Basher in a 20-round all-comer challenge. With comic moves in the Chaplin (or even ‘Little Willy’ Sanders) style, his final whirlwind assault defeats not just his opponent but demolishes the ring and flattens the spectators. It is all good fun but, when placed in a sporting generic context, the narrative and iconography expose a historical tension since the victorious Pongo, a black dog designed in the Felix mould with a white muzzle and walking on its hind legs, bears unmistakable traits of ‘blackface minstrelsy’ (Sammond, 2015). With Pongo’s trickery here situated in a boxing ring, we are returned to the 1910s series of ‘White Hope’ comedies such as The Night I Fought Jack Johnson, with the blackface Johnson avatar again thumpingly victorious—one must assume an unwitting before enlightened revisionism. ‘The artistic talent and ingenuity displayed are a distinct triumph for British brains and industry’, noted Bioscope (2 October 1924, p. 39), but audiences deemed Pongo too imitative of Felix and the challenger folded after just seven episodes. If animations failed to hold, short interest and magazine films bucked the general decline in British film production (Low, 1971, p. 291). These included fiction pieces, where boxing put up a spirited performance. The

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(extant) one-reel programme filler Fighting Snub Reilly (Andrew P. Wilson, July 1924), adapted from an Edgar Wallace story and the fifth release in Stoll’s ‘Thrilling Stories from the Strand Magazine’ series, showed the persistence of the ‘pugilistic comedy’—‘bright and amusing’ with ‘an excellent fight’, thought Bioscope (7 August 1924, p. 23). More substantially, the genre’s tried-and-trusted period setting remained with Frederick White Production Company’s eight two-reel Romances of the Prize Ring (June–December 1926), all adapted from Andrew Soutar’s Sunday Chronicle stories about celebrated bare-knuckle fighters, all directed by short-film specialist Harry B. Parkinson, and all played by current/recently retired boxers. The series presented a ‘who’s who’ of Regency and recent boxing talent, with each instalment placing stories of romance against a celebrated bare-knuckle contest. Its opening entry, For My ‘Lady’s’ Happiness featured James ‘Deaf’ Burke, English heavyweight champion (1833–1839) whose title fight on 30 May 1833 proved fatal for his opponent Simon Byrne: Burke was arrested and tried for murder, but acquitted. The champion was here played by Phil Scott (65-13-5), British, British Empire and EBU heavyweight champion (1926–1931). The Game Chicken saw a screen return for Billy Wells as Henry Pearce, whose titular nickname derived from his in-ring courage and habit of signing his first-­ name as ‘Hen’. The film focuses on Pearce’s 23 January 1804 capture of the English championship via his 24-round defeat of Joe Berks, the latter played by Pat Aherne who, in minor McLaglen mode, would swap his successful amateur boxing career to become a popular actor across silent and sound eras, in Britain and America. The Phantom Foe again featured Hen Pearce, now portrayed by just-retired Frank Goddard (34-16-0), British heavyweight champion in both 1919 and 1923. For a Woman’s Eyes featured a second screen appearance from ‘Croxley Master’ Jack Stanley, while both Gypsy Courage and Find the Woman starred recently retired Dick Smith (6-11-1), British light-heavyweight champion (1914–1916 and 1918): the latter featured George Stevenson, whose heavy defeat to Jack Broughton in 1791 prompted boxing’s first codification, while a rare female credit was awarded to Gladys Dunham as the sought-after Lady Sykes. The Fighting Gladiator starred Tom Berry (43-32-5), 1925–1927 British and 1927 British Empire light-heavyweight champion, here taking the role of Tom Sayers aka ‘the Napoleon of the Prize Ring’ who, on 17 April 1860, had fought the much-larger American John Camel Heenan aka ‘the Benicia Boy’ for what is considered boxing’s first international heavyweight championship at

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Farnborough, Hampshire. The fight captured the public’s imagination, even though the prize ring was then in great disrepute—and not without due cause: after 42 rounds, with Heenan in the ascendency, the crowd invaded the ring and the fight was declared a draw. Alongside offering a biopic corrective to the wartime How I Won the Belt, it constituted an apt conclusion to a bright series which, while rough and ready in its realisation, efficiently promoted modern boxing as British in origins, but did not duck away from the sport’s endemic and systemic corruption. The series was considered ‘a decided box-office attraction. The stories are well-told, there are some well-­arranged fights, the costumes and settings are excellent, and whatever the stars may lack in the technique of the screen is more than compensated for by the drawing power of their names’ (Bioscope, 24 June 1926, p. 42). This caveated advocacy is unfair on the series’ most achieved release, the (extant) 30-minute When Giants Fought, which covers the first contesting of a British title by a black boxer, the famous fight at Shenington Hollow in Oxfordshire on 3 December 1810 when British heavyweight champion Tom Cribb controversially defeated American champion—and former Virginian slave—Thomas Molineaux in round 35 (Smith, 2003, pp. 27–60). An early close-up and intertitle highlight that Cribb was here portrayed by 1919–1923 British and British Empire heavyweight champion Joe Beckett (42-11-0),5 with Molineaux played (and credited) by Frank Craig (74-49-13), the ‘world coloured middleweight champion’ of 1894.6 While constituting Cribb’s fullest film treatment, When Giants Fought focuses equally on the ramifications for those watching the contest. It is framed by scenes at Holborn’s Castle Inn in 1842, a haunt of ‘the Fancy’ and unofficial headquarters of English boxing where Cribb is being entertained by the inn landlord, ex-heavyweight champion of England Tom Spring (Alec Hunter)—like Cribb briefly viewed in Corinthian Jack. On Cribb’s departure, an aged pipe-smoking customer (Wyndham Guise) relates via flashback how, in the boxer’s heyday, a ‘comely country wench’ was unable/unwilling to choose between two besotted suitors, a ‘jolly Jack Tar’ (George Wynn) and ‘noble grenadier’ (The Happy Warrior’s James Knight). They fight over her but, having ‘milled for nearly an hour’, accept her proposal to wed the man who selects the winner of Cribb’s next fight: the soldier wins the bet, and therefore the girl. A cut from the distraught sailor to the storyteller seems to confirm the audience assumption that he must have been the sailor: he confesses that, on the contrary, he won, and his ‘life’s happiness was wrecked’ by the disastrous marriage.

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The ‘comic’ reveal of the unhappy husband, the suitors’ unsolicited fight over the woman’s favour—and the singular absence of an intertitle credit for the lead actress—betray a deep-seated chauvinism, but the racial depictions are surprisingly liberal. Molineaux is portrayed as a dignified and dogged opponent—even the film’s title shows a rare parity of praise—and, though shot with a static camera, the fight scenes, taking up most of the film’s second half, are excitingly conveyed in short bursts as the advantage switches from Cribb (4-to-1 on) to Molineaux (100-to-1 on) and back again (Fig.  3.2). The contest’s infamous stoppage, adhering to printed records, shows Cribb’s second marching over (here after 22 rounds) to accuse his opposite number of putting leaden bullets into Molineaux’s hands, a lie that delayed proceedings long enough to allow the ailing Cribb to recover and ‘toe the line’. The animosity and racial slurs hurled from the crowd are leavened with ‘backhanded’ complements—‘What’s the nigger made of—iron?’—and contextualised with the storyteller’s pronouncement that Molineaux ‘wasn’t only fighting Tom Cribb, the Champion of England, but the whole world of white people who had treated his race like dirt’. It is a single intertitle amongst many but (unlike Pongo’s Rodeo) offers an unmistakably witting and enlightened mid-1920s pronouncement on race relations, and one then unprecedented in the British boxing fictional film.7

Fig. 3.2  When Giants Fought—intimations of equality

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British cinema production had by now reached such a parlous state (1926 saw only 34 domestic feature film releases) that in March 1927 the government presented what became the Cinematograph Films Act, a ten-­ year protective policy stipulating a minimum percentage of British films that distributors were obliged to provide and cinemas to screen (7.5% and 5% respectively, incrementally rising to 20% by 1936). The laudable intent of the ‘Quota Act’ was to encourage sufficient British film production to compete with Hollywood and promote the Empire’s interests overseas. It led instead to a plethora of ‘quota quickies’, swiftly made bargain-­basement product churned out in under a fortnight at £1 per foot solely to meet the new legal requirements, and shown as second or support features almost exclusively for home consumption. Against this expedient background of quantity before quality, enter the great (white) hope of British cinema, Leytonstone-born director Alfred Joseph Hitchcock.

3.3   Silent Boxing Film Champion: The Ring (Alfred Hitchcock, 1928) The Ring was 28-year-old Hitchcock’s sixth feature as director and arguably the most accomplished of his eight surviving silent films.8 Frustrated by Michael Balcon at Gainsborough giving him consecutive stage adaptations with Ivor Novello’s Downhill (1927) and Noel Coward’s Easy Virtue (1928), the prospect of developing his own project, using better studio facilities (and becoming Britain’s highest-paid director at £13,000-per-­ year) prompted his July 1927 move as resident director to entrepreneurial producer John Maxwell’s new British International Pictures (BIP), ‘its very name reflecting the scope of its activities’ (Warren, 1995, p. 62). He brought with him the scenario, composed that month, for a love triangle set in the world of professional boxing. Why this subject? Hitchcock later explained his decision to ‘do a boxing story’: ‘I was interested—I used to go to the Albert Hall. I think the thing, strangely enough, that fascinated me about boxing in those days was the English audience that would go all dressed up in black tie to sit around the ring. It wasn’t the boxing that fascinated me so much, although I was interested in the shop, all the details connected with it. Like pouring champagne over the head of the boxer at the thirteenth round, if he was going a bit groggy… All that kind of thing I was interested in, and put it all in the picture’ (Bogdanovich, 1963, p. 12).

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The Ring is credited as Hitchcock’s only solo-written original screenplay, ostensibly making it the ‘purest’ product of his auteurship. It is generally acknowledged, however, that (despite a temporary falling out) there was significant input from his regular co-writer Eliot Stannard (Taylor, 1978, p. 89), from his wife Alma Reville, plus occasional touch-ups and advice on the boxing sequences from film journalist (and BIP’s imminent literary advisor/scenario editor) Walter C.  Mycroft (McGilligan, 2003, p. 94). Hitchcock indisputably enjoyed greater control over casting at BIP and selected his film’s main players. These comprised, as male lead, Danish actor Carl Brisson who, between 1912 and 1915 had been a prizefighter, including middleweight champion of the Danish Navy; South African-­ born Ian Hunter, with brief amateur boxing experience, was chosen as his itinerant antipodean rival, a character potentially informed by James Leslie aka Les Darcy (52-4-0), the famed Australian middle and heavyweight champion who, in 1917, died in America, aged just 21 (Mogg, 1999, p.  19); Mile End’s mercurial Lillian Hall-Davis, with genre experience from The Knockout and much admired by Hitchcock since working with her on The Passionate Adventure (Graham Cutts, 1924), was cast as Mabel aka ‘The Girl’, the boxers’ enmity-increasing love interest. The genre’s tradition of authentic casting was maintained by featuring (uncredited) boxing film regular Billy Wells during its fairground sequences and, introduced (with his own intertitle) at its climactic contest, revered referee and Wells’ erstwhile champion Eugene Corri (as himself). With experienced and visually inventive Jack Cox selected as cinematographer, filming took place at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood in Hertfordshire between July and August 1927, with unprecedented care and attention taken to the cinematic representation of British boxing from its ‘grassroots’ through to apex settings. The opening fairground with its hundreds of milling extras was constructed on a studio lot, as was Jack’s final ‘Eliminating Contest’, listed on the promotional poster as taking place at London’s Holborn Stadium. The climactic fight, ostensibly staged at a packed Royal Albert Hall, was created by Hitchcock (and supervised by art director C. Wilfred Arnold) employing the pre-matte Schüfftan process, with Italian artist Fortunino Matania painting the audience onto a photographic transparency of the empty hall and an angled mirror allowing its reflection to blend with the live-action studio set.9 Swiftly edited in early September, The Ring was ready for trade showing on 1 October 1927. It premiered at London’s Astoria on 14 January 1928 where, in a career first for the director, ‘an elaborate montage got a round of applause’ (Truffaut, 1986,

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p. 60). Phased regional exhibition culminated in a general release by 16 January 1929.10 The plot follows powerful young boxer ‘One Round’ Jack Sander (Brisson) who challenges (and quickly defeats) all comers in a fairground booth while his fiancée Mabel (Hall-Davis) sells tickets out front. Jack is surprisingly beaten by a challenger who is revealed to be Australian heavyweight champion Bob Corby (Hunter). Jack’s performance impresses Bob’s promoter, James Ware (Forrester Harvey), who offers him a position as the champion’s sparring partner. Bob is equally impressed by the ticket-seller and while Jack is negotiating with Ware, Bob gifts Mabel an arm bracelet. When Jack wins his trial fight and earns a contract, he and Mabel marry, though she has by now developed strong feelings for Bob— and continues to wear his bracelet. Their affair becomes an open secret and Jack, believing he must fight Bob to win back his wife, determines to become a championship contender. While, with Ware’s help, Jack’s career blossoms, Bob and Mabel spend more time together, regularly enjoying the high life. Her absence from a surprise party leads an angry Jack to seek out Bob at a nightclub, knock him to the ground and challenge him to a rematch in the ring: he returns home to discover Mabel has left. Come the night of the Corby-Sander championship contest, Jack’s team refrain from telling him that Mabel has been seen entering Bob’s dressing-room. The fight is evenly matched but, when Jack spots Mabel in the crowd, his loss of concentration allows Bob to knock him down. Jack is saved by the bell, but defeat seems imminent until a contrite Mabel, moved by her husband’s plight, rushes to his corner and declares she wants to be with him. Jack is revived and knocks out his rival. Post-fight, one of Bob’s team shows him the arm bracelet, discarded by Mabel in the arena. Outpointing even The House of Temperley, Hitchcock’s boxing feature enjoyed an unprecedented critical reception. For the Daily Mail, ‘viewed from both dramatic and artistic standpoint’, The Ring was simply ‘the greatest production ever made in this country’ (1 October 1927); the Sunday Observer cheered that ‘At last the British film industry has produced a masterpiece’ and ‘among the best half-dozen films ever seen’ (2 October 1927). It was hailed as the UK industry’s saviour, ‘a devastating answer to those who disbelieved in the possibilities of a British film’ (Daily News, 2 October 1927), and a picture that ‘challenges comparison with the best that America can produce’ (Daily Herald, 3 October 1927). The Albert Hall finale was especially commended: ‘a triumph of production’ ventured the Daily Mirror (22 November 1927); ‘the finest fight scene in

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any boxing film’, vouched the Daily Sketch (2 October 1927). Criticising the new quota act, the Evening Standard averred that ‘Mr. Hitchcock has done more for British pictures than a dozen Acts of Parliament’ (2 October 1927), while Bioscope addressed Hitchcock directly in a championing editorial: ‘You have, by your imagination, individuality and artistry, created something which is far in advance of any previous British film’ and opined that ‘if future British films only approach The Ring in quality, we need have no fears for the ultimate success of the entire producing industry in this country’ (6 October 1927, p. 27). There was only one major objector, not from the popular or trade press but from Close Up, the UK’s first ‘intellectual’ film journal, launched in July 1927 and, as its front cover testified, ‘devoted to film art’. In a lengthy piece ironically titled ‘The Latest British Masterpiece’, Robert Herring questioned both The Ring’s subject matter and style as representing the best of Britain in its values and cinema. ‘We want British films. If being British means anything, it means something that can best be expressed on the screen by British films. Certain characteristics foreigners (excuse the word) cannot hope to interpret … Restraint, for instance, reason, taste possibly and tradition.’ But what, he asks, did we see in The Ring? ‘A story in which a Chit of a Girl forsook her husband and her lover according as each won or lost. This was what we had to tell the world. Here was the British outlook, the fresh viewpoint.’ If the storyline did not, for Close Up, justify ‘masterpiece’ status, then what of Hitchcock’s direction, especially in the fight scenes? Herring’s comments anticipate David Thomson on sporting actors: ‘He has chosen for his evenly matched boxers one expert and one novice … the novice fought, under guidance, in slow motion, which was then speeded up. Who’d have thought it? … We are a sporting race and this is how we stage a big fight. It is not good enough. The cinema is cutting its own throat if it first accustoms us to Tunney-Dempsey fights and then gives us bad fakes’ (2, 1, January 1928, pp. 33–34).11 London’s Evening News, which thought that The Ring ‘succeeds in that very rare accomplishment of being the purest film art and a fine popular entertainment’ (2 October 1927), proved only half correct. The rapturous critical reception (pace Close Up) evidences the film’s unmistakable ‘art’ credentials: it was, however, far from a ‘popular’, that is, commercial success and made a loss for BIP. The time taken to roll out the film for national exhibition (not then uncommon) may have lost crucial momentum, but one can also wonder if The Ring could ever have matched the expectations

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placed upon it? Paul Rotha categorised press reviews of British films at the time as suffering from a surrounding ‘structure of false prestige’, a hyperbolic ‘blaze of patriotic glamour’ that could only ultimately damage the object of its praise (1967, p. 313), and The Ring potentially exemplifies such unsustainable encomia. Hitchcock’s film may also have fallen between two stools, Herring demonstrating how its sporting content was anathema to many intellectuals much as its expressionistic style may have been too highbrow for mass boxing fans. Whatever the reasons, the financial failure of BIP’s inaugural release would see the company reassert the national model that film success was enhanced by being based on a proven literary or dramatic source text, and Hitchcock was quickly back to his Gainsborough routine of filming adaptations (Ryall, 1986, pp. 101–102). He never returned to boxing content in his films. The Ring has subsequently dropped down the rankings in Hitchcock’s filmography, though few would support Charles Barr who considers it ‘the weakest of his early films’ (1999, p. 34). The director himself adjudged it, after The Lodger (1927), the second ‘Hitchcock picture’ (Truffaut, 1986, p.  60), but it is today viewed artistically as a crime-and-suspense-free anomaly in the auteur’s work, an example of ‘the road not taken in his oeuvre: melodrama’ (Krohn, 2010, pp.  12–13), while industrially it is adjudged a failed experiment by BIP, ‘a conservative studio both economically and culturally’ (Chapman, 2018, p. 17). When treated at all in studies on the director,12 it is analysed chiefly for its anticipations of ‘prime Hitchcock’ stylistic tropes. This could be in details: Patrick Humphries picks out ‘a vignette of circus side-show freaks’, a scene recurring in Saboteur (1942) (1986, p.  25); for Raymond Durgnat Mabel mopping Jack’s face while ogling Bob’s torso ‘exemplifies the association of physicality underlying the uninterrupted kiss in Notorious [1946]’ (1974, p. 79). It could be in extended motifs: Ken Mogg highlights the ‘related snake-imagery’ which reappears in The Paradine Case (1947) (1999, p. 19); or the use of camera as voyeur, Leslie Abramson exploring how, long before Rear Window (1954), Hitchcock ‘examines the fundamental relationship between gazer and spectator’ (2015, p. 173). It could also be in setting: Donald Spoto notes how Hitchcock would revisit the fairground as a Dionysian locale where ‘repressions are set free’ in Murder! (1930), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), Stage Fright (1949) and Strangers on a Train (1951) (1983, p. 329). Nonetheless, even if one parks future works to remain within The Ring’s textual ambit, its many and striking stylistic devices merit exegesis. These

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begin with the film’s polysemic title, ‘the ring’ signifying not just the boxing arena, but Jack and Mabel’s wedding band, plus the circular bracelet presented by Bob which Mabel continues to wear as a sign of her attachment. Visually, a circular motif pervades the film, circumscribing the sport’s square arena and the plot’s love triangle. After the credits, The Ring opens on a large circular drum, followed by people swinging round a carousel and the sight of a Ferris wheel; Mabel sells 6d fight tickets from two large rolls; a gypsy woman (Clare Greet) at the fair lays out a circle of playing cards to tell Mabel’s fortune; a record plays in close-up at the Sanders’ plush apartment; Jack’s unsuccessful celebration focuses down on champagne glasses; Bob’s image appears on the obsessing Jack’s punch-­ ball; a gong to start and end the rounds and a stopwatch feature prominently during the final contest. Many of these shapes feature outside a precise sporting context, but all operate—or circulate—within the compass of the primary association of ‘the ring’, namely the pursuit of boxing. This is manifest in the film’s framing locations, with the concluding winner-­takes-all fight in the circular Albert Hall differing in degree but not kind from the boxing tent and circus ring of the opening scenes. Before that, the still-shot behind the opening credits of the Albert Hall auditorium with its distant illuminated boxing ring structurally circles round to the finale, a flash-forward offering ‘intimations of destiny’ (Mogg, 1999, p. 18). The pervasiveness of boxing imagery similarly extends to out-of-ring actions. Mid-film during the Sanders’ first party, two women dance energetically—the image briefly distorts in fevered elongation—then retire to their respective ‘corners’ where they are fanned down and given champagne by their ‘seconds’. When Jack finds Bob at the nightclub, tips away the proffered glass of champagne then knocks him to the floor, Bob appears to be ‘counted out’ by the sliding trombone from the house band. Linking with these scene and settings, during the Albert Hall face-off when Jack is first knocked down the image again distorts and, together with towel-waving seconds, another bottle of champagne is opened and poured over Jack’s head to speed his revival (Hitchcock incorporating one of the details he had witnessed in reality). The most critically discussed stylistic device is the montage covering the rise of ‘One Round’ Jack from booth-boxer to championship contender. As the cycle of the seasons pass, indicated by trees blossoming then snow falling then spring returning, Jack’s name grows in size and rises up the listing on a series of street billboards. Hitchcock thought this device

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innovative and influential (Truffaut, 1986, p.  63); not so Close Up’s Herring who found it ‘pretentious’ (so damning to a British sensibility) since ‘the time and expense were out of proportion to the effect’. His complaint that ‘Mr. Hitchcock’s method is to depict one simple fact, that a sub-title could have got over, by a long sequence or a number of elaborate tricks’ (January 1928, p.  36) exemplifies how Britain’s cinema culture, for all Herring’s comparisons with German and Russian film, was (is?) still in thrall to its overriding literary heritage, with plot, characterisation and dialogue/written-­word intertitles seen as the optimum means to advance its narrative. Though Charles Barr, supporting Herring, terms the device ‘pointlessly ponderous’ (1999, pp. 51–52), Hitchcock’s montage thrillingly breaks free from the UK’s (perceived) prevailing ‘dawdling tendency, a tendency to use mise-en-scene for merely pictorial rather than dramatic effect’ (McFarlane & Mayer, 1992, p. 140). Employing the iconography of boxing promotion, Hitchcock holistically visualises a generic bridge from fairground to arena contests—an exemplary ‘show don’t tell’ time ellipsis that Hitchcock repeats with the fat reel of entrance tickets dissolving in size and freshly poured champagne flattening in the glass. Exemplifying an enriching, encompassing styling, this is a clear points victory to the director. Characterisation in The Ring has, when assessed, been accepted as less impressive. The role of Mabel was criticised on the film’s release, notably for ‘the weakness of the feminine motive’ in Jack’s determination ‘to rise to championship rank and fight for his woman. Why he thought it worthwhile, Heaven knows; though she is our heroine, the lady seems to be an avaricious and silly minx from whose erratic affections a man might well have been glad to be free’ (Times, 22 November 1927). This reading has remained predominant, Raymond Durgnat indicative in adjudging Mabel ‘a flighty silly’ (1974, p. 79). One could make a case for Mabel exercising agency and/or returning to her senses after being ‘star-struck’ by a successful man’s attentions (the women invariably alongside her at Bob’s training camp and ringside indicate boxing’s undeniable female fandom). In truth, though, ‘The Girl’ remains an underwritten character, her last-­ minute volte-face narratively expedient rather than psychologically plausible, while Hall-Davis, ‘charming but anodyne’ (Taylor, 1978, p.  94), carries little of the forcefulness brought to her role by Hitchcock’s next leading lady, Anny Ondra, in Blackmail (1929). But must a unanimous defeat for Hitchcock be conceded here? None of the characters in The Ring are depicted sympathetically: Jack is dull, boorish and possessive;

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Bob, arguably best of the three, is nonetheless manipulative, uncomfortably slick, and clearly underestimates his opponent in the ring. Hitchcock views all with a ‘balance of intimate asperity’ (Durgnat, 1974, p. 78) that demonstrably offers up but deliberately undercuts the generic expectations of an inspiring boxing romance. It is on this play with existing tropes rather than career anticipations that this study will henceforth concentrate. The influence on early Hitchcock of German cinema is evident, with the carnival atmosphere, like the later party scene, clearly indebted to E.A.  Dupont’s Variety aka Vaudeville (1925).13 But an indigenous influence is, I would argue, just as readable, with The Ring serving as a summation of incidents and investigations from previous British boxing films, composed not just by a regular contest attender but by a supremely cine-literate director. The critique that ‘Hitchcock’s story is only sound [i.e. average]; he relies on his pictorial ability to make it interesting’ (Guardian, 9 November 1927) is entirely to the point, with the director’s energies purposefully centred on refreshing long-established popular narrative tropes. The catalytic fairground challenge recalls Boxing Fever; the motivating affair of the heart replays a generic constant evident since The Terrible Two on the Mash and They’re All After Flo; the determined training schedule reworks The Happy Warrior; the girl decisively encouraging from the ring-corner revisits Battling Brown of Birmingham and The White Hope; the tried-and-trusted story of the underdog finally triumphing rewinds right back to 1899’s Comic Boxing Match and through The Last Round and The Croxley Master. The content is not new: its filmic treatment most definitely is. Beyond its pictorial play with plot staples, The Ring also follows the genre’s evolving hybridity. Beginning with Birt Acres’ Boxing Match, boxing films initially developed in the realist idiom, recording or re-presenting documentary-style fighting footage. The Ring too is commended for its realism, especially, David Sterritt notes, in its opening sequences which, like The Lodger, The Manxman (1929) and Blackmail, ‘contain strong documentary elements’ and reflect Hitchcock’s interest in the documentary ‘art film’ movement headed by John Grierson (1993, p. 4). To realise this ‘quasi-documentary fairground opening’ (Barr, 1999, p. 52), newspaper adverts invited the public to Elstree where Hitchcock, disguised as a frock-coated showman, moved amongst them and instructed his largely hidden cameramen (Krohn, 2010, p. 12). John Russell Taylor proposes: ‘The tawdry side-shows among which the early scenes are set represented another aspect of that seamy underside of show business which had always

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fascinated Hitch, and did give him the chance to show with vivid location reality a whole spectrum of lower-class English life which at that time had rarely if ever been seen on the screen’ (1978, p. 89). This spectrum had, though, been regularly seen in British boxing films, the fairground booth with its proletarian challenge to all comers prominent in contemporary-set films like Billy’s Book on Boxing and in retrospective fare such as Rodney Stone and the Romances of the Prize Ring. (In addition, the fairground had been the site for the earliest exhibition of boxing movies in Britain, cf. Acres’ Boxing Match.) The climax to The Ring, while employing different technological means, also carefully recreates the atmosphere and rituals of a championship contest, advancing on representations such as those twice ventured in The White Hope: Ronald Bergan was not alone in noting the return in the final Albert Hall scenes of an ‘almost documentary approach’ (1982, p. 18). In between these boxing parentheses, and in keeping with the genre development of the silent boxing film, comedy enters The Ring. Indeed, the comic mode dominates the first half of the film, largely embodied in Gordon Harker as Jack’s trainer. Harker’s ‘Cockney comic’ part was widely praised, the Times typical in commending how ‘the rich humour springs naturally from character’ (22 November 1927). His ‘carnivalesque’ function, continuing the ‘long tradition of turning the world upside-­ down, of symbolically subverting the dominant, ruling hierarchies of social existence’ (Crawford, 2002, pp. 42–43), is signalled from his first appearance where, to general mirth, he inadvertently holds Jack’s name-board the wrong way up. This humour, generic and physical, is prominent in the opening fight sequence. Jack’s swift dispatch of his amateur opponents is shown when a burly sailor enters the ring, hands his coat to Harker and exits the frame. The camera remains with Harker who, anticipating a short-lived contest, stays with the coat held out: the sailor almost immediately stumbles back to the corner, too insensate to put on the coat himself or return to his seat. When Bob next enters the ring, a similar procedure is enacted, though the new opponent’s glare makes Harker first put his jacket on a coat hanger. As Bob exits screen left, Harker removes the jacket and holds it out, but instead of a battered Bob returning to the frame, Harker is shown observing Jack being outfought—his jaw drops as does, almost, the out-­ held coat. The (off-screen) fight’s unprecedented progression to a second round is signalled as the shabby ‘round one’ sign cedes to a pristine ‘round two’ replacement—a subtle comedic touch Hitchcock later felt was ‘lost

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on the audience’ (Truffaut, 1986, p. 60). When, after four rounds, Bob returns victorious, Harker rushes over to see Jack: Bob, noticing how he and his coat have been mistreated, grabs the hanger and slips its hook into the back of Harker’s trousers, a humiliation straight from his music-hall roots and redolent of Pimple’s deflationary boxing ring antics. Comedy is again to the fore in the marriage sequence, the mode intimating the wedding’s insecure status. There is more comic shtick from Harker, now the best man who, as bored in church as he was ringside, stares off into space and picks his nose until, realising he needs to produce the ring, panics, searches in his pockets then (portentously?) drops it on the floor. His later gluttony, overeating and drinking himself (literally) under the table, again exhibits the carnivalesque in its ‘grotesque’ focus on the orifices’ practices (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 18). The verger is shocked by the assortment of circus characters filling his church, including Siamese twins arguing over which side of the aisle to sit, and a giant who enters alongside a dwarf—a physical disparity redolent of both Comic Boxing Match and The White Hope—On Championship. For Taylor the church scene’s bizarre details show the director’s ‘pawky sense of humour’ (1978, p. 93), though on its release not all were appreciative. The Times, for instance, so positive towards Harker, here fulminated: ‘why Mr. Hitchcock permitted these scenes, which are a return to ancient crudities, it is not easy to tell, for they are neither good in themselves nor suited to his medium’ (22 November 1927). They were, though, fully suited to his chosen genre. Increasingly prevalent in The Ring, as in Britain’s boxing film genre, is the gender-broadening appeal of its motivating love story. The romantic plot-line comes to the fore in the film’s later sections, with Bob’s attentions prompting Jack’s drive to rise in the boxing rankings and ‘win back’ Mabel. The linkage is reinforced by Ware who sees therein a means to motivate his new charge: ‘She’s all right really. The trouble is that he’s a champion and you’re not—yet.’ Sidney Gottlieb, though, sees Mabel as essentially an early Hitchcock MacGuffin: ‘The boxing ring is a particularly good stage for this conflict, partly because it allows for a not entirely sublimated expression of the real violence that underlies human relationships and partly because it subtly reminds us that a woman isn’t necessary to provoke violence but is an inevitable accelerant’ (2014, p. 262). Whatever the assessment of Mabel’s characterisation and/or catalytic function, the emotional development, intensification and prolongation of the love triangle can be measured through the regular and telling

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appearances of Bob’s bracelet, its employment indicative of Hitchcock’s elaborate formal symmetries, and its associations generating far more sexual potency than previous boxing romances such as the neutered pageantry of A Gipsy Cavalier. Bob offers the gift to Mabel after beating Jack at the fairground, claiming to have bought it with his fight winnings. Shown in close-up, it has the form of a coiled snake and its symbolism of Edenic temptation is immediately realised as Bob slowly slides the bracelet up Mabel’s arm towards her shoulder. This indicator of sexual infidelity is immediately linked to Jack’s burgeoning boxing career, a graphic match dissolving from a close-up of Jack shaking hands with Ware and sealing his sparring contract, to a close-up of Bob slipping the serpent over Mabel’s willing wrist, similarly ‘sealing’ their love  affair. (The kiss that follows between Mabel and Bob is edited identically to a later kiss between Mabel and Jack—medium to close-up and out again—though the marital embrace is significantly shorter and less ardent.) For a while Mabel, seemingly ashamed of her duplicity, hides the bracelet from her fiancée—she covers it with her hand, but significantly never takes it off. When Jack first sees the twisted snake, Mabel twists the truth, claiming that, as it came from the winnings Bob received for beating Jack, it is indirectly Jack’s own gift to her. When Jack puts the wedding ring on Mabel’s finger, the bracelet ominously slips down over her hand, a reminder of the growing division in her loyalties and an incentive to Jack—in his world view—to fight to regain his bride. When Mabel finally returns home after Jack’s embarrassed friends have left his celebratory party, their argument leads to Jack tearing her dress, then ripping off the rivalrous armband: its sight propels his night-time pursuit of Bob through London’s clubland and title challenge. When the final fight prompts Mabel’s change of heart—at first she worriedly circles the stage, seeking a better perspective—she pointedly takes off the bracelet and throws it aside before embracing her victorious husband (Fig. 3.3). It still, though, signifies: backstage, as Bob is getting dressed, an assistant hands him the discarded gift—the film ends with Bob buttoning up his collar after looking briefly at the bracelet then tossing it back to his aide with a shrug of the shoulders. As Raymond Durgnat observes, ‘it’s this lazy, sharp, sensible, apathetic gesture which, retrospectively, gives the film its asperity. The last gesture, in effect, pulls the plug on the whole story. How much of our life consists of inconsequential fantasies?’ (1974, p. 79). Other images retrospectively seem similarly bathetic, such as the champagne bubbles going flat, or Bob’s face appearing on Jack’s punchbag (its

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superimposition as redolent of the reductive Pocket Boxers as of obsessive states of mind). Visually linking back to that boxer superimposition, Jack’s first inclination that Mabel has returned to him comes when he sees her face reflected in his poolside water-bucket—circles again. The superimposition signals intratextually, now a pale/pail reflection of their earlier river-­ reflected caravan idyll, a scene of newlywed bliss—until Mabel’s bracelet fell in the water and had to be explained away. The bucket image can thus be read back as further asperity, moving us from the sublime to the ridiculous. Equally, though, the film’s narrative links back intertextually. An unlikeable love triangle set against the world of prizefighting, The Ring re-runs the opening half of When Giants Fought where again the female lead is portrayed as shallow, even duplicitous, enjoying the attentions of two besotted, even gormless men who, borne by their macho codes and without the female’s bidding or consent, fight for possession of her and her affections. The punch-line from the noble grenadier can thus lead one to question—perhaps unkindly—Jack’s post-film future: will he prove the ultimate winner in love, as in the ring? The film’s circular structure and visual pointers suggest that ‘long, hard efforts will be required in the couple’s future’ (Spoto, 1983, p. 101).14 Though its gender depictions were unflattering, When Giants Fought had offered an atypically positive representation of black boxers. The Ring is less accommodating as the racial element, so persistent a trope in the genre’s hypermasculine assertions from Black and White and Pimple Meets Jack Johnson to The White Hope, is again manifest, here as unwitting testimony, across all areas of late-1920s (boxing) society. Early on, a fairground shy shows the delight of the crowd (and especially a policeman) when hitting the target causes a rictus-grinning black worker to be repeatedly dunked into a tank of water. Though the black worker’s top-hat-and-tails attire could mitigate the audience response as class before race inflected, Hitchcock’s appearance as the stall’s barker complicates any potential ambivalence or ‘irony’ of presentation. During Jack’s rise through the ranks, even though he has another (uncredited) black worker in his corner, an intertitle from his promoter Ware lets Jack, his seconds (and us) know that ‘If you win this next fight with the nigger, you’ll be in the running for the championship’: Jack (or Harker) offers no reaction though the worker remains in Jack’s corner as he earns his final victory. While presenting a generically consistent social testimony, this trope today scores Hitchcock no points.

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The concluding fight is shown on posters and programmes to be for ‘the Heavyweight Championship of Great Britain—20 3-minute rounds’, and it constitutes, taking in both fictional and factual recordings, by a distance the most dynamic visual treatment of the sport to date in British cinema. Though boxing imagery permeates the film’s middle sections and its subjective states of mind, Hitchcock refrains from substantial boxing footage before the finale. Between the booth fights’ focus on Harker’s reactions and Jack’s billboard-signalled progress, there are only brief scenes of practice sparring and a few images of Jack’s victory over the black Kid Gunn (uncredited). This allows a full concentration on animating the championship decider. Eight minutes follow cross-cut images of the spectators finding their seats, the boxers’ final dressing-room preparations (Jack despondently dreams of Mabel, Bob complacently defers changing) and their crowd-cheered procession to the ring, where officials are shown spreading sawdust on the canvas to prevent slipping, the MC opens a metal box where he has kept both boxers’ gloves to ensure they remain untampered, and referee Corri gives both fighters his pre-match pep-talk. The contest itself takes up the final nine minutes of film time, and it constitutes a cinematic tour de force, one the director would long cherish. In his most substantial written essay, 1968’s ‘Film Production’, Hitchcock’s description of affective direction clearly alludes to the techniques he employed back in The Ring: ‘Without the audience being aware of what he is doing, he will use his technique to create an emotion in them. Suppose he is presenting a fight—the traditional fight in the barroom or elsewhere. If he puts the camera far enough back to take in the whole episode at once, the audience will follow at a distance, and objectively, but they will not so really feel it. If the director moves his camera in and shows the details of the fight—flaying hands, rocking heads, dancing feet, put together in a montage of quick cuts—the effect will be totally different and the spectator will be writhing in his seat, as he would be at a real boxing match’ (1968, p. 909). Hitchcock’s method is far removed from the unimpressed Robert Herring’s preferred approach: ‘The old device, so popular in bullfights, was better— doubles in the distance, with occasional separate close-ups.’ It is opposed in intention and result from the critic’s accusation of ‘mock representation’. Nonetheless, it fully exemplifies the ‘greatly daring’ alternative that Herring himself suggested—to ‘try expressionism’ (January 1928, p. 34). With four cameras ranged around the set, Hitchcock employs a gamut of shots and fast edits to give the fight’s opening a distinctly expressionist momentum, switching angles and distances as Jack and Bob swing out and

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seek ascendency (Fig. 3.3). Under-cranking—Cox turning the camera more slowly than usual so the result appears speeded up—further enlivens the fighting footage, as does Corri’s transparent intertitle to ‘Don’t hold, Bob’. Advancing beyond the cut-in close-ups that Herring craved and that Rachael Low lauded in The Sport of Kings, Hitchcock’s point-of-view shots at the start of round two take us right into the action, the camera/spectator open and exposed as the opponent jabs and swings at the screen. Mid-shots predominate, with occasional long-shots and cut-aways to the crowd allowing us to register the cross-class make-up that encompasses both the rapidly applauding groundlings and the (literal) higher echelons aloof in their private boxes. In a nod to the sport’s strongly symbiotic relationship with film, its mediation is registered in meta-shots showing cameras and their operators shooting the fight from the rafters. When the contest’s equilibrium is disrupted by Jack’s sighting of Mabel (signalled with a sharp dolly in on her face), we experience the knockdown from his perspective. First Bob then the overhead lights blur and are overlaid with multiple images of the ring-ropes as Jack hits the deck; the arena slowly returns into focus and registers the referee’s arm counting down as Jack struggles to his feet. As noted by Kelly Robinson, the sequence is ‘almost avant-garde’ and ‘bares comparison to the films of Hans Richter’, the German expressionist then being shown at London’s Film Society (2017, p. 54). When the still-disorientated boxer is pulled back to his corner, a camera centre-stage recalls Jack’s party by showing the corner’s use of towels and champagne; meanwhile a camera ring-side shows the judges marking their papers. No shot is held for more than a few seconds, the swift editing working to convey the intense energy circulating throughout the arena. In the next round, Jack is again on the ropes: his second knockdown is not shown, however, but understood from the reactions of both a wincing Mabel and especially the cigarette holder-wielding spectator beside her who, thinking the fight is over, resignedly starts to put on his overcoat, only to take it off again and resume his seat as Jack evidently beats the count. Both the false expectation of an off-screen knockout and the donning of a jacket formally link the championship fight back to Harker’s reactions at Jack’s fairground origins, the disparity in venues cementing the ubiquity of the boxing spectacle and its dynamics. Finally, Jack’s revival with Mabel in his corner was not just left to expressionist techniques as Hitchcock, exploiting the actors’ differing boxing skills, told Brisson and Hunter ‘go all out’ and fight for real. Hunter may lack the optimum muscular tone but his character would not be the only professional boxer ever to enter the ring underprepared and overconfident: thus Brisson/Jack’s firmer fitness and technique adds further realism to the tiring Bob’s late-match knockout in the apogee of British boxing film action.15

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Fig. 3.3  The Ring—boxing and romantic fortunes come full circle

Contemporary reviews singled out The Ring’s boxing scenes for praise. The Stage, enthused if not original, found that ‘The boxing booth scenes and those at the Albert Hall are full of “punch”’—and namechecked ‘veteran sportsman, Eugene Corri’ (13 October 1927); the Guardian, countering Close Up’s American example, picked out Brisson who, in his screen debut, ‘turns out to be an actor with a good deal more than a personality, and his boxing is great. (He and his rival hit each other more times in one round than Dempsey and Tunney in all ten)’ (9 November 1927). The finale reinforced the Yorkshire Evening Post’s review that ‘Mr. Hitchcock has the gift of thinking directly in film terms. He does not photograph a story, he writes it, so to speak, straight on the screen; this is why The Ring lives and moves with such stimulating rhythm and vigour’ (15 January 1929). The undisputed champion boxing film of Britain’s silent era with its conclusion’s consummate combination of realism and formalism, The

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Ring overall offers a succinct summation of the syntax and semantics of the genre while, projecting beyond Hitchcock’s career, one can see the parentage of international classics such as Body and Soul (Robert Rossen, 1947) and even Raging Bull in his caustic and kinetic venture into the boxing world. But immediate influences? Mabel’s intertitled complaint to Jack—‘What are you standing there for, can’t you speak?’—may signal Hitchcock’s knowing awareness that silent cinema had terminal limitations, but the odds on Britain’s imminent sound era producing anything to rival The Ring were long.

Notes 1. McLaglen summarised his career trajectory in the title of his (pre-Oscar) autobiography, Express to Hollywood (London: Jarrolds, 1934). For an overview on McLaglen’s dual careers, see Alex Daley ‘Hollywood Heavyweight’, Boxing News, 13 September 2018, p. 44. 2. Carpentier’s title became defunct when Jess Willard defeated Jack Johnson in Havana, Cuba, to become World Heavyweight Champion on 5 April 1915. 3. A male sport? An estimated 2000 women attended the New Jersey fight, while magazine illustrator Neysa McMain wrote of Carpentier that ‘Michel Angelo would have fainted for joy with the beauty of his profile’ (cited in Boddy, 2008, p. 219). 4. Carpentier had previously appeared as himself in a handful of French shorts and starred in the seven-reel Hollywood feature The Wonder Man (John Adolfi, 1920). He would appear in two further late-1920s US films and star in two French films in the early-1930s. 5. Beckett’s prominent involvement with the British Union of Fascists in the late-1930s adds a retrospective layer to his casting as the ‘white champion’ Cribb. 6. The Coloured Middleweight Championship was the only recognised title available to black boxers until Theodore ‘Tiger’ Flowers won the World title in November 1926, five months after the release of When Giants Fought. 7. Molineaux’s life and career in Georgian England are treated in the animated short The Prize Fighter (Jason Young, 2010). 8. Hitchcock’s second film as director, the British-German silent The Mountain Eagle (1926), remains the ‘holy grail’ of Britain’s lost cinema. 9. The effect was so successful that several contemporary reviewers were deceived: for example, ‘the boxing scenes are staged in the actual ring used in the Walker-Milligan fight at the London Albert Hall’ (Nottingham Evening Post, 22 November 1927). Hitchcock would reuse the Schüfftan

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process (and Matania) for the British Museum scenes in Blackmail, the Albert Hall again for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and the London Palladium climax for The 39 Steps (1935). 10. Due to the date of its official premiere The Ring is listed here as a 1928 release. Of its subsequent re-releases, notable is its showing at London’s Hackney Empire (mentioned in the film) on 13 July 2012 where the newly restored print was accompanied by a score specially written and performed by saxophonist and hip-hop artist Soweto Kinch. 11. Herring’s comparison to the 22 September 1927 Chicago world heavyweight bout is (ironically) flawed since Gene Tunney, the unanimous points victor, benefitted from a controversial delayed count when downed by Dempsey: the fight became known as ‘The Long Count Final’. 12. It is most often overlooked: for instance, the re-evaluative Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays, ed. Richard Allen and S.  Ishii Gonzales (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989), gives The Ring a single ‘name check’—in a discussion of his television work, p. 62. 13. For Jonathan Rosenbaum, ‘The Ring is probably the most Germanic in style of Hitchcock’s silent films’ (MFB, 43, 510, July 1976). 14. Hitchcock biographer Spoto suggests that ‘the recently married director portrays marriage as a series of “rounds” or “cycles” that comprise a long struggle’ (Spoto, 1983, p. 101). 15. Hitchcock recalled the staging with (sadistic?) relish: ‘I exploited Brisson’s knowledge of boxing. I told him to box as he would if it were a genuine match. So Brisson, with the eye of a practiced athlete, attacked Ian’s body … It was a raging hot day. [Hunter] was sweating like a bull. They fought on and on, Hunter swinging at Brisson’s handsome elusive face; Brisson plugging blow after blow to the mark; Hunter puffing and blowing and grunting with every smack he took. Finally, I gave the signal for the last of it. Brisson was to knock out his opponent. He launched a blow at Hunter’s body. Hunter caught his breath with a gulp, that sort of gulp you give when a football catches you amidships. He swayed, tottered, sat down. He was congratulated on a brilliant piece of acting. I got some kudos for a good piece of direction. Actually, neither of us deserved any credit. I was not directing. Hunter was not acting. He was really “out”.’ ‘Life Among the Stars’, News Chronicle, 1–5 March 1937.

References Abramson, L.  H. (2015). Hitchcock and the Anxiety of Authorship. Palgrave Macmillan. Bakhtin, M. (1984 [1965]). Rabelais and His World (H. Iswolsky, Trans.). Indiana University Press.

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Bamford, K. (1999). Distorted Images: British National Identity and Film in the 1920s. I.B. Tauris. Barr, C. (1999). English Hitchcock. Cameron & Hollis. Bergan, R. (1982). Sports in the Movies. Proteus. Boddy, K. (2008). Boxing: A Cultural History. Reaktion Books. Bogdanovich, P. (1963). The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock. Museum of Modern Art. Chapman, J. (2018). Hitchcock and the Spy Film. I.B. Tauris. Crawford, P. (2002). Politics and History in William Golding: The World Turned Upside Down. University of Missouri Press. Durgnat, R. (1974). The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock. Faber and Faber. Gledhill, C. (2003). Reframing British Cinema, 1918–1928: Between Restraint and Passion. BFI. Glynn, S. (2019). The British Horseracing Film: Representations of the ‘Sport of Kings’ in British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan. Gottlieb, S. (2014). Hitchcock’s Silent Cinema. In T. Leitch & L. Poague (Eds.), A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock. Wiley Blackwell. Hitchcock, A. (1968). Film Production. In Encyclopaedia Britannia, 15. William Benton. Humphries, P. (1986). The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. Bison Books. Krohn, B. (2010).  Masters of Cinema: Alfred Hitchcock (English ed.). Cahiers du Cinéma. Low, R. (1948). History of the British Film, 1914–1918. George Allen and Unwin. Low, R. (1971). History of the British Film, 1918–1929. George Allen and Unwin. McFarlane, B., & Mayer, G. (1992). New Australian Cinema: Sources and Parallels in American and British Film. Cambridge University Press. McGilligan, P. (2003). Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. John Wiley & Sons. Mogg, K. (1999). The Alfred Hitchcock Story. Titan Books. Murphy, C. (2016). A History of American Sport in 100 Objects. Basic Books. Napper, L. (2015). The Great War in Popular British Cinema of the 1920s. Palgrave Macmillan. Robinson, K. (2017). ‘King of Cameramen’: Jack Cox and British Cinematography in the Silent Era. In I. Q. Hunter, L. Porter, & J. Smith (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to British Cinema History. Routledge. Rotha, P. (1967). The Film Till Now (4th ed.). Spring Books. Ryall, T. (1986). Alfred Hitchcock and the British Cinema. Croom Helm. Sammond, N. (2015). Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation. Duke University Press. Smith, K.  R. (2003). Black Genesis: The History of the Black Prizefighter 1760–1870. iUniverse.

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Spoto, D. (1983). The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Plexus. Sterritt, D. (1993). The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. Cambridge University Press. Taylor, J. R. (1978). Hitch: The Life and Work of Alfred Hitchcock. Faber and Faber. Truffaut, F. with H.G. Scott (1986 [1968]) Hitchcock (Rev. ed.). Paladin. Warren, P. (1995). British Film Studios: An Illustrated History. B.T. Batsford.

PART II

The Sound Treatment

CHAPTER 4

Boxing Sound and Vision: 1929–1939

4.1   Fistic Funnymen (and a Dog) Though cinema was never truly ‘silent’, the transition to recorded sound in Britain was protracted—a drawn-out slugfest rather than a rapid K.O.  Commercial factors were paramount: studios had to lay out on sound production facilities, while cinemas chains needed to wire picture houses and absorb the higher costs of sound film rentals. Aesthetic issues also came into play, however: the necessity to demonstrate sound, especially the human voice, lead to new stylistic norms, with more staged, static performance modes militating against dynamic and purely physical displays. This latter factor meant that, as the medium shifted to sound recording, boxing was initially little used, except as minor strands in non-­ sporting genres. Nonetheless, there were areas of continuity. If live action film was at first relatively immobilised by microphones, animation could still ‘move’ freely, and thus Horace Shepherd Productions’ Bingo the Battling Bruiser (Norman Cobb, December 1930), part of Britain’s first sound animation series, revived the canine carnage previously seen in Pongo’s Rodeo.1 In this, one of four episodes, Bingo is encouraged by his girlfriend to enter a £500 challenge boxing match with prizefighter Samson. During his road training the boxing-possessed dog confronts various animate and inanimate objects: a goat, fish, scarecrow, even a signpost. After a farcical fight Bingo fells Samson with a hammer, but is then himself knocked out by his © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2_4

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girlfriend and stretchered away. Twenty years and a world war on, with all the imaginative possibilities of animation, disappointingly Bingo merely peddles a narrative re-run of Coleby’s Boxing Fever. Of ‘limited appeal’, adjudged Bioscope (21 January 1931, p. 33). Alongside increasing numbers of sound pictures and quota quickies, 1929 saw the establishment of the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) and the sport’s liberation from the lengthy private and patrician control of the National Sporting Club. These parallel changes were refracted in a decade exploiting popular intermedial practices. Andy Medhurst cogently argues that ‘any history of British cinema that realises the need to situate the cinematic institution within its shifting webs of social relationships needs to pay great attention to the legacies of music hall’ (1986, p. 185) and, as sound cinema slowly found its voice, it is notable how frequently well-loved comedians, moving from their secure music-­hall environment, hitched their star to the proven practices of the boxing ring, some mining ‘cut-glass’ quota quickie tropes, but almost all adding a proletarian vulgarity to give this genre entry a distinctly regional and demotic, less deferential class appeal. First on the bill was Welsh-Pearson Films’ (lost) Auld Lang Syne (George Pearson, April 1929), where famed Scottish music-hall performer Sir Harry Lauder (knighted in 1919 for his Great War fund-raising) plays Perthshire farmer Sandy McTavish who, visiting London, is distraught to discover that his daughter Marie (Dodo Watts) prefers cabaret dancing to nursing and that his son Angus has abandoned the chemistry lab for boxing—another role for Pat Aherne whose fighting scenes add action and excitement to the lead’s broad comedy. Though Sandy is initially shocked by London behaviour, his outlook is broadened as both offspring prove their merits and cups of kindness are finally taken. Like Hitchcock’s Blackmail—and Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer (1927)— Auld Lang Syne was initially made as a silent movie, shot in late-1928 at Cricklewood Studios and trade shown as a ‘rollicking comedy-drama’ with Lauder mouthing six popular classics intended for live cinema musical accompaniment with subtitles. However, the progressive and persistent Pearson laboriously synchronised existing RCA recordings of Lauder to 2000ft of hand-cranked film, earning the film an American renter and a September UK (re-)release, newly billed as a ‘Paramount Synchronised Sound Picture’ (Mundy, 2007, p. 30). Thus, the film marketed as Britain’s first-ever screen musical was also the first sound film to feature boxing content. Reviews, though, suggest its fair-to-middling commercial return

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came from its star rather than sound or sporting content: ‘the acting of Lauder, his comic genius as translated in facial expressions and the movements of that ugly and ungainly little body, are so superbly right as to make one almost forget the poverty of his material’, noted Britannia (19 April 1929, p. 643). As sound cinema established itself, Welsh-Pearson advanced a more prominent boxing theme in The Third String (George Pearson, February 1932), a first feature film vehicle for Sandy Powell, the bespectacled Rotherham-born music-hall regular best known for his catchphrase ‘can you hear me, mother’. Pearson’s film, a 65-minute remake of George Loane Tucker’s 1914 adaptation of W.W. Jacobs’ story, had Powell playing sailor Ginger Dick who pretends to be a boxer in order to impress Julie Tucker (Kay Hammond), barmaid at the Jolly Pilots. His boasting means he has to fight for real another suitor, the fearsome champion Bill Lumm (Alf Goddard): Julie, seeing through Dick’s arrogance, decides instead to marry her titular ‘third string’, Pilots’ landlord Pete Russett (Mark Daly). Sound, though, did not necessarily mean success: bemoaning a ‘slowness in tempo’ and ‘lack of intimacy’, the Daily Herald felt that ‘the Jacobs vein is not caught as it was in silent films’ (2 May 1932). If Jacobs was missing, the ‘feminine motive’ would remain a genre constant from the silent into sound eras (cf. even Bingo’s fighting), which brings to the fore the comic strand’s concomitant investigations of gender expectations. Rotund and myopic, Powell’s masculinity, troubled by comparison to the easy self-awareness of the other male characters, tries to measure up to models which are simultaneously debunked. Julie’s rejection of both the physically hypermasculine Lumm and the verbally hyperbolic Ginger shows, after her youthful flirtations, the hegemonic socio-sexual desire for a safe and decent masculine ‘norm’ like the landlord Russett. Evidence that slapstick still had merit in the ‘talkies’ era could be found in the concurrent Splinters in the Navy (Walter Forde, April 1932) from Twickenham Film Studios Productions. This was another film vehicle for a Yorkshire-born music-hall comedian, who again played a boxing sailor, again fought for the girl, again against Alf Goddard. This time, the lead in a 76-minute ‘farce with song and dance’ was dumpy and doleful Loiner Sydney Howard, admired by Graham Greene for his realist streak and an ‘important low-brow comedian of the first wave of sound films’ (Sutton, 2000, p. 112). Howard plays Able Bodied Seaman Joe Craggs, part of a crew staging a variety performance to celebrate the impending marriage of

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their Admiral, Sir Rodney Boles (Rupert Lister). Joe must also take on navy boxing champ Spike Higgins (Goddard), but this time, in generic tradition, by winning the fight he thereby also wins the girl, Lottie (Helena Pickard). In another difference to Powell’s film, this was not a remake but a sequel, to Splinters (Jack Raymond, 1930), the popular origin story of the titular concert troupe formed by soldiers during the Great War.2 The regional appeal of such filmmaking can be gleaned from reviews. The northern Manchester Guardian enthused: despite the concert setting it felt ‘the real theme of what is accurately described as an extravaganza is fistic—a comic bully to be put in his place’ with the climactic ‘ring contest, between decks, only a shade or two less exhilarating than the famous fight in City Lights—its obvious inspiration, and fully as ingenious’ (5 April, 1932). The London-based Saturday Review strongly disagreed: it accepted that Howard ‘has some amusing moments’ but ‘many of the pictorial ideas are by no means new’ and, overall, ‘The very provincial nature of the entertainment may appeal to some, but I cannot think that it will to many’ (14 November 1931, p. 623). Manchester wins here. Demonstrating a growing confidence in the new medium’s possibilities, Splinters in the Navy makes effective use of both sound and vision for comic purposes. The availability of audio allows Forde innovatively to exploit the forces’ setting and its strictly enforced hierarchies of class, discourse and education. Joe’s barely literate written request that ‘the old man … getting splised to a taistey bit of skirt … cals for a fre and eesey’ is held on screen as an officer, rather than handing over the note, ‘translates’ its content to Admiral Boles, recommending how ‘on the occasion of the approaching nuptials … the lower deck … crave permission to celebrate this epoch-making event by presenting a gala performance’. Impressed by the level of education below decks, the admiral acquiesces. This epistemological play continues into the film’s boxing-centred narrative, another forces-set genre staple. Here Joe must regain the respect of his girlfriend who thinks him a coward when he fails to defend her against Spike’s insults. The boxing plot foregrounds a second set of polarities, with the base, lumbering physicality of Spike set against Joe’s mental sharpness and camp whimsy. These opposites prove hard to bring together in competition: pressurised by Lottie, Joe consistently tries to start a fight with Spike, spiking his drink, stamping on his cigar, but each time his actions are misinterpreted since, for his adversary, Joe lacks the ‘masculinity’ to be accepted as a serious challenger. When a pre-concert contest is

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finally arranged, Joe, aware he faces certain defeat, engineers the periodic cutting of the lights and bringing a double into the ring, notably when under the count. Spike thus fights Joe, then his double, then Joe again. At one point the lights come on too early and Spike sees two opponents in the ring: he lashes out at the middle ground, a literalisation of the battered boxer ‘seeing double’. Disoriented and disheartened, Spike is eventually defeated, while the regained Lottie’s besotted complements—‘I never thought you had it in you’—are met with Joe proclaiming equivocally that ‘I’m twice the man I was’. As David Sutton notes, ‘This burlesquing of masculine behaviour, and especially the “codes” of masculine conflict, ties in with the film’s whole project of exposing the ways in which notions such as class and gender are rigorously constructed rather than natural phenomena’ (Sutton, 2000, p. 117). Joe’s simulated conformity with the admired tenets of ‘masculinity’ is fictional, a doubling necessitated by his restricted social circumstances and physical condition. The final concert, where the Splinters ‘girls’, to roars of approval, reveal themselves as men in drag, adds a further doubling, another appearance-versus-reality indication that, beyond the narrative-necessary formation of the couple, gender performativity is essential to all branches of the entertainment industry, boxing included. Just making the weight in this division is Excuse My Glove (Redd Davis, February 1936), scripted by Katherine Strueby and Val Valentine and filmed at Rock Studios, Elstree by Alexander Film Productions. The film is given comic if not commercial heft with the casting of two music-hall comedians on opposing career trajectories. The official co-star is Archie Pitt, the Camberwell-born showman now better known as husband-­ manager of Gracie Fields and here making his third and final ‘solo’ film appearance (Norman, 1981, pp. 207–212). Also present is rising Cockney music-hall star Ronald Shiner—a regular support to George Formby before hitting ‘overnight’ celluloid stardom in Reluctant Heroes (Jack Raymond, 1951). Excuse My Glove, ambitiously taglined an ‘epic romance’, follows Don Carter, a mild-mannered admirer of ancient stained glass who is cajoled into fighting at a funfair boxing booth, where proprietor Bill Adams (Pitt) sees money-making potential and appoints himself Don’s manager. He is backed by wealthy boxing enthusiast Fanney Stafford (Olive Blakeney), with whose niece Ann Haydon (Betty Davies) Don falls in love. With ‘expert’ training from Hurricane Harry (Wally Patch) and Perky Pat (Shiner), the reserved fighter quickly rises through the ranks, despite the generic obstructive ploys of rival manager Madigan (Arthur

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Finn) which include a kidnapping and Don losing his licence. Reinstated and with Ann spurring him on, Don fights his way to final victory and the heavyweight champion’s title. Perhaps to compensate for the lightweight Pitt (and Shiner), Excuse My Glove hedged its bets—and is today principally memorable—by providing an unprecedented roll-call of boxing talent both past and present. In a heavily publicised move, cast as lead was Leonard aka Len Harvey (122-14-10), a boxer in the flush of his career and dubbed ‘the Modern Bob Fitzsimmons’ since he hailed from the same Cornish town of Helston and was compiling a similar haul of boxing titles. Advertising material heralded a film ‘starring British Empire Heavyweight Champion’ and in time Harvey would become the only holder of British middle, light-heavy and heavyweight titles and UK (but not US)-recognised world light-­ heavyweight champion (1939–1942). Having only previously appeared, briefly, as himself in 1934’s The Bermondsey Kid, an astute move saw Harvey’s fictional character mostly acted upon, his tractability obviating the need to show strong acting skills. When called upon to be active, Harvey enjoyed boxing company as his big-fight rival Jonny Williams was played by Don McCorkindale (29-17-4), 1930 South African heavyweight champion. Also making cameo appearances, as themselves, were A Pit Boy’s Romance star Jimmy Wilde, plus British cinema’s most prolific film boxer, recently elevated to ubiquity as Rank’s new ‘gongman’, Bombardier Billy Wells.3 With an eye to domestic and Commonwealth interest and adding a fan service for boxing cognoscenti, there was also an international roster of film-debutant walk-on parts. Before a mid-film training session Fanney introduces Don to a line-up featuring Benny Caplan (58-16-7), Britain’s 1931 Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) featherweight champion; British lightweight champion George Daly (137-38-18); southern-area middleweight champion Frank Hough (104-46-8); veteran British heavyweight champion (1906–1909) James ‘Gunner’ Moir (14-11-0); Dave McCleave (77-25-3), ABA welterweight champion and 1934 Empire Games gold medallist; 1934 British lightweight champion Hyman ‘Harry’ Mizler (63-16-2); and Hounslow heavyweight Johnny Rice (34-14-4); for good measure Bert then brings on reigning New Zealand heavyweight champion Maurice Strickland (40-13-2). Before the championship decider the referee welcomes into the ring 1933–1934 French heavyweight champion André Lenglet (37-16-7); 1933 Spanish (amateur) heavyweight champion Claudio aka Pancho Villar (26-25-4); and future British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion Tommy

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Farr (84-34-17). Also announced, as timekeeper, was Matt Wells (50-30-3), 1914–1915 world welterweight champion, while order was kept by renowned boxing referee Moss De Yong. Even Bill’s pet pug bears the name Dempsey. The film’s boxing setting and authenticating cast-list broadened its appeal to adolescent and transatlantic markets. A front-cover image and illustrated adaptation of the script to Excuse My Glove featured in the weekly story paper Boy’s Cinema (14 March 1934), while the film was a rare British title picked up post-war by CBS for television broadcast (first shown in New  York in July 1949). However, despite its material reach, Excuse My Glove was only a moderate box-office earner, with reviews similarly mediocre. The trade admired ‘a real honest foot-to-foot fight’ and how ‘all the stars of the “fancy” are cleverly inserted’ in a film that ‘should thrill all those who favour the noble art, and will provide laughs for those who do not’ (The Era, 5 February 1936). The journal of the British Film Institute (BFI), in order of merit, found Pitt to be ‘excellent and his dialogue is crisp and funny’ while ‘Len Harvey is good as the boxer’: Davies, however, was ‘affected’ and her aunt ‘forced and inclined to be loud’. It also found (perversely) that ‘The boxing is very romanticised and the last fight, of which one or two rounds would have been sufficient, is prolonged to include many shots of foul hitting by the hero’s opponent’ (Monthly Film Bulletin (MFB), 3, 25, January 1936, p. 24). Too much boxing and not enough comedy-romance, it seems, damaged both Pitt’s and Harvey’s prospects more than the laboured machinations of Madigan and Co. Excuse My Glove is, in several aspects, an exceptional film. Marcia Landy remarks that, largely because of its overwhelming focus on middle-class protagonists, ‘the British cinema of the 1930s reveals very few instances of the physically forceful, supervirile male hero so characteristic of American cinema’ (1991, p. 239). The boxing film genre could be thought to buck this trend but, despite the plethora of alpha-males past and present on display, it does not happen here. The phrase ‘excuse my glove’ was a long-­ common expression employed in polite society when apologising for not removing a glove before a hand-shake. Its transposition to a boxing context intimates the cultured and compliant nature of Don’s character— Pitt’s simile is to the mark when he notes the boy has ‘taken to the game like a teetotaller to water’. Don is distracted in both his boxing and courtship beginnings by sighting adjacent stained-glass windows, while his gallantry makes him an easy victim to the wiles of Madigan’s Cocktail Club

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Fig. 4.1  Excuse My Glove—Superman gets a shiner

temptress Lucille (Vera Bogetti). Ahead of his title tilt, realistic punch-bag sessions and long runs are supported by observations that Don is ‘filling out nicely’, but his transformation from bookish crystalophiliac to boxing champion is principally signalled (anticipating Clark Kent’s Superman by two years) by the mere removal of his rounded spectacles (Fig. 4.1). Perhaps indicative of Strueby’s (rare) female scripting for the genre, the most forceful characterisation in Excuse My Glove is female. Docile Don is entirely at the mercy of Lucille’s ploys then Ann’s forgiveness, their actions causing him to lose then, just in time, regain his ‘fighting spirit’. Adams, out of his depth outside the fairground, needs the boxing-business mentorship of Fanney, whose aggressive wisecracks and indeterminate accent hint at American ‘screwball’ influences. She may tell Madigan that ‘with you it’s a business, with me it’s a sport’, but she knows how to petition successfully to overthrow Don’s boxing ban, then skilfully builds ‘a shortcut to headlines for the boy’ by courting journalists and former boxers to Don’s training sessions. Sensing something afoot in the big fight, she moves ringside and, though Ann’s encouragement is the decisive factor, Fanney’s tactical advice facilitates Don’s rapid victory. This refreshing female self-confidence is nonetheless overlaid with hegemonic class status. Fanney and her niece live in a spacious lodge, have a butler, cars and

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horses: while Don’s origins are indeterminate, Bill is unmistakably proletarian with his devotion to his pug, avoiding his rent-seeking landlord, wearing a false shirt-front and bemused when offered tea and cucumber sandwiches. The final double marriage, with everyone gathered beneath the church windows so admired by Don—‘genuine Florentine, by golly!’—could promise gender, class and generational unity: instead, through the prism of boxing, it continues the power dynamic, Harry wryly observing that in this, Bill’s ‘last fight’, he ‘won’t be able to chuck in the towel when he wants to quit’. The romantic storyline may be etiolated rather than epic, and the kidnapping a hoary plot-point seen as far back as Lieutenant Daring (1912) but, in keeping with the casting strategy, Excuse My Glove’s fight scenes are its most achieved both discretely and in combination. The film begins, like The Ring, with establishment shots of a funfair, before closing in on a stall labelled ‘Bill Adam’s (sic) Boxing Arena’. As Bill promises the crowd ‘the world’s greatest example of scientific pugilism’, a slow pan left-to-right reveals his assembled fighters, a motley, tattooed, multi-ethnic collection of boxing’s bottom line, their stares convincingly shorn of humanity, devoid of hope. It contrasts effectively with Fanney’s later introduction of the seven suited, largely smiling boxing champions, the difference in boxing hierarchies stylistically underlined with the camera panning in the opposite direction. Similarity before contrast marks Don’s first two ring appearances. His fairground debut, where he knocks out ‘Big Boy’ Ruffer only for Bill to ring an early bell, causes such crowd resentment that the tent collapses, voiding all bets. His professional debut, four-walled by Bill, is equally impecunious as Don effects so swift a knockout of fancied Sailor Johnson that the crowd, suspecting foul-play, again threaten a riot until full refunds are agreed. Both scenes cogently replay the quality-versus-­ quantity conundrum present in the sport since its silent newsreel days—cf. Carpentier-Wells in 1913. The presence here of Wells and Co. is purely to add ‘colour’: (mercifully) the only cameo fighting sees Jimmy Wilde painfully replay his 1916 title-winning knockout of America’s Young Zulu Kid (Giuseppe Di Melfi) with a slow, staged uppercut to an over-reactive Harry. The championship decider, however, offers the fullest British film fighting of the decade. The venue, like the fairground opening, again parallels The Ring, with the Albert Hall now genuinely populated, adding a realistic, echoing undertow of crowd comment interspersed with raucous cheering, while Harvey facing McCorkindale, mostly shot in authenticating mid- and long-shots,

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re-presents fighters credible in both body-shape and movement. There is inevitably a degree of dramatic hyperbole: Don has a rib broken in his escape from Madigan’s kidnappers, hence occasional close-ups of him wincing from blows to his right side (a legitimate tactic and not the ‘foul hitting’ misread by the MFB); nine knockdowns (seven to Don) in five rounds also register as excessive. Nonetheless, there is an effective recreation of a big fight’s ebb and flow, while the prolonged footage conveys aspects of Harvey’s distinctive style, ‘a master of the art of self-defence’ fighting with an upright stance and accomplished at both long-range and close-quarters (Odd, 1983, p. 58). Incidental details also strike true: a front row of tuxedoed journalists phoning in their match reports; Don lifting Williams after a slip to the floor, his sportsmanship earning a ripple of applause. Overall, Excuse My Glove constitutes a worthy contender for the best British boxing film of the decade. The strand’s underlying explorations of class division and structures of masculinity—plus the narrative triumph of the underdog—were all staples of films starring the most popular singer-comedian of the late-1930s, Wigan-born George Formby. He entered the cinema ring in Keep Fit (Anthony Kimmins, February 1938), with boxing serving as a convenient vehicle for his toothy ‘everyman’ persona to vanquish both his own cowardice and a burly bourgeois rival. Signed by Basil Dean to his Ealing-­ based Associated Talking Pictures (ATP), Formby’s opening success with No Limit (Monty Banks, 1935) led to his screen management by a dedicated ‘Formby Unit’ including director/co-writer Kimmins and cinematographer Ronald Neame. The next eight films, unaffected by Michael Balcon succeeding Dean, stuck closely to the winning formula: each release centred on Formby’s ‘George’ persona who, via knockabout routines and action sequences, triumphs over personal and social adversity, attains his professional ambition, wins the posh Home Counties girl—a union helping extend Formby’s appeal to national level—and sings his risqué self-penned songs. Most of these films were given a sporting setting, notably TT rallying in No Limit, while Trouble Brewing and Come On, George (both Kimmins, 1939) allowed George to exploit his youthful training in horseracing (Glynn, 2019, pp. 79–84). In Keep Fit, George plays George Green, a scrawny assistant barber at a large department store. He is secretly in love with Regal’s manicurist Joan Allen (Kay Walsh), but she is more attracted to muscular middle-class Hector Kent (Guy Middleton) from the sports section. Building on fitness regimes such as the Women’s League of Health and Beauty campaign that

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swept Britain in the 1930s (Jones, 2013, pp. 69–70), the plot sees the local County Echo newspaper sponsor a county-wide ‘Keep Fit’ competition. George wants no part of it, but Hector exploits the opportunity to humiliate his love rival and gain the upper hand with Joan. Hector, however, is beholden to a criminal gang that uses George as their dupe in a rigged boxing contest. When his opponent takes a dive, George is convinced he is a champion and, with Joan’s encouragement and a lock of her hair for luck, takes on and defeats Hector in the ring. The film was well reviewed, the Manchester Guardian applauding ‘an admirable vehicle for this comedian’ (5 February 1938, p. 5), while the MFB (generously) thought this ‘riotous comedy’ was ‘Good entertainment in the Chaplin tradition’ (4, 44, August 1937, p. 166). Formby’s star shone long enough for Keep Fit to earn a post-war re-release, in April 1947. Marcia Landy notes of Formby how, ‘More than other comedians, he appears concerned with his identity. His actions on behalf of himself and others expose his desire to belong and to establish his self-worth’ (1991, p. 353). In all his films this proving of self, the move from (sexual and social) impotence to integration and recognition, is conducted through a validating physical activity: hence the recourse to sporting settings. The need for this agency-enhancing competitive arena is here shown as George seeks to impress the girl with his social standing and physical prowess but, unlike Joe Craggs in Splinters in the Navy, cannot carry off the subterfuge. When Joan agrees to join George for a trip along the river, his am-dram workmate Ernie Gill (George Benson) finds him an exclusive boating club blazer and agrees to introduce himself as a man George once bravely saved from drowning. Unfortunately, Ernie’s exaggerated performance lands him in the river: neither he nor George can swim, leaving the nearby Hector to rescue the pair, and exit triumphant with an infuriated Joan. Joan was, however, impressed by George’s riverside serenade of ‘I Don’t Like’, gently self-deprecating and chastely romantic. It is an atypical number as usually the George persona, debilitatingly diffident in women’s company, ‘erupts’ into knowing double entendres when strumming his ukulele, deconstructing the decade’s compulsive linear narrative and strict censorship rules with a plot-arresting and improper musical display. More typically, in ‘Biceps, Muscles and Brawn’, performed as George contemplates his unprepossessing physique in the changing room mirror, his boxing-­centred dream that ‘the ladies’ “white hope” I would be, / They’d hope to see much more of me’ is followed by a close-up of the singer smiling straight to camera, sharing the innuendo. The title track, sung as

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George works out in a makeshift outdoor ring, is again light on (though not devoid of) sauce but, in contrast to his earlier riverside subterfuge—or Joe Craggs’ faked physical doubling—emphasises the potential for genuine self-improvement: ‘Keep fit, take exercise, keep fit and you’ll be wise / That’s it, grow twice your size, whatever you do, keep fit’. Jeffrey Richards proposes that Formby’s ‘juvenile’ attitude towards sex made him a ‘far readier figure for general identification than the unashamed sexual athletes who were his potential rivals and who alienated more respectable section of the mass audience’ (1984, p. 192). The situation, though, is not so polarised in Keep Fit which again works to deconstruct masculine conventions. George is humiliated when, accompanied by Joan, he discovers his image placed alongside a picture of Hector in the Keep Fit Movement’s advertising poster. Under the logo that fitness is ‘the ideal of every man’ George’s left-side image signals ‘Before’, puny, round-­ shouldered, fatigued—and proletarian: Hector’s right-side image signals ‘After’, muscular, broad-shouldered, fit—and middle-class. The joke may be predicated on George’s apparent distance from British society’s ‘masculine’ ideal, but his training and final in-ring bravery effectively validates the campaign’s logo that one can realise the ideal and cross from ‘before’ to ‘after’. George does so without sacrificing those affective—conventionally labelled ‘feminine’—qualities of kindness and sensitivity, even artistic creativity. George’s comically enacted line in ‘Keep Fit’ to ‘Punch that bag as if you’re punching your opponent’s head’ verbally echoes the more serious and cinematic superimposition of Bob Corby’s looming face on Jack Sander’s punchbag in The Ring, and his big fight has the same gender-­ generated dynamic as Hitchcock’s finale: the power of an errant love token and the fought-over girl arriving ring-side lead a revitalised George, with habitual slapstick exaggerations, to floor his rival. Carried from the ring with Joan by jubilant supporters, George’s true masculinity is accepted, both by the girl he loves and the society where he desires to belong: boxing has been his rite of passage.

4.2   The East End, Ethnicity and Masculinity If music-hall star vehicles permitted a gentle probing of masculinity across class divides, other boxing comedies tangentially examined its place amongst Britain’s different ethnicities. Money Talks (Norman Lee, April 1933), filmed at Elstree Studios for BIP, is a 70-minute comedy set in London’s Jewish East End. It stars Jewish comedian Julian Rose né Julius

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Rosenzweig, Philadelphia-born but UK-based from 1911, where he became a regular at the London Palladium and one of the first comedians featured on BBC broadcasts, well-liked for his stereotypical fast-talking Jewish character portrayals. Here he plays aged Abe Pilstein who, with his business failing, agrees to sell up (for £500) to his sometime-friend and business rival, Hymie Burkowitz (Bernard Ansell). Abe then learns that he will inherit £100,000 from an American aunt, provided he can prove he has less than £50 to his name in one month’s time. He quickly backs his new neighbours’ hare-brained schemes, but is dismayed when all return handsomely on his investment. Meanwhile, his daughter Rosie (Judy Kelly) is growing increasingly fond of posh Kensington-based boxer Jimmie Dale (debutant Griffith Jones), a relationship that stirs jealousy in her childhood friend and Hymie’s son, fellow boxer Kid Burke. Tempers frayed, Jimmie and the Kid agree to fight—and Rosie reluctantly agrees to marry the winner. Her father, finally sensing a way to lose his money, bets heavily on the lighter Kid—who wins. The inheritance is lost, but a trusted son-in-law is gained. A solid performer on the southern circuit, reviews found ‘sound Jewish humour in this slight story’ (Picturegoer, 15 April 1933, p. 22). Director and co-writer Lee had previously written for Hitchcock (uncredited on The Farmer’s Wife (1928)), but there is little suspense here as Money Talks bears strong plot similarities to George Barr McCutcheon’s (regularly adapted) 1902 comic novel Brewster’s Millions and is typical of the age in combining its comedy with a revue format featuring song and dance numbers, notably from ‘Solly Sax (Gus McNaughton) and his Sax Appeals’. It is also, not least, a boxing film and, in a long-standing (but always risky) casting strategy, Hymie’s son, Kid Burke, was played, in his widely publicised film debut, by Judah Bergham, aka Jack ‘Kid’ Berg, the ‘Whitechapel Whirlwind’ (157-26-9). Berg’s presence, as much as Rose’s, gave the film a distinctly Jewish stamp. Though non-religious, Berg highlighted his Jewishness by entering the ring wearing ritual prayer items (tefillin) and, as evident in Money Talks, always wore a Star of David (Mogein Dovid) on his trunks (Fig. 4.2). ‘Handsome Jack’ came to BIP’s film as a British boxing celebrity, not only for securing the world junior-­ welterweight championship in 1930–1931, but also for his flamboyant lifestyle, reputedly enjoying a (brief) affair with Mae West and a (long-­ lasting) friendship with East End (Jewish) gangster Jack ‘Spot’ Corner (Harding, 1987).

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Fig. 4.2  Money Talks—the kid stays in the picture

Berg and Rose’s casting signals a return to territory first broached in Ronald Colman’s A Son of David, a prescient work since, by the mid1920s, it was generally agreed that ‘the Jew had supplanted even the Irishman as the dominant force in the fistic arenas of the world’ (Harding, 1987, p. 33). This dominance was especially visible around London’s East End where dedicated boxing halls such as Wonderland, Premierland and the Judeans had grown in popularity, with young men learning to defend themselves and counter negative stereotypes about Jewish masculinity. From here emerged a group of fighters prominent in British boxing rankings, such as Excuse My Glove’s future guest-stars Benny Caplan and Harry Mizler. There was a generational tension here, however, as rabbinical authorities insisted that boxing was morally wrong, a manifestation of the mores of the heathen (goyishe midas), while parents condemned the sport’s brutality and underworld connections. Nonetheless, second-generation

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boys adopted sports such as boxing ‘because they were fun and signified their acculturation and manliness’ (Riess, 2019, p. 150). Their determination to succeed peaked in 1934 when Jewish boxers held world championships in six weights, a profile that dissipated after the 1930s when Jewish families increasingly moved out of impoverished inner-city neighbourhoods with education and entrepreneurship proving surer paths to social mobility (Riess, 2019, pp. 157–158).4 Money Talks, for all its boarding-house banter and stage-show spectaculars, demonstrates this prevalence of boxing in the East End’s Jewish community. As rival suitor for Rosie, ‘guest-star’ Berg is called on not just to box and act, but also to speak—here we encounter British cinema’s first ‘real’ talking boxer. Berg’s straight acting merits a draw result: his delivery is (understandably) stilted, but this unwittingly lends his courtship scenes a credible diffidence. It is, perhaps paradoxically, the climactic boxing match that disappoints, with the regular casting corollary of pitching a real boxer against a ‘mere’ actor. The bout is poorly choreographed, with Berg’s renowned all-action non-stop punching style amortised as each fighter constantly trades swift but clearly half-hearted and mechanical blows to the body, with knockdowns the result of dives no more convincing than Acres’ military Boxing Match of 1896. In mitigation, Billy Wells referees, and the changing fortunes as first Burke then, decisively, Dale hit the canvas are overlaid with close-ups of Rosie’s expressive face, images that convey her growing understanding of where her true feelings lie. The concluding marriage scene, alongside allowing Rose to rework his best-known ‘Levinsky at the Wedding’ monologue, pushes home the message that the happiness of Abe’s daughter matters more than an unearned inheritance. This renders Money Talks ultimately an ironically titled film, and one that, with a personal fortune dependent on a boxing wager, fits the counter-intuitive paradigm pinpointed by Stephen Shafer that, though aimed at a popular audience, 60% of 1930s British films featuring gambling eschewed the vicarious enjoyment of winning a fortune to underline that new wealth did not necessarily equate with happiness (Shafer, 1997, pp. 180–181). Nor does the film’s ethnic specificity override the fact that the Dale-Burke fight-out reiterates the class divisions played out in the decade’s comedies, while Rosie not only marries within her Jewish community but conforms to cinema’s persistent promulgation of acquiescent class rigidity. This ‘happy ending’ is therefore readable as not just a generic convention for celluloid comic ephemera, but the boxing film as hegemony, a projection of the era’s social DNA.

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The Jewish dominance in boxing was relatively short-lived. Whitechapel’s Daniel Mendoza, film saviour of Pitt the Younger and English champion 1791–1795, was a rare role-model from the bare-knuckle era, but his success led families from another minority, given to naming their children after well-known people, to use ‘Mendoza’ as a common forename—the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community. Though often operating beyond the parameters (and legalities) of mainstream society, a relatively constant presence, especially in bare-knuckle and amateur boxing circles, has been provided by Britain’s GRT community for whom the sport holds a seminal importance, with fighting a (necessary) part of day-to-day life from boyhood and a key indicator of masculine worth (Woodward, 2014, pp. 54–55). As seen in historical films like The Happy Warrior, Gypsy Courage and even A Gipsy Cavalier, boxing also long provided a regular source of income from fighting all comers in fairground boxing booths. The nomadic lifestyle and responsibilities resultant from early marriage within the community have often precluded a professional career but the gypsy fighter had become a romanticised constant in the British boxing film. The focus was broadened and brought up-to-date in Blue Smoke (Ralph Ince, December 1935), a Wembley-shot quota film for Fox-British Pictures adapted from the story by another Hitchcock collaborator, Charles Bennett. The film follows Don Chinko (Bruce Seton), a promising boxer in a gypsy fair, who loves Belle (Tamara Desni), adopted daughter of the King of the Romanies. Not only are the travellers opposed by tenants of the local estate, but Belle is pursued by wealthy landlord Chris Steele (Ian Colin) who challenges Don to a boxing contest—with Belle’s hand the winner’s reward: Don duly wins. Alongside Belle’s (accepted) lack of agency, the film’s assertion of Romany rights over the landed gentry is problematized with Don played by the debutant Seton, Sandhurst-­ trained future 11th Baronet of Abercorn—again the ethnic minority is deprived the means of self-representation. Reviews noted that ‘Seton is not too well cast as the hero’ but still ventured that this ‘Romany romance/ boxing-booth comedy’ would be ‘good rough-house stuff for the masses’ (The Era, 25 December 1935). Leger Grindon emphasises the gender conflict posed by such romances in his study of American screen boxers: ‘How can a man retain his masculinity and at the same time achieve a fruitful union with a woman? The heroine of the boxing film does not simply represent romantic fulfilment, but challenges the exclusive male world of the ring. Marriage, domesticity and family mean giving up the diversions of fighting and the male coterie

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of the gym’ (2011, p. 19). The UK version of the genre invariably adds class to gender in the confining contours of its sporting treatments. Boxers were involved in (or adjacent to) love triangles in a quartet of female-­ centred romantic dramas churned out in the early-1930s to fulfil the Cinematograph Films Act. This support-feature strand tended to keep its boxer protagonists out of the ring (for economic reasons), and this release from a corrupt working environment allowed simpler presentations of the professional fighter’s essentialist—and working-class—decency. Ring-free altruism is evident, for example, in Self-Made Lady (George King, March 1932), adapted from Douglas Newton’s successful 1925 novel Sookey. Intended for first-feature release and filmed at Nettlefold Studios in Walton-on-Thames by George King Productions, it was unceremoniously put in its place when trimmed to 68 minutes and released as a quota offering by United Artists.5 The resultant ‘quickie’ stagily recounts the ascent of Sookey (Heather Angel) from slum origins to a respected fashion designer moving in high society. It is her long-time friend and secret admirer, boxer Bert Taverner (Henry Wilcoxon), who prevents the malicious revelation of her lowly origins by disposing of two blackmailers, though the only fighting shown comes between her two open admirers, caddish Lord Max Mariven (Charles Callum) sent on his way with a right-­ hook by medical student Paul Gineste (a debut for future Hollywood star Louis Hayward). Sookie agrees to become a doctor’s wife, but the absent Taverner resonates as the true hero. Nonetheless, the trade bemoaned how ‘a rather stolid’ Bert’s ‘prowess as a boxer must be taken for granted’ in an ‘average supporting feature with fair appeal to feminine patrons’ (Bioscope, 9 March 1932, p. 14). A similar dynamic drives Side Streets (Ivar Campbell, March 1933), a (lost) 45-minute quota effort from MGM filmed at Shepperton Studios by Sound City. This features retired boxer Ted Swan (Arnold Riches) who, to protect his fiancée Nancy Brown (Diana Beaumont), saves future mother-in-law (Jane Wood) from the machinations of her blackmailing husband (Paul Neville). An (uncredited) cameo from Excuse My Glove guest Gunner Moir as one of Ted’s old fighting companions gives the film a dual emphasis on romantic and ring loyalty6: nonetheless, it was summarily dismissed as ‘modest … entertainment for the unsophisticated’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 16 March 1933, p. 21). More tangentially, in ATP’s comedy-drama The Fortunate Fool (Norman Walker, November 1933), a quota quickie shot at Ealing (and edited by David Lean), wealthy author Jim Falconer (Hugh Wakefield), suffering from writer’s block, heads down to London’s Embankment to dig up

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human interest stories. He finds romance with attractive but impecunious typist Helen Baring (Joan Wyndham), and lessons in forgiveness from amiable rogue Battling Stubbs aka ‘Batty’ (Arthur Chesney), a former boxer turned vagrant and petty thief. Batty’s perky yet poignant biography, boxing having used him up and spat him out, is a highlight in a ‘simple tale’ where ‘too much dialogue and slow development militate against wholly satisfactory entertainment’ (Picturegoer, 14 April 1934, p. 28). There was (perhaps unfortunately) more action in Twickenham Film Studio Productions’ Mannequin (George A.  Cooper, December 1933), again penned by Charles Bennett. Here errant boxer Peter Tattersall (Harold French) leaves his true love Heather Trent (Judy Kelly again) when flattered by the attentions of wealthy aristocrat Lady Diana Savage (Diana Beaumont again). He realises the error of his ways, is taken back by Heather and true love reigns. The narrative may satisfy at an emotional level, and ideologically the film again displays the decade’s ideological adherence to class stratification, but the return to the ring proved a big mistake, with its central boxing match statuesque in a manner not intended by the film’s title: it was (correctly) decried as ‘farcical in its artificiality’ (Film Pictorial, 5 May 1934, p. 23). The issue of full-blooded ‘masculinist’ commitment in the ring featured, both contextually and textually, in two mid-decade features. The Bermondsey Kid (Ralph Dawson, February 1934) was a more accomplished boxing melodrama, another (lost) quota offering filmed at Teddington by Warner Brothers First National Productions. It tells how young newsboy Eddie Martin (a breakthrough role for Esmond Knight) shows skill as a boxer, but faces a dilemma when constrained to fight his sick best friend Joe Dougherty (Ellis Irving) for the championship. With Eddie expected to throw the fight, the film explores the corrupt side of British boxing, though press releases emphasised how ‘the tricks of some sections of the trade afford entertaining byplay, as do the details of a boxer’s training’. There is occasional comic leavening from music-hall-trained Syd Crossley as cornerman Porky, sustained love interest from Pat Peterson as Mary, and an early (uncredited) bit-part role for future director Val Guest, but the film resonates most fully at a contextual level, demonstrating that, while preferable to the fistic ignorance on show in Mannequin, mixing actors with real fighters brings inherent dangers. The Bermondsey Kid gave debut film appearances to two professional boxers: Len Harvey acquitted himself well and would return to the screen; not so Harry Mason (145-53-15), British and European lightweight champion (1923–1925)

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and British welterweight champion (1925 and 1934). As Knight recounted in his autobiography, Mason made few allowances for his new environment and knocked the actor out twice for real as they shot the final fight sequence: Knight thus attended the opening night with eyes half closed, his lips swollen and a flattened nose (1942, pp. 72–73). Suffering for one’s art paid off, however, with reviews praising how ‘The atmosphere is fairly convincing and the fights are realistically put over’ (Picturegoer, 27 January 1934, p. 21). This performative/staged/‘faked’ dimension to professional boxing was literalised in George Smith Enterprises’ Fifty-Shilling Boxer (Maclean Rogers, September 1937), a (lost) quota product filmed at Nettlefold Studios and distributed by Radio. The film follows the struggles of young circus clown Jack Foster (Bruce Seton again) through lowly clubs and the theatre stage as he seeks to become a top-ranking boxer. Reviews were mostly unsupportive, the BFI complaining that ‘the leading players are miscast and although they work hard their accents destroy conviction’ (MFB, 4, 41, May 1937, p. 97). This seems a credible objection: Seton may have had the build of a boxer but, extrapolating from Blue Smoke, must have sounded like a throwback to the likes of ‘Gentleman’ John Jackson, which here robs the tale of any rags to riches momentum. Picturegoer’s dismissal of the whole film as an ‘artless little story of a fairground boxer who trains up a young fighter’ (25 September 1937, p. 25) is harsher, though, as the film offers a lengthy (occasionally over-artful) study of a talented boxer’s apprenticeship, a career progression normally rushed through in a generic mid-section montage sequence. The title references mediocrity, the then-average wage of the bruised and battered journeymen of boxing booths and fairgrounds, and has equal relevance to Tim Regan (Moore Marriott), a former heavyweight champion who, with daughter Moira (Nancy O’Neil), offers early encouragement to Jack. When ailing Tim loses his fairground fighter position the trio move to London’s Elephant and Castle, where Jack finds work helping to train clients at a third-rate boxing club. The film’s invasive ‘theatricality’ failed to convince in its rudimentary fairground and boarding-house settings, but found its correct milieu when Jack is hired by a theatrical manager (Michael Ripper) for his new boxing-themed stage venture—‘the boxing sequences and an impression of a theatre audience are both well done’, noted the MFB. These scenes also problematise the nature of integrity both in romance and the ring as Jack attracts the (unwanted) attentions of actress Miriam Steele (Eve Gray), her earnest love scene rehearsals

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alienating Miriam and arousing the jealousy of leading man Jim Pollett (Charles Oliver): an infuriated Jack eventually fights ‘off script’ and knocks out Pollet for real in the play’s centrepiece. Jack may settle with Moira in generic conformity, but this transposition of boxing into a stage production foregrounds the sport’s necessary and complex balance between pure aggression and calculated showmanship. One can conjecture that Jack’s ability to pull his punches so as not to humiliate his boxing club charges may have earned him his theatrical break, but now his impassioned hitting, witnessed by celebrated sporting peer Charles Day (Aubrey Mallalieu), earns him a lucrative professional contract. As with Splinters in the Navy and Excuse My Glove, the film pointedly touches on issues of performativity, on boxing’s epistemology.

4.3   The 1930s Boxing Film Champion: There Ain’t No Justice (1939) Life in London, love affairs, and learning to lose all cohere in the decade’s most achieved British boxing film. The principal strengths in creating There Ain’t No Justice lie behind the camera. It was the debut feature for director Frederick Penrose aka Pen Tennyson, Eton-educated great-­ grandson of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, and was the first of three films Tennyson made for Ealing (The Proud Valley and Convoy followed in 1940) before, having joined the Royal Navy’s instructional films unit, he died in a plane crash in July 1941, aged just 28. He was the protégé of Michael Balcon, a family friend who, in 1932, employed the teenage Tennyson at Gaumont-British and, sparing him the usual apprenticeship on quota quickies (cf. Michael Powell), fast-tracked him to an assistant director role on five Alfred Hitchcock films, beginning with The Man Who Knew Too Much—where he met future wife Nova Pilbeam. Balcon brought Tennyson with him first to MGM and in 1938, when he took over as head of production at ATP, newly renamed Ealing Studios, promptly promoted him to Britain’s youngest feature director.7 Balcon recalled in his autobiography that, at university, Tennyson ‘had been a very useful boxer at his weight and he took a great interest in the fight game’ (1969, p. 123). He had also been active at Gaumont-British in helping to establish the Association of Cine-Technicians (ACT) as a viable union. His first directing project allowed him to combine his sporting passion and social conscience.

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There Ain’t No Justice was co-adapted by Tennyson with Geoffrey Maiden aka James Curtis, author of the same-named 1937 hard-boiled source novel. Curtis wrote five well-regarded crime novels between 1936 and 1939, all set in London’s underworld, and had already adapted a later novel for the screen—They Drive by Night (Arthur Woods, 1938), from First National, was a powerful depiction of serial killers, prostitutes and petty criminals set around the long-distance lorry-driving community. However, the novel’s treatment of prostitution and police brutality had been forcibly toned down for cinema release, and both Tennyson and Curtis knew the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) would never accept a faithful rendering of this boxing-based novel, especially its plotline where the reluctant hero resumes the fight game to fund his sister’s abortion. This became instead an issue of theft, while the novel’s unflinching descriptions of boxing cruelty in and out of the ring were also softened, the whole leavened with strands of verbal and visual humour. The filmed fight scenes remained relatively strong in their trading of punches, but a third act shift of tone and positive resolution constituted further significant changes. Balcon recalled the (generic) problem of finding ‘a young man who could both box and act, but this proved impossible’ (1969, p. 124). Eventually cast as male lead was former juvenile star Jimmy Hanley, with on-set ring coaching delivered by British cinema’s go-to boxer, Billy Wells. To achieve the desired sense of realism, the remaining cast were relatively unknown. The female lead, Jill Furse, had past and future parallels with Tennyson: she too had literary ‘pedigree’ as granddaughter of poet Sir Henry Newbolt; she too would die after only three films, in 1944 during childbirth. There was an early (second) credited role for Anna Neagle’s post-war co-star Michael Wilding, while a fleeting intertextual casting with the boxing genre can be found amongst the film’s extras: not only was there the de rigueur (uncredited) gym presence of the Bombardier; James Knight, silent lead in The Happy Warrior and When Giants Fought, was here a patrolling police constable; Harry Terry, the showman standing alongside Carl Brisson and Gordon Harker at the start of The Ring, here witnessed a street fight outside the boxing venue. Within the hall, around 50 ‘authentic types’ were selected from ‘their usual haunts’ to enhance the atmosphere of realism, a recruiting strategy agreed only after the local police came to look them over (Balcon, 1969, p. 125). The film had a rudimentary budget and, bar establishment shots of London’s Notting Hill area, was shot entirely on Ealing’s sound stages, with sets including

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gyms, boxing arenas, and a cart-ride through Putney devised by futureOscar winner Wilfred Shingleton. Coming in on time and to cost, There Ain’t No Justice was trade shown on 17 June 1939 and, though always intended as a support booking, earned a limited first-feature run at London’s Paramount Theatre: it reached general release in early December. The film centres on Tommy Mutch (Hanley), a young mechanic who, in an unprovoked street brawl, reveals his considerable boxing potential. He declines all offers to turn professional until he meets Connie Fletcher (Furse), a milk-bar assistant alongside Tommy’s sister Elsie (Phyllis Stanley). Anxious to make money so he can marry Connie, Tommy signs up with fight promoter Sammy Sanders (Edward Chapman), is marketed as a future champion, and convincingly wins his first four fights. On learning that these have been ‘fixed’ by Sanders, Tommy angrily breaks away. Meanwhile, Elsie’s young man Len Charteris (Wilding) robs her employer’s till and absconds: the stolen money must be replaced and, when Elsie attempts suicide, the Mutch family look to Tommy. He returns to the ring, accepting Sanders’ instructions to take a fall. However, by getting his trainer Harry Dunn (Mike Johnson) to bet heavily on him and then winning the fight, Tommy thwarts Sanders and saves his family: he abandons boxing to settle down with Connie. Although There Ain’t No Justice failed to turn a profit, the critical response was almost entirely positive. The BFI’s review was euphoric: ‘On the surface “just another boxing drama”, actually this film has much more to it than that. It is an extraordinarily vital and accurate picture of everyday working-class life as it is lived, and not as it is imagined. It has humour, pathos, racy dialogue, and in numerous slight but deft touches reveals Cockney wit and grit. The boxing ring is authentic and the small street backgrounds realistic. The acting is in keeping’ (MFB, 6, 61, July 1939, p. 136). The trade press also saw a winner. ‘Good popular stuff of robust character’, noted the Daily Renter (19 June 1939); ‘an entertainment irresistible in its appeal to the great masses of filmgoers’, thought The Cinema (21 June 1939). Most of Britain’s national press were similarly impressed: ‘The social sentiment is well observed, and the fight admirably handled’, thought the Daily Herald (4 August 1939); ‘See this, and see how good a British film can be when the budget is only £16,000’, advised the Sunday Mirror (6 August 1939). Some, though, were more reserved over ‘a tentative little story of the “racket” in small time boxing, that doesn’t quite build up to a good argument. It is full of good intentions gone aglay, interesting in promise rather than in performance’ (Observer,

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3 December 1939). The one major dissenting voice came from a critic who had greatly admired the sleazy underworld depicted in They Drive by Night, the film noir-loving novelist Graham Greene. He complained that ‘There Ain’t No Justice is intended to be an English tough film, but somebody’s nerve failed—and the rather winsome personality of Mr Jimmy Hanley. The etceteras—setting of bar rooms and coffee stalls—are admirable, but the whole picture breathes timidity and refinement’ (Spectator, 18 August 1939). For the author of the recently published Brighton Rock, the ‘English’ had unfortunately triumphed over the ‘tough’. Retrospective opinion has sided with the critical majority rather than Greene, and Tennyson’s film is now adjudged historically significant in studio, class (plus, I argue here, sporting) contexts, aspects that inextricably overlap and interconnect. Charles Barr cogently affirms that ‘Tennyson is involved in the beginning of the Ealing tradition, the most influential director in laying the foundation for what it became’ (1993, p. 18). For all the nepotism in his appointment, Balcon’s ‘golden boy’ helped to establish what the studio head wanted Ealing to achieve: films with a socially conscientious remit, made by and with fresh talent, and depicting realistic characters with contemporary concerns. Publicity material for There Ain’t No Justice labelled it ‘A picture of REAL people with NEW people for ALL people’ and, more pithily, ‘The Film That Begs to Differ’—a tagline redeployed a decade later in future-director Lindsay Anderson’s approbatory survey of Ealing’s output, entitled ‘The Studio that Begs to Differ’. Amid his panegyric Anderson picks out There Ain’t No Justice as ‘a film which in many ways broke new ground’ as it ‘dealt realistically and straightforwardly with the rackets and corruptions of professional boxing’ and ‘showed a seriousness and a sincerity encouraging when viewed against the general background of hokum which was the British cinema of the thirties’ (1949, p. 16). Later critics have concurred on its distinctive earnestness. For Rachael Low There Ain’t No Justice ‘was a remarkable small film’ and ‘unusual at the time both for its degree of realism and for the serious theme’ (1985, p. 254). Matthew Sweet thought it ‘one of the first British films of the sound era to make a serious attempt to represent the lives of working-class Londoners’ (2005, p. 170). While contemporary reviews employed the widest definition of ‘Cockney’, Tennyson’s debut piece can now be seen as constituting the starting point for Ealing’s repeated explorations of London communities across films ranging from It Always Rains on Sunday (Robert Hamer, 1947) to The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955). This section, through an examination of the

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studio-­based realism of Tennyson’s debut, makes the case for its laudable innovations as a British boxing film. After the opening credits, a ‘message statement’ appears full-screen: ‘This film is dedicated to the small-time boxer, who has too long been at the mercy of both managers and public. If it, in any way, helps those who are struggling to improve his lot we shall be more than happy.’ From the outset, the boxing focus is both emphasised and understood as synecdochic for wider society and working-class exploitation: indicatively, the establishment shots come to rest on the diegetic source of their accompanying soundtrack, a street-corner organ grinder, a regular representation of the resolute but downtrodden lower classes (Orwell, 2000, p. 134). Thereafter, There Ain’t No Justice innovatively explores the lives and loves of a fully working-class community, living in an area of social deprivation where, Tommy notes, ‘There ain’t room to move’, and shorn of the patronising/role-model presence of middle- or upper-class characters encountered in fare such as Excuse My Glove. (Even Connie’s home in leafy Putney, the spur for Tommy to better himself, is, at best, upper-working class.) It can veer close to stereotyped portrayals and British cinema’s underlying failure to forsake RADA for realistic accents can grate—Low is not far from Graham Greene in finding the rendition ‘slightly cosy’ (1985, p. 254)—but the film nonetheless credibly registers its distinctive sensibilities. Within the narrow class coverage, There Ain’t No Justice offers a (relatively) nuanced investigation of gender. It is arguably accurate in its focus on a working class publicly dominated by men’s movements, places and practices, but women are not marginalised, nor controlled in thought or action. Ma Mutch (Mary Clare) is the local matriarch, curtailing husband Albert (Edward Rigby)’s awkward pigeon-racing trophy acceptance speech, organising birthday celebrations for the neighbourhood, and acting as primary advisor on career and romantic issues. Sanders’ ‘moll’ Dot Ducrow (Nan Hopkins) shows herself knowledgeable on the fight game, while Connie asks nothing of Tommy in their relationship. Together the two young women prove decisive to the denouement, but earlier aspects of sexuality attendant to the practice and promotion of boxing are more dialectically positioned. Tommy is tempted towards sporting and sentimental corruption by Dot’s ‘straight up’ sexual interest. Decked out in a fox-fur wrap, Dot is no ‘dumb blonde’, displaying plentiful financial acumen as well as femme fatale beauty. Reminiscent of the astute Honey Baldwin (Constance Cummings) in Columbia’s pre-code The Big Timer

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(Edward Buzzell, 1932), she maps out the necessary narrative for Tommy winning his top-bill debut: ‘give the fans a jolt, get them all guessing’. She is a woman of aphorisms: ‘Me and the Mounties always get our man’, she notes confidently when instructed to bring Tommy to heel. She is also openly a woman of appetites, both sweet and sadistic: she licks a choc ice wrapper to mop up the melted remnants much as she later licks her lips while watching Tommy pummel Harry at a sparring session—she admits seducing the boxer will combine work with pleasure. But she has a rival: just as Dot, in her low-lit apartment, makes her decisive move on Tommy, kissing him and promising that, if he does as Sanders says, ‘we can have lots of fun’, the film cuts to family-oriented Connie (who pulled away when Tommy first tried to kiss her goodnight), upstairs in the Mutch house and cradling Ma and Albert’s young (late accident?) Lily. If the edit is not explicit enough, Dot invites herself round for Lily’s birthday celebrations, creating a frosty stand-off and final squabble with Tommy centre-­ screen and the competing women either side. The scene displays the film’s Madonna/whore dichotomy at its most blatant, though Connie, the eventual winner of Tommy ‘body and soul’, consistently occupies the (reputedly) dominant left-side of the mise-en-scene. Masculine polarities are also on show. Though played mostly in comic mode, the sport’s homoeroticism is more readable here than in previous British boxing films. The career help and personal care shown for Tommy by Harry Dunn can contextually resonate with the protective bond between Balcon and Pen Tennyson, but textually the interest more strongly blurs with potentially queer readings.8 Matthew Sweet offers a cogent parallel to This Sporting Life (Lindsay Anderson, 1963) and rugby league scout ‘Dad’ Johnson (William Hartnell)‘s ‘ogling’ passion for loose-forward Frank Machin (Richard Harris), another sportsman who brawls his way to lucrative recruitment (2005, p. 171). When Harry first appears in the corner cafe, cauliflower-eared with the figure of a boxer tattooed on his right cheek, he is mocked by Tommy’s friends for taking ‘something dirty’ out of his pocket. Rather than gay pornographic postcards they turn out to be posed photos of Harry as a lightweight championship contender back in 1904, but the link is nonetheless made between a sporting and sexually invested gaze. A constant presence at Tommy’s side, the trainer’s doting looks and ‘hands-on’ approach frustrate Dot (Fig.  4.3). When she interrupts his enthusiastic post-fight rub-down to give Tommy a passionate kiss, she turns and laughs to the trainer: ‘I do believe you’re jealous, Harry!’ By contrast, Elsie’s boyfriend Len

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Fig. 4.3  There Ain’t No Justice—boys to men

embodies heterosexual masculinity at its most toxic. Spiv-like in appearance and predatory in behaviour, Len is clearly a ‘wrong’un’, deeply mistrusted by Ma Mutch, the film’s moral compass. With his predilection for US gangster slang—‘you sure can swing a mean hoof’, he notes of Elsie’s dancing—Len suggests a Hollywood-influenced performativity, but his source-text sexual potency, too strong for pre-war British cinema, is here cloaked by the announcement of his engagement then excised by the plot shift that sends him away with the milk-bar takings. This hypermasculine position cannot be claimed for the object of Harry’s affections since Tommy, for all his boxing ‘character and personality’ as Sanders terms it (meaning his appeal to female boxing fans), is an ingénu with regard to intimacy, overpowered by Dot and ham-fisted with Connie. He lies instead at the fulcrum of another polarity as, around the competing women in his life, the film presents a battle between different communities for Tommy’s affiliation. The secure and cheery community of Notting Hill is introduced in the corner café with its animation and banter; it is celebrated in the dance scene where Tommy first meets Connie

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and the locals all dance (no cliché unturned) to London-favourite ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’; it is confirmed at the Mutch family’s cramped kitchen where negotiations over breakfast show a warm, cooperative and supportive dynamic. Tommy, though, is pulled in an opposite direction. The modern milk-bar, with its antiseptic, money-making imperative and unsympathetic manager Mr Short (John Boxer), serves as both a plot link and a conceptual ally to the harsh commercial world of boxing which Tommy enters (twice) and which, at a grassroots level shorn of wealthy patrons such as Excuse My Glove’s Fanney Stafford, is exposed as a site of intra-class struggles—a socio-cultural practice where the proletariat mercilessly exploits its own. There Ain’t No Justice was not the first study of the sport’s insalubrious underbelly—‘British boxing is not shown in a very good light in this picture’, noted Picturegoer of The Bermondsey Kid (27 January 1934, p. 21)—but Tennyson’s film offers the darkest depiction yet. Before Tommy’s first six-round two-minute ‘preliminary bout’ at the local arena, the MC announces the appearance of Billy Frist (Richard Ainley), a ‘game boy’ scarred and blinded by boxing (as shown in a held mid-shot): an appeal for charitable donations prompts a flurry of coins thrown onto the canvas in recognition of ‘one of life’s tragedies’. It is a rare recognition in the genre of the reality of sporting exploitation and the lasting damage that can lie behind boxing’s promise of fame and riches—the obverse to Tommy’s early dreams of joining ‘Dempsey and that lot’. It spooks the initially supportive Connie, her dread heightened by sitting beside Frisk’s crying wife and child. When Tommy fights, his face and chest are soon blood-­ spattered, while close-ups show Connie wincing whenever he receives a hit to the head (Dot meanwhile is visibly excited). Tommy’s post-match explanation that he is only fighting to fund their home together cannot prevent Connie expressing her disgust—‘all those people yelling and screaming just to see somebody hurt’—and breaking up with him. Small-time boxing is thus presented as a hard environment that Tommy must learn to negotiate and, as Marcia Landy notes, ‘The film is structured around the hero’s movement from a state of innocence to one of enlightenment; it is actually more a drama of initiation than conversion’ (1991, p. 252). Tommy starts as a Candide-like rookie, taken in by the patter from Sanders who, pointing to his wall-covered boxer portraits, effuses over his ‘help on their journeys through the fistic world’. After initial boasts to Connie of the ‘lovely money made in the game’ with earnings of £20–30 as top of the bill, the contract Tommy accepts—£3 a week plus ‘part of his

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winnings’—beats his £2 at the garage but hardly beats the ‘fifty-bob boys’ and is mocked by Sanders’ sidekick Perce (Al Mitten) as their ‘cheapest pull for a long time’. Full of himself after his first victory, Tommy is oblivious to the locker-room warning from an old lag that ‘you gotta lose fights as well as win them if you want to make a living in this game’. When put top of the bill at Putney Hall in a middleweight contest against ‘Hoxton Tiger’ Frankie Fox (Michael Hogarth), the man he earlier squared up to after a car prang, Tommy is completely unaware that his eighth-round victory is no ‘stone ginger’ match-up, but a pre-arranged dive from his experienced opponent—‘lovely bit of fakin’, boy’, notes Fox’s manager Alfie Norton (Gus McNaughton) as the boxer lands in his lap with a wink. Tommy’s outrage when enlightened that he has been party to ‘crooked fights’ is first countered by Fox’s incredulity at his ignorance—‘nark it, Snow White’ he warns, combining demotic threats with Disney topicality. It is followed by Dot’s more expansive and lucid explanation of the sport’s dual imperative: he and Fox can be ‘popular favourites’ in a lucrative series of contests, with audience interest piqued by their street punch-up and surrounding publicity heralding ‘the Fighters that really Fight’. The tagline is deeply ironic, though. Spelling out the performance connection narrativised in Fifty-Shilling Boxer, Dot elucidates: ‘You’ve got to be Charles Laughton as well as boxers; you’ve got to act!’ It also serves as a cinematically expedient pronouncement, the acknowledgement of pre-­ arranged choreography adding a veneer of verisimilitude to Tommy’s earnest but awkwardly articulated fights. After Connie, it is Tommy’s turn to reject this ‘whole dirty racket’, though Len’s theft promotes him to family patriarch and determines his ostensibly contrite return to the ring. Echoing the depersonalising words of promoter Nick Donati (Edward G.  Robinson) from Kid Galahad (Michael Curtiz, 1937), Sanders takes him back on the understanding that ‘you’re just a boxing machine, and you belong to me. You win when I tell you to; you lose when I say you lose!’ The earlier, ignored advice that ‘there’s only one person on top in the boxing game and that’s Mr Manager’ seems fully verified—but Tommy has learnt from Dot’s cogently articulated lesson that the game is performative, ‘show’ as well as ‘business’. The Gala Night return match with Fox, twelve two-minute rounds with Tommy to fall in the sixth, takes up the final thirteen minutes, roughly one-fifth of There Ain’t No Justice. The fight itself is not always convincing, with neither the stylistic flair and experimentation of The Ring nor the authentically recreated fighting techniques of Excuse My Glove, but it does

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display a degree of internal consistency, with Tommy/Hanley’s boxing style broadly in keeping with Harry’s early declaration for a ‘left hand out in front’ and ‘none of the boppin’ and weavin’ Yankee nonsense’. An early clinch occasions homophobic banter—‘don’t keep ‘em apart, they’re in love!’—and allows Tommy to inform Freddie that he is ‘fighting on the level’. This is both true and not true. Needing to bet his previous winnings with ringside bookies for maximum return, Tommy deliberately loses several rounds to improve the odds: finally, having drifted to 10/1, Harry places his bets and Tommy launches his fight-back. When Sanders realises the result is no longer secure, he sends for ‘the boys’ with instructions to ‘smash the place up’ to get the match voided—a disreputable tactic employed since the bare-knuckle days recreated in The House of Temperley. Recalling the opening dedication, Charles Barr notes that, while the film’s narrative foregrounds Sanders’ crooked manager/promoter, ‘there is little sense’ of the ‘sinister role for the public’ (1993, p. 19). This reading is hard to equate with the febrile environment already seen in Tommy’s fights, the (largely) testosterone-fuelled crowd baying for blood, chanting at injured boxers, in all senses ‘looking for a fight’. It is fully countered by two waves of heavies who now dispatch the venue’s security men and storm the ring, only to be countered by Tommy’s supporters which thus creates a parallel punch-up to the ongoing Fox versus Mutch. Even the match referee fights the invaders, aware of Sanders’ ‘tricks’ but accepting that, if the ring is not cleared by the interval’s end, the fight will have to be abandoned. The film here is more surely paced, a thrilling 60-second countdown offering regular close-ups on the time-keeper’s watch interspersed with a chaotic riot, chairs smashing, punches landing and prone bodies flung from the ring. Sanders’ man Perce all but severs the rope, but is pulled away by the combined efforts of Dot and Connie—the latter manoeuvred into attending by Ma Mutch, a different type of match-fixer. With the ring cleared just as the bell sounds, the fight resumes, long-shots placing it in tandem to the continuing punch-up in the stalls and gallery, before a mid-shot sequence shows a barrage of blows from Tommy that sends Fox to the deck. A climactic montage alternates shots of the referee administering the count with close-ups of Harry, Arthur, Connie and Dot, all laughing loudly, a recognition that, in the instance at least, social—and cinematic—justice has finally been done. It is when Tommy, concussed after falling through the cut rope, is carried back to his corner that Hitchcock’s influence finally comes into play. In actions reminiscent of the climax to The Ring, Connie tries to revive

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Tommy by pouring champagne over his head then fanning him with a towel. A subtler influence is acted out when Dot tells Connie to twist Tommy’s ears to bring him round. This procedure had already been seen in British cinema, during 1937’s Young and Innocent, the last Hitchcock film on which Tennyson had worked. It was employed by Nova Pilbeam’s Erica Burgoyne to revive wrongly suspected Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney) when he faints after a night’s grilling in police custody: to general surprise, Chief Constable’s daughter Erica explains that she picked up the technique ‘in a boxer’s dressing room’. Intimately intertextual, as Martin Carter notes ‘This acknowledgment to both Hitchcock and his fiancée provided Tennyson with an elegant ending for his first film’ (2012, p. 42). Revived, Tommy renounces the boxing world and, choosing the ‘good’ girl as his companion, indicates a victory for the decent side of working-­ class society—to underline the point, ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ is reprised on the soundtrack as the end credit appears. For Barr this ‘retreat (in no dishonourable sense)’ into a ‘restricted, cut off’ community harks back to the regional communities of ATP’s Formby films (1993, p. 19). Looking forward, though, this rejection of the new and cold ‘commercial’ world for the warmth of traditional family life sets up another constant for Ealing’s meta-driven depictions of society, with localised co-operation preferable to larger units of capitalist production and control. Except, that is, in the unregulated regional structures of boxing—a sporting arena to which Ealing will return post-war.

Notes 1. All films discussed henceforth are extant unless otherwise stated. 2. A further Howard-starring RAF-set sequel, Splinters in the Air (Alfred Goulding, 1937), ensured an equitable comic coverage of all the armed forces. 3. Wells succeeded former circus strongman Carl Dane in 1935 to become the second muscular figure striking the gong at the start of all J. Arthur Rank films since 1932. His sequence was only replaced by Phil Nieman in 1948. 4. The lives and cultural impact of Berg, ‘Kid’ Lewis and Mizler, concurrently emerging from London’s East End to take British and world titles, are celebrated in the documentary Ghetto Warriors (Elliott Tucker, 2007). 5. It also had to change its name to avoid confusion with the Paramount release Sooky (Norman Taurag, 1931).

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6. Gunner Moir would make six acting film appearances, most notably as crewmember Ponta Kanz alongside Bela Lugosi in Hammer Films Productions’ early The Mystery of the Mary Celeste aka Phantom Ship (Denison Clift, 1935). 7. Hitchcock was, like Tennyson, aged 26 when he debut-directed The Pleasure Garden (1925). 8. Balcon’s son, Jonathan, described the bond between producer and director thus: ‘I never doubted my father’s sexuality, except he did have this extraordinary thing about Pen. He was part of our family. Mick absolutely doted on him’ (cited in Sweet, 2005, p. 168).

References Anderson, L. (1949). The Studio that Begs to Differ. In G. Lambert & C. King (Eds.), Film and Theatre Today: The European Scene. Saturn Books. Balcon, M. (1969). Michael Balcon Presents … A Lifetime of Films. Hutchinson. Barr, C. (1993). Ealing Studios (Rev. ed.). Studio Vista. Carter, M. (2012). Pen Tennyson: Balcon’s Golden Boy. In M.  Duguid, L. Freeman, K. M. Johnston, & M. Williams (Eds.), Ealing Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan/BFI. Glynn, S. (2019). The British Horseracing Film: Representations of the ‘Sport of Kings’ in British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan. Grindon, L. (2011). Knockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema. University of Minnesota Press. Harding, J. (1987). The Whitechapel Whirlwind: The Jack ‘Kid’ Berg Story. Robson. Jones, H. (2013). Health and Society in Twentieth Century Britain. Routledge. Knight, E. (1942). Seeking the Bubble. Hutchinson. Landy, M. (1991). British Genres: Cinema and Society, 1930–1960. Princeton University Press. Low, R. (1985). Film Making in 1930s Britain. George Allen and Unwin. Medhurst, A. (1986). Music Hall and British Cinema. In C. Barr (Ed.), All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema. BFI. Mundy, J. (2007). The British Musical Film. Manchester University Press. Norman, B. (1981). The Movie Greats. Hodder and Stoughton. Odd, G. (1983). Encyclopedia of Boxing. Hamlyn. Orwell, G. (2000 [1929]). Beggars in London. In A Kind of Compulsion: 1903–1936. Secker and Warburg. Richards, J. (1984). The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1930–1939. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Riess, S.  A. (2019). Jews in Twentieth-Century Boxing. In G.  Early (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Boxing. Cambridge University Press. Shafer, S. (1997). British Popular Films 1929–1939: The Cinema of Reassurance. Routledge.

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Sutton, D. (2000). A Chorus of Raspberries: British Film Comedy 1929–1939. University of Exeter Press. Sweet, M. (2005). Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema. Faber and Faber. Woodward, K. (2014). Globalizing Boxing. Bloomsbury.

CHAPTER 5

The Post-war Return: 1945–1960

5.1   Boxing Outsiders No boxing-centred films were produced in Britain during the Second World War. Most able-bodied men were fighting larger battles, and both escapist and propaganda fare kept away from in-ring painful uppercuts and blood-splattered knockouts. That said, a mention in dispatches is merited for Waterloo Road (Sidney Gilliat, 1945), wherein an epic and largely realistic fist fight (up and down stairs, over banisters, into windows, all during a German air raid) allows decent but temporarily AWOL Army Private Jim Colter (John Mills) to save his marriage by defeating his disreputable if charismatic love rival, ex-Blackfriars boxer turned draft-dodging black-­ marketeer Ted Purvis (fight aficionado Stewart Granger). Alongside its inherent visceral excitement,1 the concluding contest of traditional social service and family values versus emergent self-centred entrepreneurship and promiscuity offers a symbolic ‘fighting for the postwar nation’, though Colter’s underdog triumph cannot fully deliver the desired hegemonic reassurance (Plain, 2006, pp. 83–85). Similarly, when the war ended, the 1945 election victory by Clement Attlee’s Labour party held out the promise of building a ‘New Jerusalem’ (Kynaston, 2007, p. ix), while cinema-going reached an all-time high in 1946 with 1.6 billion admissions and one-third of the population watching a film at least once a week (Burton & Chibnall, 2013, p. 13). It was a social and cinematic optimism that quickly faded, however, as the country © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2_5

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found itself confronting severe global and domestic retrenchments. The British boxing film returned to refract this growing disillusion and dishonesty and entered more directly into dialogue with the generically dominant US version. Post-war  America had come out fighting, The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946) leading the way for 1947’s Body and Soul, The Set-Up (Robert Wise, 1949) and Champion (Mark Robson, 1949), a high-­ quality noir cycle where ‘the boxing world is pictured as a competitive marketplace where money talks, duplicity reigns, and human values are degraded’ (Grindon, 2011, p. 47). Britain’s initial post-war films with boxer leads offered similar themes but struggled to compete—except, perhaps initially, on the degradation. First up, and quickly downed, was New Park Films’ Meet the Duke (James Corbett, May 1949), a support feature adapted from Temple Saxe’s play Ice on the Coffin. This country-house comedy traced the mishaps that befall Duke Hogan (the film’s scriptwriter Farnham Baxter), a Brooklyn boxer who inherits an English dukedom only to find the house servants have been replaced by crooks searching for buried treasure. Chibnall and McFarlane (foot)note ‘a sub-text about better understanding between Britain and the US that was largely obscured by a clutter of unserviceable situations and ideas’ (2009, p. 306). Press reaction suggested a graver disservice to any special relationship: ‘In all our wide experience, we’ve seldom seen such a rag-bag or witnessed a more inept attempt to meet quota requirements’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 21 April 1949, p. 18). Other, worthier efforts refracted post-war Britain’s preoccupation with gender rather than geo-political alignments. No Way Back (Stefan Osiecki, July 1949) was another support feature, filmed at Nettlefold Studios for Concanen Productions and distributed by ‘B’ film specialists Eros. Updated by the director with lead actor Terence De Marney from Thomas Burke’s 1916 short story ‘Beryl and the Croucher’, it signals the genre’s return to the dark streets of London’s East End and the strategic casting in a fighting role (as himself) of Lambeth-born Tommy McGovern (46-17-4), future British lightweight champion (1951–1952)—and top of the bill in the Kray twins’ Royal Albert Hall swansong. An opening credit also recognised Dave Crowley (128-41-11), ‘ex-British lightweight champion’ (1938) and bit-part actor, for supervising the film’s fight scenes—he also arranged (uncredited) the celebrated slugfest in Waterloo Road. Crowley retired from boxing in 1946 after losing the sight in his left eye, a trauma reflected in No Way Back which follows veteran Johnnie ‘The Croucher’ Thompson (De Marney) who, forced to quit the fight-game

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after eye damage, starts drinking heavily and loses his money, wife and self-­ respect. An old flame, Beryl (Eleanor Summerfield), helps him find a job with her boss, small-time gangster Joe Sleak (Jack Raine) who, increasingly jealous of Beryl’s rekindled affection for Thompson, sets him up to be caught during a hold-up. Beryl informs the police and prevents Thompson from participating, but Sleak, escaping the heist by shooting an officer, pursues them. Holed up together in a warehouse loft and surrounded by Scotland Yard, Beryl shoots Sleak before she and Thompson walk out together knowing they will be gunned down. Largely overlooked by the general press, the sparse reviews suggested a narrow defeat for No Way Back. The trade warmed to the play of relationships but not ring culture: ‘The picture hints that the wise- and the tough-­ guy are equally susceptible to feminine wiles, but it’s too muscle-bound to make the proposition stick’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 21 July 1949, p. 18); the BFI could only commend the leading players as ‘the redeeming feature of this unenterprising version of the conventional story’ (MFB, 16, 188, August 1949, p. 137). With time, this neglect and negativity strike as harsh since No Way Back functions proficiently both at an aesthetic level and as social history. Cogently (and, as a ‘B’ film, cheaply) covering a year-in-the-life in 72 minutes, the film modulates its kinetic opening fight-night and claustrophobic final shoot-out with leisurely outside shots of Johnnie and Beryl rediscovering their relationship, all the while offering a credible psychological study of a declining sports star not overburdened by sustained thought or sentiment. Through its genre format the film also efficiently embodies post-war social uncertainty, and the key role of Sleak with his flash suits, silver-topped cane and ready money arguably merits its inclusion in what Robert Murphy has identified as Britain’s 1945–1950 ‘spiv’ cycle, London-­ set underworld thrillers with the opportunist and dapper spiv encompassing ‘anyone from a barrow-boy to a gang-leader’ (1989, p. 150). With war over, people had expected living conditions to improve, but austerity struck most as even more severe. For David Hughes the spivs, ‘flashily displaying all the suppressed energies of the back streets, were an unconscious, dramatic protest, a form of civil disobedience that millions of English people found endearing’ (1986, p. 105). This is, perhaps, a romanticised reading as, rather than a welcome rebuttal of bureaucratic intransigence, Sleak, from the same slick mould as Ted Purvis in Waterloo Road, represents a more hard-nosed, harmful reality that continued postwar as criminal networks spread from relatively discrete activities (drugs,

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prostitution, etc.) to feed on society at large, subverting a democratically intentioned ration system and predominantly benefitting a ruthless set of ringleaders. This is encapsulated in Sleak’s exploitation of Johnnie. To the end, the impoverished ex-boxer feels beholden to Sleak for giving him a chance in his outfit; the wealthy gangster, however, resentful of Johnnie since childhood for his ‘health, strength, money’ and self-confidence, only hires him to demean him with menial tasks, sets up the armed robbery expressly to betray him to the law, and finally entangles him in the shooting of two more policemen. Sleak’s grovelling, panicked reaction during the climactic siege removes from the spiv any sense of Robin Hood heroism. Beryl justifies her double-crossing with both irony—‘there’s honour among thieves for you!’—and ethics—‘call it simple justice if you like’. Ealing’s There Ain’t No Justice had set up a dialectic between the internecine practices of the boxing world and the more cohesive working-class community of London’s East End. In Eros’ No Way Back there is no equivalent local solidarity, no unifying mentality be it siege or otherwise, and certainly no sign of a New Jerusalem. This sense of disillusion is reinforced by Warsaw-born Osiecki’s documentary-style location filming of blitz-torn London during January 1949, notably the police chase through the Limehouse docklands and the lovers’ point-of-view stroll along the animated but physically exposed Petticoat Lane food market. The film’s criminal and romantic plot-lines are thus encased in a British variant on the trümmerfilm aka rubble film, with the physical gaps in the cityscape not just revealing negligible evidence of post-war reconstruction but also resonating with the concurrent loss in human dignity and new moral ambiguity (Moeller, 2013, pp. 40–43). Alongside its class and topographical confusions, No Way Back also illustrates the post-war uncertainty in gender roles. While Meet the Duke may have implicitly explored transatlantic relationships, here, for Andrew Clay, ‘The Croucher’s crisis of masculinity is more than a subtext. This film is a crime melodrama that centres around the boxer’s change in circumstances and his consequent confusion about his role’ (1999, p. 60). In similar vein to They Made Me a Fugitive (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1947) and Noose (Edmond Gréville, 1948), spiv films where ex-servicemen’s black-­ market encounters indicate their struggle to adapt to civilian life, Johnnie loses his secure masculine role when forced to retire from boxing. The criminal and boxing worlds here overlap not in the generically prevalent manner of their management practices but in their motivational

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paradigms, each measuring achievement via the potential for earning money and (thereby) attracting women. Skeat boasts that, after a poor upbringing, ‘I’ve got success and money and the girls love me now’. Johnnie’s career trajectory ostensibly supports this outlook, his financial woes directly resulting in the desertion of his glamorous nightclub-singer wife Sally (Shirley Quentin) who signals that, while he is now sidelined and belittled, she can still play centre-stage and profit from her physique (Fig. 5.1). Nonetheless, in contrast to its displays of male disorientation and overcompensation, the film’s depiction of the female characters purports that pre-war gender norms can be more readily re-established. Whether exemplifying the spiv cycle’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ woman helping or damaging the male lead, Beryl and Sally both function diegetically as reflections of male success, (un)dress for the male gaze and depend on male providers. Like Rose Mason (Jean Harlow) in Iron Man (Tod Browning, 1931), Sally is the generically omnipresent ‘gold digger’, uninterested in any ‘poor but honest business’ and staying with Johnnie solely for the lifestyle. Beryl is the equally staple gangster’s ‘moll’, cognisant that

Fig. 5.1  No Way Back—Sally and the Croucher

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Sleak ‘buys me me food and me rags’, but embodying a broader standard as the ‘tart with a heart’, shaking Johnnie out of his self-pity and staying with him to the end. Though linked to these social and gender dimensions, No Way Back ultimately pushes at a more internal, primal motivation. Johnnie may (pointedly) share a surname with Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan), the 35-year-old washed-up lead of The Set-Up, but unlike concurrent American fare that traced moral dilemmas and institutional corruption—Stoker refuses to throw a fight and is consequently beaten up—the British film offers an uncompromising study of the physical and psychological problems faced by an ageing boxer lacking the skill-set or mentality to find a new direction. It is in this sporting context that the nihilistic title is cited and fits most securely, chiming with myriad real-life sports stars unable to adjust post-career to a life suddenly lacking in personal routine and public reputation (Grove et al., 1997). The opening fight scenes show how fully boxing constitutes Johnnie’s sense of self. A poster indicates his late-career tilt at regaining Britain’s lightweight championship; his manager Sammy Linkman (John Salew) tells him/us that ‘win this fight and we’ll be in the chips again’. The contest itself lasts eight minutes of screen time and is conveyed mainly through mid-to-long shots with occasional close-ups and point-of-view shots. The casting of 25-year-old professional McGovern against 41-year-old actor De Marney facilitates the contest’s overall dynamic, though the latter makes a commendable effort to adopt Johnnie’s nickname-derived crouching style. Johnnie starts well and downs the young pretender three times in the opening round, each count intercut with shots of the baying crowd noticeably interspersed with female supporters (plus an indifferent Sally). But McGovern survives and the interval corner commentary presages shifting fortunes: Sammy ruminates that ‘they used to stay there when you hit them’; McGovern’s second also notes that ‘his hand’s gone’. As McGovern takes the initiative and targets Johnnie’s cut eye, crowd shots cede to individuals silently mouthing their encouragement, while in-ring close-ups on the boxers’ dancing feet indicate opposing stamina rates before, with a nod to Hitchcock, a blurring point-of-view shot follows Johnnie to the canvas, refocusing on the roof light as the referee’s hand counts him out. It is a conventional but entirely competent big-fight recreation. The doctor’s subsequent report that Johnnie has permanently lost the sight of one eye brings career closure and opens up a void that initially

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only alcohol can obscure. Johnnie’s plight arouses a degree of viewer sympathy, but he is far from blameless. His profligacy (and gullibility) is revealed when Sammy explains that his career winnings have been spent living the high life with Sally; more significantly, he shows himself incapable of recalibrating his place and purpose in society without a boxing focus. Beryl chides him for accepting the view of Sleak’s gang-mates that he is a ‘washout’: ‘All you think about is who you have been. You were a boxing champion, but you aren’t anymore—so what? Is that the only way for a man to be a man?’ She later reiterates the point: ‘there’s more than one way to live. Boxing isn’t the whole of it.’ Between these two pronouncements, Johnnie engages with a group of children boxing in a makeshift ring on nearby wasteland. He offers tactical advice to the struggling smaller child (debutant Anthony Valentine) who, armed with a methodology, quickly knocks down his opponent, thanks the stranger and asks if he knew ‘the Croucher’, ‘the biggest of them all’ and now ‘living with the American king in his palace’. It is a small scene, but implies a potential new role for Johnnie, coaching future generations. He fails to see it, though: suggesting both Johnnie’s lack of imagination—Sleak twice calls him ‘dumb’—and the (necessary?) narcissism of elite sporting success, he merely returns home to shadow-box in front of the mirror, morosely repeating the grateful child’s fairy-tale eulogy. As in the ring, so with romance. Surrounded by police and sharing a final cigarette, Beryl may reassure Johnnie that she loved him from the early days, but again it is insufficient. Contemplating the photo of ‘the Croucher’ that Beryl has kept in her compact for ten years, Johnnie recalls how back then ‘It was easy. Money came in buckets; contracts; newspapers. I was everybody’s baby, a big shot.’ Previously a man of few words, Johnnie, in uninterrupted close-up, finds a late articulation: ‘When I stepped into the ring and fought, I think I was a real man then.’ He tries to convey what it was like ‘to feel the fight rise in you, go to your head, drive your fist like a pistol shot, see a man lying at your feet, hear the crowd roar’. He confesses how ‘You want to feel like that again. It gets in your blood and stays there. It’s still there when your days are over and there’s no way back.’ Knowing that such punching prowess—and the resultant social status—is now beyond him, he essentially signs off on life: ‘A man goes on hoping and wants to forget and then he cries to heaven to let him feel like that again—and die’. Buoyed by a nearby BBC Home Service radio broadcast that, reporting on the siege and its participants, recounts the ‘chain of flashing successes’ of ‘Croucher’ Thompson, a 1938

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world title contender and ‘idol of the people’, he also finally finds imagination, the soundtrack’s boxing bell and big-fight cheering crowds now only audible to him. In a low-rent anticipation of Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950), Johnnie leads Beryl out of their Sidney Street hole-up to face the gathered crowd, newsreel cameras and awaiting police marksmen. To feel the fight and die: it is a limited and (here literally) lethal world-­ view, but consistent with the character study cogently adumbrated. It is, not only by default, Britain’s best boxing film of the decade. After a newly titled American then former title contender, the genre further descended the food chain to fairground boxing-booths in There Is Another Sun (Lewis Gilbert, June 1951), filmed at Walton Studios for Nettlefold Productions. A boxing-speedway hybrid with its racing scenes shot at London’s Walthamstow Stadium, its studio-set boxing action provided the first of 170-plus screen credits for Frank ‘Nosher’ Powell (34-16-2), a promising British heavyweight who, like McGovern, topped a (Wembley Town Hall) bill featuring the Krays.2 Adapted from James Raisin’s 1947 debut novel, it was a rare first/co-feature from Butcher’s Film Service; retitled Wall of Death it earned a limited US release in summer 1952. A love triangle set amidst fairground workers, it follows the slow-burn romance between ‘Mags’ Maguire (Laurence Harvey), a talented young booth boxer and Lilian (Susan Shaw), a laid-off chorus girl. Both have strong feelings for the fair’s ‘Wall of Death’ motordrome rider Eddie Peskett aka ‘Racer’ (Maxwell Reed) who, desperate to resume the speedway career interrupted by a fatal track accident two years earlier, involves the younger couple in an aggravated robbery from the fairground. With the resultant money Racer enters a speedway trial but crashes and dies: Maguire and Lilian decide to marry. There Is Another Sun was a popular but not critical success. Britain carded overall against it: ‘The atmosphere of the funfair and the speedway is quite well caught, but the picture is otherwise mediocre. Most of the characters are weak-willed or unpleasant, the ending is trite and the playing … without distinction’, noted the MFB (18, 204, May 1951, p. 268); C.A.  Lejeune more succinctly decried ‘a wretched British film about a fairground boxer’ (Observer, 10 June 1951). America offered a split decision: ‘This is an excellent film for sports fans and the younger generation’ counselled Variety (20 June 1951); the New York Times disagreed, lamenting a work ‘slung together with haphazard disregard for color, impact and most certainly conviction’ (19 May 1952).

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The majority response again seems severe. Though lacking the stylistic bravura of The Ring’s opening scenes, There Is Another Sun presents a credibly downbeat design of the fairground and its vans, and offers the genre’s most sustained engagement with the closed and diverse carnival community that has long engendered a tranche of British boxing culture. The fair’s moral and emotional centre lies, Ma Mutch-style, with matriarchal gypsy fortune–teller Sally Smith (Hermione Baddeley), her Romany slang alerting others to an unwelcome police presence, her card readings conveniently matchmaking Maguire with Lilian and controlling her own  relationship with Maguire’s affable booth-manager Mick Foley (Leslie Dwyer). Admittedly it takes little clairvoyance to predict the film’s dual romantic resolutions which hegemonically signal a departure from the carnival’s itinerant lifestyle. Character, though, breaks new ground. Harvey would also feature in Gilbert’s accomplished noir thriller The Good Die Young (1954), where one of his fellow gang-of-thieves was Stanley Baker’s poignantly portrayed Mike Morgan, an ex-boxer whose hand has been amputated after a fight injury and is now unable to find gainful employment. There Is Another Sun bears a more fruitful comparison, though, especially for its sporting characterisation, with the preceding No Way Back. Its UK title offers a more optimistic world view, evidenced by its differently calibrated love triangle wherein Maguire’s ‘good guy’ ultimately gets the girl (who, like Beryl, is ‘good’ if not exactly chaste). Maguire also contrasts with Johnnie Thompson: an ingénu at the start of an upwardly mobile career, Maguire’s third-round defeat of British heavyweight contender Teddy Green (Powell) in a seven-minute effectively filmed exhibition bout that goes off-­script may infuriate the opposite corner but earns him a professional contract and the chance to fight Green ‘for real’. Earlier his speedy (if unconvincing) dispatch of former carnival circuit-boxer Harry Brown (Arthur Mullard uncredited) compactly sketches a contrasting downward spiral. Maguire’s booth-partner, the 35-year-old black boxer ‘Ginger’ Jones (Earl Cameron), sees Brown’s laboured effort as a warning and quits the ring lest he end up similarly punch-drunk and impoverished. Maguire himself feels contrite, asking that Harry be given the pound he hoped to win and explaining to Lilian (and us) that his job is ‘not much like boxing: most of them that come in the ring haven’t got much except guts’. He admits, though, almost sheepishly, that ‘sometimes they’re cocky with it; then it’s not so bad’.

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The boxer here, displaying sensitivity (and diffidence), is far removed from the over-emphatic and ultimately fatalistic post-war repository of unyielding hypermasculine indicators seen in No Way Back. Conforming to generic templates, Maguire eventually reciprocates Lilian’s attentions, but he remains not so much beholden to his friend Racer as besotted by him and, with all other main players warning against this ‘blind’ attachment, the extent of his idolatry extends beyond a misguided ‘bromance’ to allow a pioneering (and scarcely coded) queer reading. This is facilitated by the film’s marginalised carnival locale, supported by its iconography that combines boxing’s muscle-toned exhibitions with speedway’s body-hugging leatherwear (plus Racer’s extensive but unexplained eyeshadow), and can be extra-diegetically (if retrospectively) informed by knowledge of Laurence Harvey’s closeted bisexuality (Sinai, 2003). The film’s liminal queerness is most evident, however, in Maguire’s emotional displays and actions. Feeling overlooked, Lilian’s late ultimatum on Maguire’s loyalties draws the heartfelt reply that ‘Racer is the only friend I’ve got!’, a stance evident across the film as he breaks trust by stealing first Foley’s takings to fund Racer’s new bike and then the car of their employer Sarno (Robert Adair) whom Racer violently attacks. Most tellingly, during his exhibition fight, Maguire spies Racer in the crowd and, worried lest he be caught, loses concentration and is felled—his friend’s welfare comes before his own career. Finally, when Rider dies at the racetrack and Maguire, requesting his helmet, elegises that ‘I saw him ride’, investigating Detective Sergeant Brotcher (Meredith Edwards) offers some paternalistic advice: ‘Now look here, old son. Why don’t you try giving her [Lilian] something of what you gave him? She won’t waste it.’ Heteronormativity is ostensibly restored as the couple kiss: Lilian will turn down a dance contract in Blackpool, and Maguire has his crack at the big time. However, this diegetic manipulation of the ‘trite’ happy ending— with Brotcher a ‘detective ex machina’—so draws attention to its own conventionality that it leaves There Is Another Sun open to sundry alternative readings.

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5.2   1950s and Sound Boxing Film Champion: The Square Ring (1953) The range of boxing levels and experience covered across the three previous films conjoined when, 14  years after There Ain’t No Justice, Ealing returned to the sport with The Square Ring. Michael Balcon had bought the rights to the same-named play by Sydney-born dramatist Ralph W. Peterson, a hit at Hammersmith’s Lyric Theatre in late-1952. Adapted by Robert Westerby, with additional dialogue from Alec Grahame and future Cliff Richard musical writer Peter Myers, the film brought with it several players from the stage version, notably Bill Owen, George Rose and Ronald Lewis, all of whom had been praised for their ‘very lifelike’ and ‘naturalistic acting’ (Guardian, 23 October 1952). Maxwell Reed swapped speedway leathers for boxing gloves and, while trade reports had Waterloo Road’s fist-proficient John Mills earmarked for the ‘top of the bill’ fighting role, he dropped out to be replaced by 44-year-old Canadian actor Robert Beatty. With no boxing experience, Beatty undertook two weeks of extensive training under the supervision of Dave Crowley who, progressing from No Way Back, was now credited as ‘technical advisor’. Twenty-four-year-old West Ham light-heavyweight Alf Hines (12-6-1) added further sporting realism as Beatty’s up-and-coming opponent, while cameo appearances featured Jack ‘Kid’ Berg and celebrated gym owner Joe Bloom, both as referees. Direction was entrusted to Basil Dearden with Michael Relph, his regular Ealing partner, producing: the pair were building a post-war reputation with social-problem studies such as The Blue Lamp (1950), Pool of London (1951) and I Believe in You (1952). Filmed in early 1953 on sets designed by Ealing-regular Jim Morahan—with brief location shots of wet night-time London streets and neon signage adding a film noir aesthetic—The Square Ring was trade shown on 3 July, with a UK national release the next month: limited exhibition, through Republic, came to America in January 1955. The film follows events in and around the downmarket Adams’ Boxing Stadium where the titular promoter (Sid James) has arranged an evening of boxing bouts. Six disparate professional fighters feature who, across the evening, reveal their backstory. First to arrive is Eddie Lloyd (film debutant Lewis), the nervous but enthusiastic novice, quickly defeated and disillusioned by his opponent’s underhand tactics. He is followed in by Happy Burns (Owen), a cock-sure lightweight, headed for the top with ‘debutantes’ in tow and proud of his unblemished looks. Next is Rick

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Martell (Reed), the smart and imposing boxer who nonetheless regularly loses—because he is selling his fights. On this occasion he refuses to dive, resulting in his girlfriend Frankie (real-life wife Joan Collins) almost being slashed with a razor. Then comes amiable but simple Rowdie Rawlings (Bill Travers), habitually successful in the ring, but outside obsessed by science-fiction magazines. Fifth to arrive is veteran Whitey Johnson (Rose), so punch-drunk by years of boxing batterings that the club doctor warns another bout could prove fatal. Finally, there is former champion Jim ‘Kid’ Curtis (Beatty), estranged from his wife Peg (Bernadette O’Farrell) who wants him to retire: the film concludes with Kid’s bill-topping comeback fight, where his heavy punishment proves fatal. The Square Ring gained plaudits on its release, the News of the World indicative in placing it ‘automatically into the commended class’ (12 July 1953). The UK trade press considered it ‘a near masterpiece’ but could ‘hardly see it breaking down the average woman’s antipathy to “leatherpusher’s” fare’ since, ‘brilliant mosaic that it is, it contains more brawn than heart’ (Kinematograph Weekly, 2 July 1953, p. 20). The BFI enthused for ‘this slick and unpretentious entertainment’ where, ‘while there are obvious echoes of the more serious American boxing film, The Set-Up, and in fact all the characters can be reduced to stock, Dearden and his writers have dressed up the basic conventions with liveliness and adroit professionalism. The Square Ring, in fact, sets the level of what the superior British entertainment film should be, but not very often is’ (MFB, 20, 235, August 1953, p. 120). Comparisons with America’s recent output were common, the Guardian finding that ‘Nothing here is new, although it surprises that this confidently handled boxing melodrama should come … from a British studio’ (4 July 1953). For the Times it was ‘both a good boxing film and a good film in itself’ (6 July 1953), while its sister title commended a ‘bold and uncompromising attack on boxing’ (Sunday Times, 12 July 1953). This perceived negative depiction of the sport was evidently well-received by the (middle-class) critical majority. The Daily Mail heralded how ‘This film punches the last breath of glamour out of the boxing business’ (6 July 1953), while the Sunday Express warmed to ‘A frank, ugly and exciting film’ that ‘uses the fight game as its central theme and goes after it with gloves off. By the time it is finished, boxing as a gloriously heroic sport has been laid flat on the canvas with a couple of black eyes’ (12 July 1953). America again took an interest, its trade press cautiously recommending ‘an authentic backstage prizefight meller, with action, suspense and good humour’ that, despite a ‘lack of names

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known to Americans’, was ‘sufficiently virile perhaps to justify spotting on some dual bills’ (Variety, 22 July 1953). The film’s positive reception and healthy box-office returns prompted Peterson to write a novelisation, its cover blurb promising ‘a powerful indictment of the seamy side of boxing’ and ‘an absorbing, as well as horrific, account of those who seek to make their living by their fists’ (1954). Its cultural stamina is evident in a later (lost) television reworking as an ITV ‘Play of the Week’ (tx. 2 June 1959) which included future-stars Alan Bates as Eddie Burke and Sean Connery as Rick Martell.3 Existing studies of The Square Ring situate the film as a relatively minor but indicative effort within the work of its director and/or studio. For Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumin it offers auteur continuity through ‘the ensemble playing which proposes, within one male world or another, a microcosm of society as a whole’ (1997, p. 95). For Jeffrey Richards it articulates the director’s shifting view on that society, specifically ‘a distaste for postwar Britain’ where, after ‘paeans to service, community and duty’ such as P.C. George Dixon (Jack Warner) in The Blue Lamp, ‘Dearden had charted the descent into a corrupt leisure industry’ (1997, pp. 30, 33). Linked to this reading, Charles Barr fitted the film within 1950s Ealing’s increasingly homogenous output where ‘various kinds of “commercial” culture are attacked or satirised’ (1993, pp. 146–147). For Sue Harper and Vincent Porter it similarly exemplified the studio’s latter-day ‘Blimpish position’ where ‘Ealing films spurned the new consumerism which assuaged the desires of many in the mass audience’ (2003, p. 73). For Raymond Durgnat the film merely showed how, post-war, ‘Ealing monotonously applied the omnibus formulae’ (1970, p. 51). Within the British boxing film genre as examined here, however, The Square Ring will be argued as constituting a major player, the portmanteau composition aiding its summative employment of both indigenous and international generic tropes and themes, and offering a more nuanced, ambivalent stance towards the popular cultural practice than existing auteur or industry readings may suppose. The film certainly presents a contrast to both Dearden’s and Ealing’s pre-1950s consensus images: a disparate group of men come together with the same broad purpose—but now they cannot work together. Displayed instead is constant competitiveness and complaining as the six boxers hang around Dressing Room 2 awaiting their turn in the ring. There is scant interaction save to undermine one another, minimal instruction even to the debutant, and no interest in each other’s results save for betting purposes: they are off as soon as their bout is finished, leaving

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Curtis alone to make his more definitive departure. Moving back from the text, it could be hypothesised that the atomised atmosphere at Adams’ Boxing Stadium mirrors the increasingly dysfunctional dynamic of Ealing Studios in the 1950s, with Balcon’s ‘Academy for Young Gentlemen’ starting to argue amongst themselves and chafe at impositions from on high: Relph, for instance, admitted his and Dearden’s resentment at having to take on The Square Ring since ‘we knew boxing subjects were doubtful box office’ (cited in Harper & Porter, 2003, p. 68). Nonetheless, the director-producer duo worked successfully with the given material. The film’s limited locations, alternating between ring and dressing room—plus one brief indoor café scene—may betray its theatrical origins (and bring down budgetary outlay), but the resultant claustrophobic feel effectively intensifies the characters’ narrow horizons: not just the impatiently pacing boxers before their call, but particularly the threatened Frankie, alone and scared amidst the intermission’s milling and menacing crowd, unable to distinguish a single friendly face. As in There Ain’t No Justice, the mass boxing crowd is presented as a potentially dangerous and (predominantly) male body, numerous ringside shots showing them betting and baying for blood but with no sense of positive unity. In The Blue Lamp there was still a residual wartime communality, with racegoers rounding on police-murderer Tom Riley (Dirk Bogarde) and delivering him up for justice. Ealing now portrays a far more jaundiced edge. In its previous boxing film, the MC’s charity call (for blinded Billy Frist) elicited change being thrown onto the ring: in The Square Ring a member of the crowd steals the charity collection box, which is later discovered broken open and robbed of its takings. And yet. Contemporary press responses and the interpretations of critics such as Barr that the film is a blanket indictment not just of boxing’s corrupt commercialism but the wider emergent values of ‘mass’ culture are, to an extent, problematised by casting decisions and resultant character portrayals. There is certainly plenty of downbeat and deceitful action, even tragedy, in the ring, while outside it several comments explicitly denounce the sport’s commercial exploitation, as when Rick observes how ‘the blokes that don’t go into the ring—they’re the ones who get rich out of boxing’. In addition, a running joke such as Rawlins’ captivation by his ‘Queen of the Space Ships’ comic book potentially supports readings of the film as critical of growing popular culture, with here an intertextual swipe at the increasing popularity of science-fiction in 1950s British cinema and its attendant print materials (Jones, 2018, p. 5). Against this,

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however, the film’s most engaging characters, ebullient Harry and avaricious Adams, are paid-up members of that mass entertainment domain and here their humour works—to a degree—to undermine not popular culture itself but its critique. Owen’s Harry is proud of his progress—and profile: ‘seventeen fights in six months and not a mark on my beautiful kisser’. He is also succinct with his patter, noting of Rick that ‘he’s taken more dives than Esther Williams’. James’ Adams has reiterated shtick with the crowd entreating them to return the missing collection box, and well-­ timed prop work where he continuously chomps on a large cigar, but turns away whenever someone offers to light it—indicative both of his miserly character and the performative nature of his stance as a successful entrepreneur. Even abstracted from the crowd are two credited ‘wiseacres’ (Sydney Tafler and Alexander Gauge), their deflationary commentary indicative how, in Dearden’s film, the devil gets, if not the best tunes, the funniest fighting talk. The Square Ring undeniably depends on stock character types and predictable dramatic situations. It begins, though, not with the generic fight scene under the credits but an empty ring suddenly scorched with floodlights, a forewarning that, despite five of its six boxers winning their bout, the emphasis will be on the arena as a site for stark exposure rather than hope’s fulfilment. It is, of course, both socially and psychologically, a masculinist space, with its significant female characters displaying an oppositional stance to the sport and its potential fraternal and financial rewards. The first actor to appear, though, is reliable Jack Warner, here playing popular stadium trainer Danny Forbes. With his helper Frank Forbes (Alfie Bass) in tow, Danny provides the film’s red line, looking to and advising the different boxers before and after their respective bouts, providing the consolations of (pugilist) philosophy to soften the film’s repeated exposé of exploitation and humiliation. Unlike the over-zealous individuated attention provided by Harry Dunn in There Ain’t No Justice, Danny cares for his charges, as Kirkham and Thumin note, ‘as confidently and unself-­ consciously as any mother’: his wry comment that ‘fifteen years in the ring and I end up nursemaiding you blokes’ intimates a singular generic fluidity in Dearden’s male-dominated films, with Danny a character where ‘negotiation is in play between the conventional attributes of the masculine and the feminine’ (1997, p. 101). Elsewhere all is testosterone and truncated ambitions. Four of the featured boxers hold antiphonal positions, two pairings (literally) in dialogue with their dressing-room dynamic acting out the polarities of a bill that

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Rick dismissively labels ‘kids and has-beens’: youth with its attendant enthusiasm and naivety is set against experience with its learnt cynicism and (self-)delusion. Happy Burns’ delight in his career progress has its counterpoint in Rick’s degrading deals struck with the game’s fight-fixers, while Eddie’s nervous debutant has his opposite in the jaded veteran Curtis. Between these extremes lie the ageing bill-fillers Whitey and Rawlins, men who, devoid of meaningful dialogue, receive little screen time—and minimal fighting footage. Whitey, penultimate arrival, is first into fight. He perceives this as a slight to his experience, but does not argue with Adams, who knows he needs the fight. Whitey’s years in the ring have left his speech slurred and eyesight indifferent—Rick labels him a ‘burnt-out ring comic’ and ‘last of bare-knuckle boys’—but, against expectations, he returns euphoric after effecting a fourth-round knockout. Bleeding round the eyes, he is patched up by Danny then called to Adams’ office where, instead of the hoped-for ‘fresh start’, the club doctor (Michael Ingrams) tells him that his license is being withdrawn on health grounds. Failing to comprehend how winning his bout could lead to this, he shuffles off to an uncertain future—a fate recalling Johnnie Thompson at the start of No Way Back. Rowdy Rawlins, third in, is separated from his comic book long enough to leave the dressing room and return victorious, knocking out his opponent ‘because he hit me’. A gentle giant in the mould of Harry Brown from There Is Another Sun and equally directionless, he is soon again engrossed in the adventures of invincible ‘Cynthia, the Uranium Lady’, not smart enough to realise his far-different and all-too-injurious exploitation. Between these jeopardised journeymen comes the debut professional fight from Cardiff boy Eddie Lloyd. He shares his hopes with the dressing room, though his admission that ‘it’s always been a bit of sport before’ is countered by Rick’s incredulous response: ‘Sport? You’ll learn.’ He soon does. Eddie starts well against the more seasoned Ern De Grazos (Harry Herbert), the camera cutting to his expectant family and factory colleagues down from Wales to cheer him on. However, following a knockdown De Grazos rubs resin from the floor onto his glove and hits Eddie in the eye— cue the flash edit of a cartoon starburst, a misjudged literalisation of ‘seeing stars’. With further underhand tactics, the young pretender is subdued and then, in front of his shocked parents, brutally dispatched. Despite Danny’s assurances that he had just been unfortunate, Eddie departs, determined not to fight again. Although the watching BBBofC officials mark De Grazos and the inattentive referee for report, Eddie’s repeated

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assessment that ‘It wasn’t fair, that’s all’ signals the loss of what could have been a beneficial recruit to a better-run industry. Also hopeful is Happy Burns, his fight similarly sandwiched between the second-half’s more downbeat bouts of Rick and Kid Curtis. Like Skeat (and Johnnie) in No Way Back, Happy measures his success through conspicuous consumption, arriving in a smart convertible, its horn blaring and passenger seats occupied by three attractive young women (including James’ future Carry On colleague Joan Sims)—‘I’ve gotta knock ’em back now with a thick stick’, he notes proudly of his girlfriend situation. A consummate showman in and outside the ring, Happy takes the microphone and plays to the crowd, though he is hard-pushed in the fragments of fight shown: he too returns victorious, but with the chagrin of an injured nose. Happy had confidently mapped out his career profile: to win the title, defend it three times, then quit while at the top. He vows not to end up like a Whitey Johnson, ‘picking up a quid here and there as sparring partners or getting five pounds a fight for prelims in joints like these’. Curtis tries to put him right: ‘You’ll never get out, not when you’re on top, you won’t.’ The warning, together his newly bashed face, draws attention back to Happy’s earlier boast—three fights per month now strike as excessive, his entourage as ephemeral as his good looks, his boastful prediction as he disappears into the London nightlife of being ‘the next lightweight champion of the world’ immediately contextualised by the fight and fate of Curtis. Even with upbeat Happy the pathos seeps out.4 The Square Ring has, in places, the confidence to take on US cinema, the fights that bracket Happy’s victory displaying closest parallels to the careers and credos of America’s recent screen boxers. Rick Martell, like Happy, does not arrive alone: with him, though, is not only his young fiancée Frankie, but his manager Jim Warren (Michael Golden). When the camera follows Warren to inform a front-of-house contact that his charge will ‘go in the fourth—tell the others to help themselves and get me a price’, it is the first indication that all is not ‘square’ in the ring this evening; the view is confirmed when Warren reminds Rick of the agreed play and instructs him to make a better fist of it than last month. This background knowledge adds credibility to Rick’s characterisation as a man who compensates for his loss of self-respect with a front of cynical bluster. It also, rather than linking back to Tommy Mutch in the more comically inflected There Ain’t No Justice, provides his plight with its strong transatlantic resonance. A dominant theme in American boxing films, Ledger Grindon notes, arises when ‘the boxer must come to terms with his aging

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body and can only overcome physical decline through spiritual understanding. Typically, this moment comes with the realisation … that the boxer must not throw the fight after all’ (2011, p. 22). This is the trajectory enacted both in The Set-Up and in Body and Soul where John Garfield’s Charley Davis finally stands up to the fight-fixing of his Mob-friendly promoter Roberts (Lloyd Gough): it is (to an extent) replicated here. Already ashamed that Frankie is ‘proud’ of him and his recent performances, the news that Boxing  Board officials are in the house strengthens the conflicted Rick’s resolve to fight clean—to little effect: indicative of the game’s endemic corruption, he is beaten to the dive (off-screen) by his Dublin opponent throwing himself to the canvas in round two. He may (provisionally?) rescue Frankie from Warren’s retribution, but as Rick returns to the dressing room with cat-calls and mocking laugher ringing in his ears, this is no Hollywood-style redemptive ending. The fighting scenes in The Square Ring have been generally criticised for indigenous insipidness: George Perry, for instance, bemoans how ‘the bouts themselves were shot with far less blood and gore than the American equivalents’ with ‘nothing to equal the bravura camerawork of the American film Body and Soul’ (1981, p. 159).5 It must be conceded that (with its source play entirely set in the dressing room) The Square Ring’s first five bouts receive more off-ring reportage than on-screen action, but they still offer evidence of visual variety, plausibly conveying the fluctuating attention and slow-burn intensity consistent with a full evening’s boxing card. The first fight with Whitey Johnson shows only two five-second shots of the fighters’ legs, moving across the ring then back again. The third fight, with Rowdie Rawlings, is not shown at all. Two 20-second sections are shown of Eddie’s desultory debut, though like the next two fights it follows the standard shooting pattern with a montage of boxer close-ups, full-ring medium shots and occasional long shots from high in the gallery, all frequently intercut with excited audience reaction shots. The dressing-room focus changes, however, with the final fight and its after-effects which, at 20 minutes’ duration, occupy the film’s last quarter. Amidst its cross-section of lower-ranking British boxing, the structural and thematic emphasis of The Square Ring lies with Jim ‘Kid’ Curtis, ex-­ British and Empire light-heavyweight champion, who heads Adams’ bill in what is twice sarcastically termed ‘the great comeback’. His career arc fits with recent American examples where the boxer must climactically ‘learn from the decline of his physical prowess or be trapped within a decaying body’ (Grindon, 2011, p. 22). Burton and O’Sullivan see Curtis as ‘the

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archetypal noir protagonist in the film’, with his undoing rooted in another contrast (again more lightly broached in There Ain’t No Justice) ‘between his love for the Madonna figure of Peg and the temptations of the whorish and unsubtly named Eve’ (2009, p. 161). The female dichotomy is set up early but, as played out, is a non-contest. Before entering the arena, Curtis calls in to see Peg (intertextually also the name of Lili Palmer’s ‘good girl’ in Body and Soul) at the adjacent Stadium Café run by her father. He explains that his career is resurgent, and Peg, polite and homely, wishes him well for the evening, but the scene reveals how boxing ended their marriage and blights any prospect of reconciliation—‘I hated every single moment of every single fight’, she confesses. On reaching the hall Curtis meets Happy’s manager Lou Lewis (Eddie Byrne): he also meets Lewis’ new wife Eve (Kay Kendall). It is clear they are former lovers, ‘bad girl’ Eve running out once Curtis lost his title. Her small role concisely displays Kendall’s image ‘as an independent woman with a strong sense of contemporary fashion and modern behaviour’ (Geraghty, 2000, p. 162). Like Dot Ducrow, Eve combines work with pleasure: when she declares that, if Curtis wins, she can persuade her husband to become his manager, it is evidently more than a business deal that is being proposed. Curtis, though, replies that he’s ‘got other plans’ and confides in Danny his desire to resurrect his marriage, unaware that Danny has tried, without success, to broker a resolution. He is similarly deceived when seeking counsel on his boxing future, with Danny’s open reassurance swiftly contradicted by the confession to Frank that, concerned for Curtis’ health, he hopes he loses (the same hope Peg expresses to her husband’s face). Their fears are confirmed at the film’s conclusion where Curtis wins the big fight but dies as a result of his injuries, another US noir resonance replicating the fate of Kirk Douglas’ self-sufficient Midge Kelly in Champion. Curtis, however, caring and diffident in his conversations with Danny, is hardly a match for the manipulative and amoral Midge who, on his way to the top, ruthlessly deceives the women he encounters and double-crosses his loyal manager. Indeed, Curtis’ unmerited demise strikes an existential emptiness compared to the self-reflexive ‘wages of sin’ conclusion of the American film which ‘impose[s] poetic justice … by punishing Midge for his greed and violence’ (Baker, 2003, pp. 122–123). It may not have the blood and gore but, in its final round, the British film hits harder. The Square Ring’s summative bout also collates the stylistic tropes of its earlier bouts and collapses the more sentimental narrative shifts of earlier British boxing films. All starts within generic conventions: the opening

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round, two minutes of screen time with repeated crowd inserts, shows Curtis fighting well against ‘unbeaten East London cruiserweight’ Barney Deakon (Hines), knocking his opponent to the canvas, sending him into the ropes with a feint and pointing him back to his own corner at the bell. But, as with Johnnie in No Way Back, both Lewis and Deakon’s corner note the Kid’s punches no longer carry weight, while a brief section filming only the fighters’ dancing feet offers ominous intratextual links back to Whitey Johnson. Rejoining the fight in round eight with both men bleeding from face cuts, Curtis effects another knockdown, but Deakon’s stamina take over and when, in round nine, Curtis is twice sent to the canvas, Eve insists Lewis take her home—again she has no time for a ‘loser’. Finally, in the tenth round, with Curtis desperately clinging to the ropes, Peg arrives. Intertextually it promises a call-back to a long-standing genre trope, the fighting fulcrum employed in boxing films from Alfred Hitchcock to George Formby. But not here: bathetically, Curtis fails to see her arrive and is knocked down again. Peg sees her husband launch a last salvo of punches that includes a knockout blow, but then his slumping in his corner and the doctor being called. ‘Get him, the winner!’ a spectator declares: here the call-back does deliver, but intratextually to the similarly sarcastic pronouncements on the Kid’s ‘great comeback’. With Curtis pronounced dead in the dressing room (Fig. 5.2), Danny sees Peg out and, with the film coming full circle, the lights fade on the empty ring: not just hope has been extinguished. At a socio-historical level, the tragic ending to The Square Ring reconnects with the position, amidst post-war realignments in gender and social circumstances, of men defined purely by their boxing body. Kirkham and Thumin see Curtis as a largely positive and empathetic character, but ‘his failure to respect the misgivings of his wife (an altogether laudable and likeable character), to accept that his boxing career must be over, to be able to quit and to be the sort of “compassionate” husband expected by women in the postwar years, all point to flaws in his character’ (1997, p. 92). It is a cogent reading although, with Peg both underplayed and underwritten, it is difficult to assess her laudability—her stance certainly runs counter to the advice offered by the ‘Tiresian’ Danny that ‘if you love him, you’ll have to take him as he is, coz you’ll never change him’.6 Harper and Porter see Curtis as exemplifying Ealing’s ‘reining in of mavericks into the social fold’, with the ex-champion, ‘too old and too honest for the fight game’, presenting a double challenge, ‘first to the corrupt ethics of the fist-fighting community, and secondly to the “straight” world (as he

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Fig. 5.2  The Square Ring—‘Everybody dies’

knows too much to be comfortably ensconced within it)’ (2003, p. 62). It is harder here to see the self-managed Curtis troubling the corrupting bodies that so ensnared Rick, or unwelcome in a society that, as shown by crowd reaction and dressing-room respect, is both cognisant and supportive of his beneficial qualities. Instead, with the film’s tagline running that these men enter the ring ‘For Love… For Money… For Sport…’, it is tenable that, beyond (or beneath) interpretations that emphasise male redundancy or moral rectitude, the Kid is most consistently readable if kept in his sporting context: as a man trapped within his boxing bubble, a fighter who, like Johnnie Thompson, cannot grow out of his life’s training or surrender his perception of masculinity even when no longer ageappropriate. Again, Danny spells it out: ‘some fighters are just businessmen who go to work with boxing gloves when the price is right. Not him. He has to fight, and he must end up a loser’—cut to a punch landing straight on the Kid’s face. Though criticised as lacking the acute intimacy of observation and sustained savagery of its American genre competitors, here in six minutes of ring-time, devoid of moral containment or social displacement, is the brutal enactment of the boxer’s physical and motivational limitations, the sustained visualisation of a fatalism merely voiced in Charlie Davis’ closing line to Body and Soul: ‘everybody dies’.

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5.3   Comic Irreverence and Ineptitude Reservations over The Square Ring centred not just on the stock characters but its unevenness of tone, C.A. Lejeune notably finding ‘the comic running gags … out of place in this grimly realistic piece’ (Sketch, 15 July 1953). However, the interjections from Happy and Adams, especially during the Curtis conclusion, work not as the often misnamed ‘comic relief’ but rather as ‘comic preparation’, a lulling of expectation and softening of the senses so that the tragic blow will hit all the harder (Styan, 1975, p. 108). It presents a more aesthetically accomplished but commercially less successful combination of moods than encountered in Two Cities’ One Good Turn (John Paddy Carstairs, January 1955), where the decade’s most popular cinema comedian followed his interwar predecessors and stepped into the ring. Norman Wisdom, with a provenance and persona firmly in the George Formby tradition, replayed his accident-prone and put-upon ‘Gump’ character that had proved a record-breaker for Rank in his starring debut Trouble in Store (Carstairs, 1953).7 Here, attired in trademark ill-­fitting suit and cloth cap, his Norman persona is an awkward odd-job man who promises to buy a deluxe pedal car for a tearful young orphan. His madcap adventures to raise the required £12 involve the London to Brighton walking race, conducting a symphony orchestra, and entering a fairground boxing booth where, as seen from A.E. Coleby to Laurence Harvey, a healthy reward awaits the volunteer who can last three rounds against one of the booth’s bruisers (including Arthur Mullard again). Norman undergoes hypnosis at the adjacent booth of ‘Professor Dofee’ (David Hurst) to make himself a skilled fighter: much to the charlatan professor’s surprise it works, allowing Norman to move around the ring with a rare self-assurance that proves physically attractive to women (Fig. 5.3), and Wisdom to show off the boxing skills learnt during his time in Army Service (Dacre, 1991, p. 42). After two rounds Norman is not only well on his way to beating the booth’s (effectively named) Gunner Mac (Ricky McCullough) for the £10 prize, but has assumed the character traits often given to his rival figures, underwriting how these dialectical displays of male ‘self-worth’ are a misleading (and dishonest) model when compared to Norman’s less pronounced but ultimately more profound embodiment of a desirable masculinity. Marcia Landy notes how, in Wisdom’s films, ‘His request for love and recognition, along with his clumsiness, mitigates his aggressiveness toward others’ (1991, p. 361). Highlighting these performative polarities, Dofee is summoned to break

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Fig. 5.3  One Good Turn—the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness

the spell, Norman reverts to his expected exaggerated pratfalls and, with the final round unsportingly extended, is knocked out and cheated of his winnings. So far so generic, except that the sympathetic fairground audience organise a collection—16 shillings are thrown into the ring—and Norman reacts, not like Formby with sauce, but with ‘Please Opportunity’, one of his saccharine string-washed romantic compositions. The six-­ minute boxing-ring slapstick may show scant advance in timing or technique on Formby’s Keep Fit, let alone Coleby’s Boxing Fever, but this and other scenes’ unabashed suturing with hard-core sentimentality swept Wisdom’s sophomore ‘riot of low-brow revelry’ (Daily Mirror, 17 December 1954) to seventh position in the year’s British box office. Carstairs clearly detected comic potential in the boxing ring and returned to adapt A.P.  Dearsley’s farce ‘The Chigwell Chicken’ for Monarch Films’ And the Same to You (George Pollock, February 1960). Shot at Walton Studios, casting retains interest: the (nominal) lead role was logically entrusted to Whitehall farce stalwart Brian Rix, but future Doctor Who William Hartnell shines in a rare comic role, Sid James again plays a boxing promoter, and there is a rare film appearance as a dim-­ witted boxer/henchman from Tommy Cooper, a comedy giant in all senses. Genre regular Arthur Mullard works ringside while, to add a fistic

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authenticity, George Leech, 1937 junior ABA welterweight national champion (and future James Bond stuntman), plays a boxing opponent.8 As with any farce the plot is convoluted. The Reverend Sydney Mullett (Leo Franklyn) shares his church hall with Walter ‘Wally’ Burton (Hartnell), only to discover that, rather than exercise classes, Burton has set up a boxing ring for financial gain. Aware that the hall roof needs repairs, Burton convinces the vicar he can raise the necessary £2000 from championship-ranking fight nights and takes on Mullett’s nephew Dickie Marchant (Rix) who impresses in an impromptu sparring bout. Amongst much skulduggery, the night of the big fight sees a crowd riot after both Dickie and his opponent Chappy Tuck (Larry Taylor) are drugged, an unexpected visit from outraged Archdeacon Humphrey Pomphret (John Robinson), and Mullett ban Dickie from signing with professional promoter Sammy Gatt (James)—until the hall roof collapses. For the BFI ‘the nearer the action gets to stage farce … the more amusing it becomes’, but if excusing a lack of medium specificity, it criticised an absence of topicality as ‘not all the players enter into the pre-war spirit of the piece’ (MFB, 27, 315, April 1960, p. 49). This ‘dated’ feel of And the Same to You is present in plot pacing and myriad details: the cross-class play with registers of language, as when Dickie being ‘framed’ is elucidated as ‘you mean we’ve been the victims of intentional fraud?’, replays Splinters in the Navy; the church’s belief that Wally runs a Keep Fit organisation for the ‘encouragement of the body beautiful’ is straight from George Formby. It is evident also in the film’s physical and social setting: the genre leaves behind the hardened inner cities for Mullett’s new small parish of St. Barnabas with adjoining woodlands ripe for slapstick training accidents; Dickie’s boxing apprenticeship forsakes working-class necessity for varsity privilege—after flooring light-­ heavyweight contender Percy ‘Perce’ Gibbons (Tony Wright), he admits to being a Cambridge boxing blue, celebrates his contract with a glass of sherry and, on getting dressed, may (in Whitehall style) forget his trousers but never his old school tie. Within that residual cadre, however, the film offers more progressive readings. Although relatively understated, female agency is regularly evident. Dickie’s boxing impresses not only Wally who offers to promote him, but also Wally’s secretary—and Perce’s girlfriend—Cynthia aka ‘Cyn’ Tripp (Vera Day). Cyn’s role can be read as the generic reward for in-ring masculine prowess, and her actions after Perce dates glamorous Iris Collins (Shirley Anne Field) the bitterness of a woman scorned. Like Dot Ducrow,

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however, she evaluates the boxing club’s plight better than Wally who follows her astute advice to keep the Reverend sweet—‘clever girl!’ he acknowledges. Despite her name, Cyn has a moral intelligence and is outraged that Dickie is rendered a losing laughing-stock in his first outing when conned into easing off against his ‘weak-hearted’ opponent Jake Hawthorn (Leech). Her subsequent drugging of Perce and proposal that Dickie replace him in the big fight can instead be adjudged as motivated by moral restitution for that debut ‘dirty trick’—and enhancing her next beau Dickie’s career prospects—rather than by personal revenge. The archdeacon’s wife, Mildred (Renee Houston) is also more worldly wise than her husband and his clerical entourage: she is keenly interested in the boxing matches’ odds, wagers successfully, and knows horseracing form well enough to have long dressed the archdeacon with her winnings. Mildred’s discrete knowledge of both sporting and spiritual worlds indicates the film’s second ‘emergent’ trend, its drawing of parallels between the domains of British boxing and the Church of England—a theme where the film’s title most fully resonates. The boxing world is shown as corrupt from top to bottom: Wally, already stripped of his trainer’s licence, has arranged with shady bookmaker George Nibbs (Dick Bentley) for the suitably remunerated Chappy Tuck to take a dive during his championship eliminator against Perce; promoter Sammy Gat is only persuaded to attend St. Barnabas by Wally’s threat to reveal his fight-fixing past. The deflation of such corruption into comedy results from (male) incompetence to ensure the ‘right’ result: Wally and George’s sleeping draught is mistakenly drunk by both boxers, with the fight’s comatose conclusion resulting in a slow-motion ballet redolent of silent cinema such as the McNaughton brothers’ Has He Hit Me?—and obviating the need for any in-ring realism. At least these ‘fixers’ know and accept themselves for what they are: on sealing the deal, Nibbs’ toast to ‘the most gentlemanly of all sports, the noble art of boxing’ is openly, almost endearingly ironic. Indeed, all aspects of Wally’s ‘Monster Sluggeroos’ seem ‘honest’ carnivalesque fun compared to the middle-class hypocrisy and unworldly ignorance revealed within the oppositional clergy. Mullett quickly puts aside his scruples (and keeps his ‘subterfuge’ from his superiors) to help train his nephew to gain the roof-repair funds; Dickie too rapidly forgets his plans to train for the clergy, especially when Cyn enters his orbit, and even lies to Pomphret by claiming to be a youth club worker. The ease of this deception—and by inference the similar value systems of both worlds—is a constant trope in

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the film. The church is initially convinced of the probity of Wally’s business intentions simply because his company is named ‘In Corpore Sano’ (a motto probably provided by Cyn). When the Archdeacon arrives, Wally persuades him that he is the new Rev. Mullett simply by wearing the vicar’s attire—loose boxing morals a decade ahead of Luis Buňuel’s play with episcopal regalia in Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie/The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972). The overriding tenet that appearance is all both in prayer and pugilism is established from the film’s opening scene where the Bishop (Miles Malleson), hearing a visitor approach, scurries from the settee to his work desk; Wally similarly strives to appear business-­ like, faking a phone-call to a ‘Lady Frogley’ and telling Cyn to wear glasses, when the Reverend and Dickie first appear. At the denouement Chappy’s ‘double cross’ refusal to take a fall against Dickie’s novice—with indignation he claims he has his ‘good name’ to maintain: ‘I’d only feel like half a man’—is matched when pompous Pomphret can only be persuaded not to denounce the entire ‘utterly nauseating’ state of affairs by Dickie’s threats to expose his wife’s gambling habits (knowledge again provided by Cyn). The film’s post-roof-collapse conclusion mirrors Dickie and Cyn’s embrace underneath a table with the mutually protective huddle of Wally and the Reverend: the young couple’s union may be generically de rigueur, but the reciprocated blessing from the ‘sky pilot’ and ‘fiddling manager’ unambiguously cements the marriage of God and Mammon. It is an effective final framing. Between Wisdom and Rix, the boxing film genre hit a new low with a 53-minute bargain-basement support feature that, while aiming for serious drama, was largely risible in execution. Fighting Mad (Denis Kavanagh, April 1957), scripted by Jennifer Wyatt, was produced for his family company Border by ‘Edwin Scott’ aka E.J. Fancey, pioneer in British exploitation cinema. In Up with the Lark (Philip Brandon, 1943), where comedy detective duo Ethel Revnell and Gracie West round up a bunch of black marketeers, Fancey had managed to wheedle a villain’s part for former champion Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis. Now, though, with a boxing lead role to fill, he cast instead wrestler ‘Tiger’ Joe Robinson, 1952 European heavyweight champion. Robinson plays ‘Muscles’ Mike Tanner, a Glaswegian heavyweight boxer who, at the start of the film, knocks out an opponent who subsequently dies. The second such fatality in a year, the devastated (and now unpopular) Tanner decides to start afresh with his young bride Paula (Fancey’s daughter, Adrienne Scott) in the wilds of Northern Canada— scenes filmed, as publicity material proudly declared, in the Scottish

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Highlands. Though he has vowed never to fight again, Tanner arrives to find ruthless logging-yard owner Walkers (Jack Taylor) and henchman trying to evict his uncle ‘Mad’ Jake (Beckett Bould) from oil-rich land: cue several forest-set fights from the handy immigrant, with his fists now proving redemptive instruments of justice. While restoring a ‘straight’ masculinist world view to the genre, Fighting Mad is notable as the first British film, however perfunctory its psychology, to follow a boxer after killing a man in the ring (for all its varied character studies The Square Ring passes over the possible effects of Jim Curtis’ death on young Barney Deakon). In this Fighting Mad has (faint) echoes of The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952), where John Wayne’s heavyweight Sean Thornton aka ‘Trooper Thorn’ retires to Ireland vowing never to fight again after his opponent dies of fight injuries.9 There the comparison most definitely ends: with Fighting Mad labouredly covering the ‘journey’ from Glasgow, then adding shameless padding with stock footage of Canada’s logging industry, this is rock-bottom crudely composite cinema from the Fancey stable. In its favour, the opening fight, with fast edits, blurred action and mid-shot advances straight to camera creates a degree of kinetic energy, but the use of stock newsreel footage makes the setting (and referee attire) more Madison Square Garden than the supposed ‘Glasgow Ring’. Overall, Chibnall and McFarlane are, perhaps, generous in their assessment that ‘there was enough rough stuff and spectacular background scenery to keep audiences entertained for fifty minutes’ (2009, p. 120). The BFI was less impressed with ‘its many naiveties and lack of authenticity … The acting is also sadly unprofessional: it is obvious that these Mounties have never seen Canada’ (MFB 24, 279, April 1957, p. 46). The post-war period began for the British boxing film with the US sending over Duke Hogan in Meet the Duke: it reciprocally ends with ‘Muscles’ Tanner heading for North America—it is hard to say quite who got the worse of the exchange.

Notes 1. The BFI was not alone to ‘rank the climactic fight as one of the most convincing ever filmed fictionally’ (MFB, 12, 134, February 1945, p. 14). 2. Powell’s screen career as a bit-part player and stuntman/double included 14 James Bond films. See Steve Bunce, ‘Nosher Powell: Boxer, actor and Bond stuntman’, Independent, 29 April 2013.

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3. Peterson took the piece ‘back home’ in a version recorded live for Australian television (tx. ABC, 20 April 1960). 4. Burton and O’Sullivan (2009, p. 162) highlight a source play review which noted how Happy’s ‘future is so bright and so dark’ (Times, 22 October 1952). 5. For Body and Soul’s fight scenes cinematographer (and ex-professional boxer) James Wong Howe wore roller skates and sped around the ring with a handheld Arriflex. 6. Danny’s affirmation of boxing’s importance as a route to success/self-­ worth, and the potential damage in thwarting it, will be similarly advocated by both mother and wife in MGM’s Rocky Graziano biopic Somebody Up There Likes Me (Robert Wise, 1956). 7. Technically, Wisdom’s screen debut came in the Terry-Thomas vehicle A Date with a Dream (Dicky Leeman, 1948): it contains a 13-second glimpse of Wisdom performing his shadow-boxing routine at his first regular venue, the Collins Music Hall in Islington (Dacre, 1991, p. 17). 8. The play, in Hazel Adair’s adaptation, screen debuted as an ITV ‘Play of the Week’ (tx. 18 June 1958), with David Stoul as Marchant and Sid James as Burton; Vera Day reprised her role in the film. 9. Thornton is finally provoked to fight by his bullying brother-in-law Squire Danaher, played by cinema’s most famous British boxer, Victor McLaglen.

References Baker, A. (2003). Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film. University of Illinois Press. Barr, C. (1993). Ealing Studios (Rev. ed.). Studio Vista. Burton, A., & Chibnall, S. (2013). Historical Dictionary of British Cinema. Scarecrow Press. Burton, A., & O’Sullivan, T. (2009). The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph. Edinburgh University Press. Chibnall, S., & McFarlane, B. (2009). The British ‘B’ Film. BFI/Palgrave Macmillan. Clay, A. (1999). Men, Women and Money: Masculinity in Crisis in the British Professional Crime Film 1946–1965. In S.  Chibnall & R.  Murphy (Eds.), British Crime Cinema. Routledge. Dacre, R. (1991). Trouble in Store: Norman Wisdom, a Career in Comedy. T.C. Farries and Co. Durgnat, R. (1970). A Mirror for England: British Movies from Austerity to Affluence. Faber and Faber. Geraghty, C. (2000). British Cinema in the Fifties: Gender, Genre and the ‘New Look’. Routledge.

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Grindon, L. (2011). Knockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema. University of Minnesota Press. Grove, J. R., Lavallee, D., & Gordon, S. (1997). Coping with Retirement from Sport: The Influence of Athletic Identity. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 9, 2. Harper, S., & Porter, V. (2003). British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference. Oxford University Press. Hughes, D. (1986). The Spivs. In P.  French & M.  Sissons (Eds.), The Age of Austerity 1945–1951. Hodder and Stoughton. Jones, M. (2018). Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain: Recontextualizing Cultural Anxiety. Bloomsbury. Kirkham, P., & Thumin, J. (1997). Dearden and Gender. In A.  Burton, T. O’Sullivan, & P. Wells (Eds.), Liberal Directions: Basil Dearden and Postwar British Film Culture. Flicks Books. Kynaston, D. (2007). Austerity Britain 1945–1951. Bloomsbury. Landy, M. (1991). British Genres: Cinema and Society, 1930–1960. Princeton University Press. Moeller, M. (2013). Rubble, Ruins and Romanticism: Visual Style, Narration and Identity in German Post-war Cinema. Columbia University Press. Murphy, R. (1989). Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939–49. Routledge. Perry, G. (1981). Forever Ealing. Pavilion. Peterson, R. W. (1954). The Square Ring. Barker. Plain, G. (2006). John Mills and British Cinema: Masculinity, Identity and Nation. Edinburgh University Press. Richards, J. (1997). Basil Dearden at Ealing. In A.  Burton, T.  O’Sullivan, & P.  Wells (Eds.), Liberal Directions: Basil Dearden and Postwar British Film Culture. Flicks Books. Sinai, A. (2003). Reach for the Top: The Turbulent Life of Laurence Harvey. Scarecrow Press. Styan, J.  L. (1975). The Dramatic Experience: A Guide to the Reading of Plays. Cambridge University Press.

PART III

The Colour Treatment

CHAPTER 6

Wider Representation: 1961–1999+

6.1   Boxing at the Art House Bar the epic struggles of Lambeth-born Henry Cooper (Britain’s only knighted boxer) against Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali at Wembley in 1963 and Highbury in 1966, the latter decades of the twentieth century were lean times for British boxing, both in the ring and on screen. With the sport, beset by controversial judging and balkanised by sanctioning bodies, ceding popularity to football and other leisure pursuits, so the out-­ of-­favour British boxing film retreated to independent, art-house productions while narratively leaving its London stronghold to tour the UK, re-examine genre hybridisations and reformulate the boxing-versus-­ community dynamic. The yoking of musical and fistic arts was evident in Puck Films’ low-­ budget 95-minute Run with the Wind (Lindsay Shonteff, June 1966). Though casting highlighted a potential break-out role for Texas-born singer-songwriter Shawn Phillips, the film centres on its female protagonist, travel agency receptionist Jean Parker (Francesca Annis), who leaves unsuccessful and debt-ridden boxer Frank Hiller (Sean Caffrey) to take up with career-building folk-rock singer Paul Walton (Phillips): when she realises her heart is still with Frank, he refuses to take her back. This was the first British boxing film to be awarded the BBFC’s ‘X’ category— though due to its sex scenes rather than the brutal beatings on view. Passing largely unnoticed, the BFI was not impressed by an ‘Uncomfortable © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2_6

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meeting of the pop and boxing worlds, with love sandwiched between them in a scarcely enthralling story’. It appreciated the ‘nicely underplayed’ intimate scenes but not the way they ‘tend to get drowned by the unnecessarily heavy doses of noise and violence’ (MFB, 33, 390, July 1966, p. 111). In categorising the ‘recurring elements’ that create the ‘unique Shonteff touch’, Allan Bryce lists ‘the oddball casting’, ‘sleazy characters’, ‘the constant bouts of explosive violence that go on far too long to be convincing’ and, ‘of course, the completely incomprehensible plots’ (1994, p.  22). Most are present here. The equivalence of boxing with other fields of popular entertainment, as narratively set out in films like Fifty-Shilling Boxer, is here structurally inscribed as Frank’s low-bill bouts are interspersed with performance-mode appearances from the equally low-bill Nashville Teens, Hedgehoppers Anonymous—and Phillips. No-one in either branch of the entertainment industry seems trustworthy, while the indecisive, inarticulate love triangle scarcely endears. The extensive, long-­ take footage of Hiller pushed against the ropes or pinned against factory gates works exhaustively to convey his regular batterings in and out of the ring. The plot, though, is a Shonteff exception, not just comprehensible, but conventional in its play with prevailing paradigms for both genre and ideology. Like a younger Peg Curtis from The Square Ring, Jean initially wearied of Frank because of his obstinate refusal to quit the ring but, in exploring/exploiting her subsequent life in ‘Swinging Sixties’ Britain, the (much displayed) permissiveness is not adjudged rewarding—not at least if you are a woman. Back in 1933’s Mannequin boxer Peter Tattersall could leave his wife for another woman and be welcomed back again, but such a reprieve is still not allowed for Jean in 1966. The film plays as deep-­ rootedly reactionary (almost new wave) in its ideological closure, with Jean’s last-reel abandonment by Frank conveyed as appropriate punishment for a sexually active woman who, enacting the titular free-­spiritedness, thereby strays from her socially required passive gender role. One could ask not only whether Run with the Wind dispassionately observes or enacts the misogyny inherent in both music and boxing businesses, but also which of the two practices treats women worse. Shonteff and writer Jeremy Craig Dryden would revisit London’s pop ‘scene’ in the downbeat groupie sexploitation film Permissive (Shonteff, 1970): they would not return to boxing. Nor would British cinema for almost 25 years,1 only returning with two interlinked low-budget offerings from Bethnal Green-based director and

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boxing aficionado Ron Peck. His earlier Empire State (1987), an ambitious examination of the battles to redevelop London’s Docklands, had featured corrupt East End gangsters with a penchant for patronising bare-­ knuckle fights. Fighters (1992), commissioned by Channel Four for Team Pictures, follows a group of early-career East End boxers, with contrast provided by comeback veteran Mark Kaylor (40-7-1), ex-British and Commonwealth middleweight champion. All train under former light-­ heavyweight Jimmy Tibbs (17-2-1), an East Ender who fought on the 1966 Ali-Cooper undercard before serving five years in jail for attempted murder. The main shoot, from March to May 1991 and centred on West Ham Boys Club and Canning Town’s Peacock Gym, accumulated 100-­ plus hours of fly-on-the-wall video footage of interviews and training, edited down by Peck and intercut with narrative scenes featuring featherweight boxer-turned-actor Jimmy Flint (27-3-0). Fighters premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival in August 1992 before airing on British television (C4, tx. 3 September 1992). It was widely praised, boxing scribe Harry Mullan terming it ‘quite simply, the finest film I’ve seen on professional boxing, and the one which gets closest to explaining the complex nature of the game’s appeal for participants as well as spectators’ (Sunday Times, 30 August 1992). Its reputation has only grown: Time Out, which devoted a two-page spread to its initial release (2 September 1992), placed Fighters alongside usual suspects Rocky and Raging Bull in its ‘KO Corral’ of the ‘Best Boxing Films of All Time’ (18 November 1998). As Helen de Witt notes, Fighters is another boxing film hybrid, ‘both a documentary and a personal essay film’ (n.d.). Taglined ‘a look at life on the undercard’ and focusing on ambitious boxers rather than asperous business practices, pre-bout interviews with the fighters and family members are intercut with black-and-white reconstructions and passages where Peck discusses the sport’s attractions as personal drama and social catharsis—‘I want action, spectacle, skill, movement, violence. And some nights I want blood’, he confesses. He also shares his love of boxing films, especially a hotel sequence from The Set-Up where Stoker Thompson and his wife Julie (Audrey Totter) debate his career: Peck recreates this Hotel Cozy bedroom for scenes with current boxers, notably Kaylor and his (more supportive) wife Pat. There are additional references to Champion and Killer’s Kiss (Stanley Kubrick, 1955),  but, wittingly or not, British boxing films also resonate. The second half of Fighters, concentrating on the bill at Basildon Festival Hall, recalls The Square Ring as each boxer prepares in their own experience-related way, be it sitting quietly in the

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corner (Kaylor) or prowling the dressing room, rehearsing moves (young light-welterweight Dean Hollington (13-2-0)). The images of early-1990s London’s Docklands areas awaiting gentrification link back to the pre-­ reconstruction location footage of No Way Back with its austere aesthetic. Finally, in a more regular—and regrettable—trope, though Tibbs’ stable produced middleweight Commonwealth champions Nigel Benn (42-5-1) and Michael Watson (25-4-1) (briefly seen sparring with Kaylor), Fighters focuses entirely on white boxers. Peck’s debut feature Nighthawks (1978) was a ground-breaking study of homosexuality and here again one can read strong elements of homoerotic fetishisation as the camera lingers on the boxers’ muscled torsos and ritualistic preparations where hands are taped and bodies oiled. Beyond its eroticism, however, the film profoundly romanticises the sport. ‘Touch a boxer and you touch a saint’, Peck observes, and Fighters offers a quasi-­ hagiographic paean of praise to the men whose single-minded search for success leads not just, as shown in gym sessions, to the mortification of the flesh, but also, as admitted in interview, to the self-denial of those quotidian pleasures usual to social and family life. Sometimes that sacrifice can prove definitive. The mortal dangers of boxing, another aspect Peck chose to bypass, were tragically realised when Bradley Stone (17-2-1), an affable and pragmatic interviewee who knew turning professional would never make him rich, but ‘on the road to becomin’, like, I dunno … happy’, died from a blood clot after losing a British super-bantamweight title fight in April 1994, aged just 23. Stone had suggested to Peck a follow-up film exploring the darker side of Canning Town where its criminals were ever-ready to pull in financially struggling boxers: his idea would be developed into Peck’s fictional Real Money (1996). A small £70,000 budget was again financed by Channel 4, now in partnership with the BFI, while the cast, almost all acting debutants, was mainly drawn from the boxing people Peck encountered making Fighters: Jimmy Tibbs and his son Mark (22-2-1), Mark Kaylor, Dean Hollington, and others. The storyline was collaboratively built up in workshops at Team Pictures’ studio, the cast developing characters informed by their knowledge and experiences, and then improvising within an agreed narrative framework. The film was shot in Canning Town over three weeks in late-1994, mostly in extreme close-up which imparted an air of intimate secrecy even if principally motivated by cost-cutting expediency—more expansive episodes such as a robbery proved beyond budgetary realisation. The 75-minute film, dedicated to Stone, was broadcast after midnight on

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Channel 4’s Independent Television slot (tx. 4 January 1996). It has since received occasional art-house exhibition. Real Money again centres on Jimmy Tibbs, now playing boxing trainer Roy Kane, determined to stop the growing threat of local gangster Frank Chalmers (Flint) luring his young boxers into an underworld of drug dealing and prostitution. When Roy learns that his son Bobby (Mark Tibbs) has been arrested for possession, he asks Frank to use his influence to get Bobby released, but is rebuffed. On the night of the big fight, Frank is shot as he arrives at the hall—but during the after-fight party news comes from the hospital that he will survive. Sparsely reviewed, the film pleased the local and sporting press. Matthew Eastley witnessed ‘a slice-of-life drama which came as close as anyone ever has to capturing the true flavour of East End street life’ (Newham Recorder, 17 January 1996), while Harry Mullan again enthused for ‘a picture of delight’ that reiterated Peck’s ‘rare understanding of his subject … The “feel” of the film was exactly right’ (Boxing News, 26 January 1996). Real Money constitutes a unique venture in the British boxing film. It takes the genre beyond the solo ventures of fighter-actors such as Victor McLaglen, gives a contemporary authenticity not possible with the ensemble recreations of Andrew Soutar’s Regency Romances of the Prize Ring, and shows more representational ambition than the walk-on cameos served up in Excuse My Glove. It is also unprecedented in its complementary status, working best if viewed in tandem with Fighters as a more meaningful whole. Employing the same faces and places (Roy again runs the Peacock Gym), Real Money carries over a strand of authenticity from Fighters, with knowledge of the documentary sections’ honesty compensating for acting deficiencies apparent here. Examining life in the underworld, the film reruns many of the insights revealed in Fighters, but now sutures them to the genre’s fictional tropes, augmenting the overall depiction of boxing by showing the danger and corruption missing from the first feature. Real Money is again built on problems faced by young men from impoverished areas, and the paucity of avenues for self-improvement. The viability of running boxing clubs is now under greater pressure, both for facilities and for membership. Frank’s first confrontation with Roy occurs when the gangster inspects a gym earmarked for conversion into a fashionable nightclub—a sign of burgeoning gentrification. Meanwhile, prime pickings for Frank’s temptations are the ‘old lags’ who have failed to win the purses allowing them to set up home and/or start a small business. But

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‘easy money’ alternatives to gruelling training regimes are also on offer to those early in their careers, while even adolescents can be drawn in by the apparent excitement of the hard-man lifestyle—like The Square Ring, Peck’s film has a cross-generational canvas. The older fighter Johnny (Kaylor) feels constrained to make a comeback to pay off debts. Rookie Bobby Kane also owes money, to Frank who, like Joe Sleak from No Way Back, forces the young boxer to become a getaway driver—then sets him up with drug possession. Spanner (Danny Clarke), the adolescent brother of boxer Danny (1998–2000 British then WBU light-welterweight champion Jason Rowland (26-2-0)), is encouraged by Frank’s cohort into robbing a house and getting a gun. Real Money could also be charged with presenting a rose-tinted view of boxing, since all those in trouble turn to Roy for assistance. He offers Johnny a testimonial; he pleads with Frank to leave his son alone; he promises Spanner’s mother Annie (Rita Lawrence) that he will put things right. The romanticisation even shades into the quasi-religious: in a churchyard Roy learns from a religious friend that planting drugs is Frank’s modus operandi, but is also informed that violence is not the solution, prompting Roy’s refusal to gun down his opponent in a pre-arranged gym standoff—one can conjecture here a plotline fed in by Tibbs Snr, from 1990 a born-again ‘Cockney Christian’ (Tibbs, 2014, p. 120). There is no indication that Roy is involved in the later shooting of Frank (who has other gangland enemies), but the film ends with the trainer distinctly worried of potential repercussions. While a similar lack of resolution can be inferred in There Ain’t No Justice and the Rick Martell strand of The Square Ring, Real Money registers a significant generic shift in perceptions of boxing and its standing vis-à-vis society. In 1939 the morally superior local community was Tommy Mutch’s support against the corrupt boxing world: for Rick in 1953 there was no support system, the Adams’ Stadium boxing card as atomised as society was indifferent. Now in the early-1990s the only avenue of support is seen to lie with Roy and his boxing associates. Beginning with group gym-training and ending with post-fight celebrations, Real Money not only reiterates but its very existence incarnates the overriding message of Fighters that, while boxing is ultimately individualistic, boxers achieve most by working together and, in vulnerable social areas, boxing now constitutes the only meaningful community against the rampant contemporary commercialism symbolised by the likes of Frank Chambers. It would prove a dominant genre motif across the decade, and around the UK.2

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6.2   Boxing in the Provinces Micro-budgeted British boxing films were made with select home audiences in mind: larger commercial success or wider distribution was a bonus. But what happens when Hollywood comes calling and, on a scale dwarfing earlier ‘quota quickie’ tax-deals, becomes the major investor? Must a smaller national cinema increase accessibility by adopting the forms and structures of a genre America considers its own? Should it pander to promised international audiences by adhering to stereotypical national depictions—the ‘Scottish hard-man’, the ‘fighting Irish’? Two 1990s co-­ productions allow an exploration of this economic and cultural contract, both with combative results. 6.2.1  The 1990s Boxing Film Champion: The Big Man (1990) For the first time in nearly 40 years, the British boxing film received sizeable financial investment—at the end of the Thatcher years—in Palace Pictures’ 116-minute The Big Man (David Leland, 1990). Its £3.1 million budget, large for an independent production, was secured through Palace founder Stephen Woolley’s long-standing partnership with American producer Miramax. The film was adapted by Don MacPherson from William McIlvanney’s same-named 1985 novel, itself based on the true-life story of Scottish bare-knuckle boxing ex-miner Thomas Tallen. Filmed on location in the South Lanarkshire village of Coalburn, plus scenes in Glasgow and Spain, the lead was entrusted to Ballymena-born Liam Neeson, three-­ time Northern Ireland’s junior boxing champion and now, with Darkman (Sam Raimi, 1990) in the can, on the cusp of international film stardom. Neeson’s big-fight opponent was played by Ayrshire-born British light-­ heavyweight contender (1979) Rab Affleck (15-5-0), an experienced bare-knuckle fighter. The film’s credits convey the attention paid to this centrepiece contest, shot over five weeks in Glasgow’s Tramway, by naming five advisers and two fight arrangers/choreographers. Although Glasgow was 1990 European Cultural Capital, The Big Man had its world premiere on 9 April as opening film at the 44th Edinburgh Film Festival before going on general UK release at the end of the month. It was shortened by 23 minutes and retitled Crossing the Line for American release in August 1991. The film follows Danny Scoular (Neeson), an unemployed former miner who has served a six-month prison term for his part in picket-line

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violence during the 1984–1985 UK miners’ strike. His schoolteacher wife Beth (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) has become the family breadwinner, a situation Danny struggles to accept. Desperate to pay his way, he accepts the invitation, brokered by lifelong friend Frankie White (Billy Connolly), to represent dubious local businessman Matt Mason (Ian Bannen) in a one-­ off illegal bare-knuckle boxing fight. Dismayed at Danny’s actions, Beth leaves with their two children and starts seeing an old flame, yuppie doctor Gordon (Hugh Grant). Danny continues training, convinced a victory will restore not just his own pride but that of his demoralised local community, Thornbank. Danny wins a long and brutal fight, in the process blinding his opponent Cutty Dawson (Affleck) who, in hospital, reveals that Mason is involved in drug trafficking with the fight arranged to settle a Glasgow gangland issue with fellow drug-pusher Cam Colvin (Maurice Roëves). Danny steals Mason’s money, but when Mason turns up with his henchmen to administer retribution, Beth and the village come to Danny’s aid. UK reviews offered a split decision. For Geoff Andrew it was a clear winner: ‘By adhering to the classic fight-movie formula of beleaguered pugilist vs manipulative crime boss … Leland and MacPherson have made one of Britain’s finest existentialist thrillers in ages’ (Time Out, 29 August 1990). More typically, Angie Errigo’s tempered review found it ‘an honourable, if not entirely likeable effort’ with praise given to Neeson and ‘a memorably cinematic punch-up, horrifyingly brutal, gory but involving’ (Empire, September 1990, p.  21). Philip French, however, lambasted how, ‘Rarely plausible, frequently risible, occasionally embarrassing, this morally confused melodrama falls with a thud between social realism and mythic fable’—even dismissing the score by three-times Oscar-nominated Ennio Morricone as ‘soupy’ (Observer, 19 August 1990). The leaner Big Man won few plaudits in America, Vincent Canby heading his review ‘No, Danny Couldn’t Have Been a Contender’ and decrying how the film’s ‘high-mindedness is less dramatic than anaesthetizing’ (New York Times, 9 August 1991). Such critical reservations were as nothing, though, compared to public reaction. In Britain the film took only £268,000 at the box office, failing even to recoup the £350,000 spent on domestic film-stock prints and advertising. Its US gross was a paltry $60,000, a major factor in Palace Pictures entering receivership in May 1992 (Finney, 1996, p. 202). Existing academic treatments judge the film’s strengths and weaknesses from an auteurist and/or American perspective. Michael O’Pray saw ‘another stab by David Leland at sketching a portrait of British social life’ with the habitual ‘good performances in the central roles, superficial social

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backgrounds, and a tendency towards cliché’ (MFB, 57, 681, October 1990, p. 288). Robert Murphy also noted common Leland characteristics—‘relationships across the divides of class or race, sexual frankness, romantic aspirations and their exploitation within a fallen world’—but considered this effort ‘overburdened by gangster melodrama and anti-­ Thatcherite rhetoric’ (2006, p. 374). The production team’s claim to have drawn on the classic western’s epic quality and concern for ‘community and historical change’ (Finney, 1996, p. 198) led Douglas Gifford to critique ‘a too-slick and forced cultural paralleling [that] no longer discusses Scottish issues for themselves’ (1996, p.  43). Jonathan Murray warned how such ‘mining’ of tropes from the western opened the film to accusations of ‘borderline misogynistic gender discourses’ with its masculine codes of honour reinforcing ‘the reductive, regressive and stereotypical idea of Scottish identity personified by the (over-)familiar figure of the Glasgow Hard Man’ (2015, pp. 24–25). The Big Man more fully coheres, however, and counters some of these critiques if interpreted at ‘face value’ as a boxing genre movie—but one largely eschewing Hollywood formulae, aware such homogenising strategies would vitiate analysis of the precise socio-historical causes of Danny’s (and his region’s) recourse to violence. There are certainly gestures to America: Frankie proclaims Danny ‘Thornbank’s answer to Rocky Marciano’, their road and gym training routines offer a Celtic call-back to Rocky, while even the title offers allusions, not to a John Ford western, but The Quiet Man. Leland’s film similarly interrogates boxing and a nostalgia for local community spirit, all the while compromising with national approximations in its casting: as critiqued on its release, neither Danny nor Beth are played by Scottish actors (Manchester-born Whalley-Kilmer offers a very loose West Coast accent). Against that, The Big Man has The Big Yin, Billy Connolly’s middleman in motely  offering an indigenous genre link back to (fellow-knighted) Harry Lauder—though Auld Lang Syne eschewed scenes of post-fight fellatio—while cinema’s political activism was advanced with a debut role for actor-director Peter Mullan. Gender discourse is similarly both residual and emergent. McIlvanney’s source text, alongside deconstructing myths of masculinity, is acknowledged for its ‘attempt to begin, however tentatively, an examination of female consciousness’, with Danny’s wife’s a ‘meaningful presence’ (Petley, 2004, p.  35). The same holds for its film adaptation. Generically, the British boxing film has, unlike its American counterpart, occasionally ended in cross-class union, from well-heeled Fanney Stafford marrying

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down-at-heel Bill Adams in Excuse My Glove to Cambridge-educated Dickie Marchant embracing Cockney ‘sparrer’ Cynthia Tripp in And the Same to You. The viability of such relationships is rarely broached, but here, where the film begins with such a union, the foundations for the marriage between middle-class teacher Beth and unemployed miner Danny are necessarily explored. The ethical dimension is implicit: Beth was happy in 1984 to live in abject poverty boiling pig potatoes with ‘a man of principal’ whose belief in ‘ordinary decent lives’ led him to jail—hence her understandable fury when Danny ‘sells out’ and her rejection of his ‘blood money’. However, more primal motivations for the relationship are signalled with a generically unparalleled explicitness. When Beth assumes the dominant position in the couple’s post-argument ‘make-up sex’, it is evident that, rather than any stand-by-your-man victimhood, the marriage (partly) endures because Danny fulfils her physical desires. Her return to Thornbank after goading reticent Gordon into intercourse in her parents’ hallway replays the realisation and regret of Jean Parker in Run with the Wind—she wants her macho husband. (The sexual attractiveness of the priapic pugilist is reinforced at the post-fight party where the (interrupted) below-the-belt fondling by Mason’s cocaine-snorting daughter Melanie (Julie Graham) confirms Danny is indeed the big man.) But Danny is also exposed as a weak, small man. The psychology of the boxer, examined throughout the genre, can explain a hypermasculinity that elides with neurosis, creating a quasi-infantile refusal to yield to female agency, and an over-dependent relationship with the natal community. Beth is more generically conformist when she entreats domestication, telling Danny that ‘you don’t have to be the big man, you know’. But he does. Danny’s heartfelt cry that he cannot stay at home forever ‘washing the children’s underwear’ is underlined by a mise-en-scene that frames him in the foreground-dominating doorway, visualising his domestic confinement and revealing him the victim of social and psychological forces that control and condition his behaviour. Relating this to a corrosive Scottish ‘ideal of nationality-cum-masculinity … wholly definable by phallocentric metaphors of masculine identity, authority and conflict’ (Murray, 2015, p. 25) is problematised by Beth’s increasing agency, but Danny can cogently line up with fighters like Kid Curtis in The Square Ring or Frank Hiller in Run with the Wind, case studies indicative of a sporting practice where men, struggling to achieve what they consider ‘authentic’ and meaningful lives, are debased as much as defined.

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Even so, fight-funding Mason is shrewd enough to realise that, to succeed in the bear-pit of bare-knuckle boxing, principled Danny needs ‘a reason to fight’ beyond rediscovered self-worth. This motivation comes symbiotically from the local community, its new-found enthusiasm both unbidden with individual training-run donations and, probably with Mason’s encouragement, in a collective appearance at Danny’s open-­ topped send-off. Both factors add credence to the final confrontation, where Beth rounds up the entire village (seemingly) to nullify Mason’s threats of revenge. Sparked by Danny’s boxing, this revival of the respectable community values espoused by John Ford and Ealing Studios may strike O’Pray as ‘fairy tale’, but it gives The Big Man a socio-political circularity: just as the film began with the wedding scene’s mullets and 1970s fashion faux-pas, so the final gathering bears the communitarian raiment of that era’s Clydesideism and its notion of ‘shared working-class consciousness, rooted in political struggle and a culture defined by hard physical work and boisterous leisure activities’ (Petley, 2004, p. 25). As a caveat, one can again conjecture on the security of this ‘happy ending’. Mason’s departing threat is to ‘consider this as your funeral’ and, though the gangster’s Rolls disappears over the horizon, a brief post-credits night-time scene shows car headlights heading forward. Retribution may still be at hand from a man who, as Dawson warns Danny, has ‘killed more people than your undertaker’.3 Bar this ambivalent coda, the enduring critique of The Big Man for its ‘on the nose’ anti-Thatcherism is irrefutable. The film—like its source novel—sets honourable Danny against the value systems embodied by Mason, a forerunner of Frank Chambers’ rapacious, ruthless entrepreneur in Real Money. Mason is the working-class Gallowgate boy ‘made good’, his influence now stretching to Spain and the fate of sunbathing drug supplier Tony (Kenny Ireland). Tony’s sharing of the titular ‘Big Man’ sobriquet, plus his assassination immediately pursuant to the fight result, firmly links the management and aggressivity of boxing to the criminal underworld. Mason and Danny enter a financial transaction with the gangster employing the big man for his physical prowess—a union which, placed in a generic context, allows both synchronic and diachronic motivations. Where Danny’s labour was previously expended full-time on industrial mining production, now it is casually employed in leisure consumption, providing both an evening’s entertainment to Mason’s invited audience— their chance ‘to see some blood’ as Danny (like Ron Peck) puts it—and a ‘sporting’ means to decide which drug-lord should eliminate a

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double-crossing supplier. This can, of course, be viewed, like Real Money (and Empire State), as (over-explicitly?) exemplifying the changing nature of the economy in Thatcherite Britain, a metaphor for the brutalising nature of neo-liberal capitalism and how right-wing government policy— the ‘gangster politicians’ as barroom militant Vince (Mullan) pointedly names them—impacts directly on working-class people: the fight’s industrial mise-en-scene visually reinforces how these men everywhere remain in chains (Fig. 6.1). This interaction of social wealth and authority with proletarian physical power is, though, a constant pairing in boxing films, and Mason’s relationship with Danny has lengthy and variously gradated genre echoes: in Joe Sleak’s use of Johnnie Thompson in No Way Back; in Sammy Sanders’ employment of Tommy Mutch in There Ain’t No Justice; even Jack Fordyce’s silent hiring of Jim Conners in The Last Round. More than that: though running underground, hidden from ‘normal’ society because of its outlawed status, here, emphasised by Jack Shepherd’s side-­ burned tweed-suited referee chalk-drawing the line, is a continuation of ‘the Fancy’. Big Man Scoular and Cutty Dawson fight as film descendants of Gloucester Dick and Ginger Stubbs, boxers equally patronised for money and reputation by (variably honourable) members of Regency gentry in The House of Temperley. Like Haldane’s film, a fully researched and accurately recreated set-­ piece fight-off provides the temporal and narrative centre of The Big Man.

Fig. 6.1  The Big Man—to the victor the spoils

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There is scant boxing around it: unaware of its audition status, Danny knocks out barroom belligerent Billy (UK wrestler Pat Roach) with a single blow; two brief gym sessions corroborate that Danny can use his fists. As can Liam Neeson: while his line-delivery occasionally slips into an Ulster brogue, the fight itself, 13 minutes of unstinting action, unerringly displays his pugilistic skills. Indeed, Neeson, Hollywood’s imminent go-to mature action hero, makes a case to inherit the Victor McLaglen mantle, a screen performer convincing both as actor and as boxer. The muscle memory from Neeson’s schoolboy training is evidently in place, from the way he holds his hands, the impressive footwork (especially for an actor 6ft 4in tall), and in particular the authentic stiff left jab. With the arena centrally lit, allowing a concentration on the elemental man-to-man struggle, the referee explains the rules—to the diegetic and cinema audience: ‘A fight to the finish. No disputed verdicts. No points system. One fight, one winner.’ Even amidst this visually and morally murky setting, any doubt as to the right side in the contest is eliminated with Dawson not only sporting a black vest but, prior to the referee’s signal, spitting in Danny’s face and hitting him. These ‘ungentlemanly’ tactics see Dawson soon down Danny, embellished with a kick to the stomach that ends the round, outrages Danny’s corner and makes Mason’s man vomit. Danny makes it to the line in the permitted 30 seconds for the second round where Dawson uses a clinch to bite his opponent on the shoulder; however, like the equally naïve Tommy Mutch, Danny quickly learns his lesson and, abandoning his pledge to ‘beat him clean’, starts to employ the tactics passed on by coach Tommy Brogan (Tom Watson), gouging Dawson firmly in the eye and thus regaining the advantage. Red in tooth and claw, the fight thereafter repeatedly shifts in momentum, as any semblance of boxing rules, Queensbury, Broughton or otherwise, disintegrate. When Dawson next downs Danny, he also knees him in the face: when Dawson is floored, Danny continues with repeated punching. Soon after urging their man to ‘punch the bastard blind’, Danny’s corner employ a razor blade to cut across the swelling that has closed his eye— shown in close-up the shot brings a Glasgow boxer close to Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buňuel, 1929). Sensing a conclusion, the crowd move in, creating a small circle, further concentrating the action as Danny headlocks Dawson and smashes his skull repeatedly on the concrete floor then punches him four times in the face while the crowd bays ‘kill him! kill him!’ Beating him clean? The fight over, Danny is carried away by the euphoric crowd, Dawson is unceremoniously dragged into the shadows,

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and Morricone’s previously understated score reaches a choir-augmented crescendo. Alongside this unstinting physical action, sound has been a key contributor to the fight’s overall visceral effect: not just the crunch and slap of fists on flesh, but the constant underscoring of Morricone’s growling percussion with brass punches. Except where, in the central scene of the film’s centrepiece and as the battered fighters return to the line, film speed is slightly retarded and all diegetic sound is removed: with blows hitting home and faces contorting in dumbfounded shock, the round reaches for (and, I would contend, attains) a punch-drunk, barbaric lyricism. Contentiously, perhaps, but acknowledging the added value to the genre of expertly choreographed fighting, this unflinchingly achieved sequence makes The Big Man this volume’s Boxing Film Champion for the decade. It is difficult for the film to recover after this tour de force, and the final act, though allowing Danny at some length to rediscover his sense of self-worth, plays very much as a support bill. The film, unlike its boxers, emerges broken-backed. Seven years later America again came calling, now a major studio funding five-time Oscar-nominated Irish director Jim Sheridan with The Boxer. A co-production with Sheridan’s Hell’s Kitchen Films saw Universal almost exclusively provide the $40 million budget. Scripted by Terry George, the film followed In the Name of the Father (Sheridan, 1993) and Some Mother’s Son (George, 1996) to complete a trilogy exploring the 30-year stretch of political violence in Northern Ireland generally referred to as ‘the Troubles’. It was also the pair’s ‘most overtly generic work, a boxing drama’ (Barton, 2002, p. 99) and, though an Ireland/USA production filmed in and around Dublin, was the first-ever feature to focus on the sport in the Six Counties—thus its ‘wild card’ entry to this British film study. The initial idea followed from Sheridan’s 1985 biography of County Monaghan-born Finbar Patrick aka ‘Barry’ McGuigan, arguably Northern Ireland’s greatest-ever boxer (28-3-0), 1983–1985 British and European featherweight champion and 1985–1986 WBA world featherweight champion (plus 1985 BBC Sports Personality of the Year). As significant as his gutsy boxing performances was the emblematic status of ‘the Clones Cyclone’: McGuigan, from a Catholic family but married to Protestant Sandra (née Mealliff), sought to depoliticise his fights by foregoing national flags or anthems and always entered the ring to the recording (by his father, renowned singer Pat) of the Derry Air ballad ‘Danny Boy’. At a time of great division, McGuigan proved hugely popular, though not all

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of a nationalist persuasion approved, especially when, having represented Ireland at the 1980 Olympics, McGuigan took British citizenship so he could fight for UK titles—his 1985 world title celebrations through Belfast were countered with graffiti accusing ‘Barry the Brit’ of having ‘sold his soul for English gold’ (Sugden & Harvie, 1995, p. 135). While retaining some biographical markers from Leave the Fighting to McGuigan, Sheridan and George worked this sensitive matrix of neutrality and nationalism into a fictional narrative, with McGuigan brought in as ‘Boxing Consultant’ and trainer to the film’s lead, the internationally renowned (and Best Actor Academy Award winner in 1989 for Sheridan’s My Left Foot) Daniel Day-Lewis. Having spent two years honing his boxing technique while awaiting the project’s confirmation, Day-Lewis worked with McGuigan twice daily for a further year, allegedly breaking his nose and damaging a lower-back disc in the process. By the time of filming the real and performative had blurred to the extent that McGuigan claimed in interview (perhaps with a boxer’s audience-attracting hyperbole) that Day-Lewis could have turned professional: ‘if you eliminate the top ten middleweights in Britain, any of the other guys Daniel could have gone in and fought’ (Irish Times, 20 September 1997).4 With a 16-week shoot lensed by veteran cinematographer Chris Menges, The Boxer received its US premiere on 31 December 1997 so it could qualify for that year’s Oscar nominations: its UK release followed in February 1998. The film follows 32-year-old Danny Boy Flynn (Day-Lewis) who returns to Belfast after 14 years in prison for terrorist offences. A former boxer and member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Danny sobers up his old trainer Ike Weir (Ken Stott) so they can reopen the local gym’s non-sectarian Holy Family Boxing Club and revive Danny’s career. He meets ex-girlfriend Maggie (Emily Watson), now unhappily married to a still-imprisoned IRA member. Neither militant IRA lieutenant Harry McCormack (Gerard McSorley) nor Maggie’s adolescent son Liam (Ciarán Fitzgerald) welcomes Danny’s return, and following a boxing-­event bombing incident, Liam and his friends burn down the gym. Danny loses his comeback fight in London and Ike is assassinated by Harry, who in turn is terminated by local IRA leader, Maggie’s father Joe Hamill (Brian Cox). Danny, Maggie and Liam drive home together. After the divisive reception of Sheridan’s earlier ‘Troubles films’, frequently accused in the UK of pro-republican bias, The Boxer, with its message of reconciliation and powerful lead performance, was well-received at home and abroad. Eoghan Harris termed it ‘the first balanced film on

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Northern Ireland for almost 15 years, and a model of how to meld politics and drama that film-makers tackling Northern Ireland have too often ignored’ (Sunday Times, 1 February 1998). For Janet Maslin ‘this more reflective and mature film sees a bigger picture’ as ‘the central metaphors of boxing and prison powerfully reflect a wider awareness of Belfast’s plight’ (New York Times, 31 December 1997). Ian Nathan was typical in eulogising Day-Lewis who delivered ‘the kind of all-encompassing central performance that makes a mockery of the big “acting” that is reeled in and out of the multiplexes every week’ (Empire, April 1998, p. 36). Though failing to trouble the Oscars, The Boxer received best Picture, Actor (Day-­ Lewis) and Director Nominations at 1998’s Golden Globe Awards. The subject matter and setting proved a hard sell, however, with the general public. ‘Can you take another film about boxing? Can you take another film about Northern Ireland? You can. You will’, asserted Richard Williams (Guardian, 20 February 1998). He was wrong: The Boxer was a commercial flop, taking $6 million domestically, under $5 million in the US, and global box-office returns that only reached $16.5 million. Sheridan has noted how, from its origins with McGuigan’s career, The Boxer finally ‘became three stories: a love story, an IRA story, and a boxing story’ (Irish Times, 20 September 1997). The Boxer has received copious academic analysis but, despite its title, scant attention as a boxing film— indeed, for Geoffrey Macnab ‘the fact that Danny is a boxer is ultimately an irrelevance’ (1998, p. 42). This section argues that the boxing thread is imperative and inseparable from both the film’s romantic and political plotlines. From a socio-political angle, there is scant originality in the ‘forbidden love’ narrative, a staple of ‘Troubles films’ such as Cal (Pat O’Connor, 1984) and The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992), though its more tentatively optimistic conclusion fits with the concurrent cease-fire that would culminate in 1998’s Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. In the context of boxing films, however, the place of the love story is, if not innovative, then untypical as, rather than reiterating the habitual conflict between boxing and romance, it allows an exploration, like The Big Man, of the fracturing of established gender activity contemporary with major socio-economic changes. Brian McIlroy terms Maggie ‘politically passive’ (1998, p. 73), but her assertion that ‘I do have a mind of my own, Danny’ (like Beth Scoular she works in children’s education) is proven as she subverts the patriarchal codes of morality which, through strict surveillance, equally imprison the wives of IRA prisoners. She is proactive in initially pursuing

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then regulating the progress of her relationship with Danny—though his affectionately delivered description of her as ‘a dangerous fuckin’ woman’ seems justified when her arrangement to meet in East Belfast nearly ends in Danny’s abduction by patrolling loyalists: they are only saved because Danny is recognised by a fellow boxer (Irish amateur bantamweight champion Mickey Tohill).5 Significantly, Maggie also has the film’s final words, contingently establishing a new (holy) family unit as she informs the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) checkpoint that ‘we’re going home’. The love story also complements Danny’s attempts to resume his past life, his new approach to boxing overlapping with his realigned identity and commitment to a unifying and supportive environment at both family and community levels. Boxing holds a personal merit for Danny, a chance not to regenerate a corrosive hypermasculinity but to reorient his life, indeed to experience that life: he explains to Maggie how, after 14 years of physical and emotional confinement, ‘when I get back in the ring again, you can’t imagine what a relief it is to feel the pain, to be back in the world again’. He also sees a wider benefit: if paramilitary activity can be categorised as ‘(working class) men attempting with various degrees of success to kill other (working class) men’ (Coulter, 1999, p. 133), Danny’s hope is that resurrecting the non-sectarian gym will serve as a proletarian substitute, a sublimation allowing lawless ‘gunmen’ to return to disciplined ‘hard-men’ and boxing to bring together a fractured community. Thus, through its focus on Danny, the film’s pro-ceasefire message and treatment of (Irish) masculinity is inextricably connected in its converging IRA and boxing stories. Unlike Hollywood’s invariably upbeat genre expectations, however, the peace search is compromised, and the boxer’s sentiment undercut, as Danny’s actions leave a trail of violence in their wake, largely initiated by Harry’s hard-line opposition to any gesture redolent of political or masculinist reconciliation. Before Danny fights at the revived gym’s inaugural programme, Ike’s naming of Holy Family Club boxers who died in ‘the Troubles’—including Harry’s son but also a young protestant fighter—is undercut by Harry’s meta-critique: he declares this ‘sentimental shite’ not ‘just boxing’ but ‘a fuckin’ statement’. Danny’s competitive debut at Belfast’s City Hall, with its (McGuigan-­ inspired) press headline to ‘Leave the Fighting to Danny’ endorsed both by his ambitious arcade-owning manager Matt Maguire (Kenneth Cranham) and committed RUC community officer Reggie Bell (Ian McElhinney), irritates the boxer himself—‘I don’t like being used’—and further enrages Harry, who feels such rhetoric demeans past victims whose

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‘sacrifices aren’t worth a lousy fuckin’ boxing match’. Harry’s reprisal, a bullet smashing into the mirrored reflection of Danny shadow-boxing at home, is, visually, the film’s single most achieved unification of tropes from the political and boxing genres. It is more succinct, and arguably credible, than the fight night itself, where Danny takes on ‘Celtic Tiger’ Eddie Carroll (Lisburn light-­ middleweight Damien Denny (18-4-1)), a ‘neutral’ opponent from Glasgow. The packed hall is divided between IRA followers and loyalist paramilitaries, both cheering Danny and (in another McGuigan borrowing) singing ‘Danny Boy’ as he enters. To emphasise the unity of purpose, cutaways show two singing fans in close-up, one’s face painted the republican green, white and orange, the other the unionist red, white and blue. The scene has prompted less unity in the academic community. For Ruth Barton, ‘This institutionalised violence, far from inciting “tribal hatreds” is, in the film, the catalyst for bringing together the two communities after many years of separation’ (2002, p. 114). For Martin McLoone, though, it is ‘a scene of such crass impossibility that it almost defies belief’ and coming ‘straight out of the optimist’s book of wishful thinking … reflects the level at which the film deals with the politics of Northern Ireland’ (2000, p.  78). However, the fierce Protestant booing that greets Joe Hamill’s arrival intimates that any unity is only sport-deep, and subsequent events fully counter both critical polarities, exposing the naivety/ wishfulness of Danny’s (rather than Sheridan’s?) thinking.6 Harry, refusing to obey the ceasefire, sanctions the blowing up RUC offer Bell’s car as he leaves the fight, occasioning a politically divided riot in the Hall and the Holy Family gym’s destruction, burned down by Liam who, like young Danny from Real Money, compensates for an absent father by aping the actions of surrounding ‘macho’ lawbreakers. At a narrative level, these reactions confirm how reviving boxing events at a community centre singularly fails to re-establish non-sectarian community life; meta-narratively, they expose how the genre conventions adumbrated by the film are wholly inadequate as a solution to such deep-seated political divisions.7 For John Hill Harry opposes the fighting Flynn less for boxing’s unifying potential than because ‘it represents a form of fighting “within the rules” that contrasts with the apparently unregulated violence of the paramilitaries’ (2006, p.  201). This ‘ethical dimension’ is manifested in Danny’s third bout when, disillusioned by the gym’s destruction, he accepts Maguire’s proposal to work professionally on the London circuit. His fight there does not go well: though easily defeating his opponent,

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Danny will not inflict unnecessary pain and walks away, declaring ‘the fight’s over’. It is again a ‘statement’, paralleling the moves, led by Maggie’s father, to end the unnecessary bloodshed of paramilitary violence. It is broadened, though, by the London context, with the rebuke from Danny’s corner that the referee should have stepped in intimating a wider reproach, that the fighting in Northern Ireland was started by England and it is England’s responsibility to stop it. This symbolic significance can be both attached to biography and politically broadened. The London fight is again based on McGuigan’s career, a 1982 bout at Mayfair’s World Sporting Club where his sixth-round defeated opponent, Young Ali (Asimi Mustapha), fell into a coma and died from a blood clot, leading McGuigan to contemplate renouncing the sport. Perhaps restaging a more personal ‘wishful thinking’, Danny appears at a similar deluxe event, arranged by Maguire and held in the Commonwealth Sporting Club, again at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel. The ring is surrounded by dinner tables and well-heeled, well-oiled punters (in reality a stage-set at Ardmore Studios in Bray with 300 extras), placing wagers on fighters while ignorant even of their names. Importantly, though, these names indicate the fighters’ origins in territories once part of the British Empire: Danny’s opponent is, like Young Ali, a Nigerian boxer, here named Akim Muhammed (super-middleweight Londoner Clayon Stewart (4-10-0)). Unremarkable in comparison to American movies such as Rocky, this professional pairing marks the return of a racial element to the British boxing film dormant since before the war and— astonishingly given UK boxing’s ethnic make-up—last seen on screen with Tom Molineaux’s historical title challenge in When Giants Fought and, in a contemporary setting, the brief shots of Jack Sander defeating Kid Gunn in Hitchcock’s The Ring. Its reappearance here is not unglossed: when Ike voices his dismay at Danny switching from the noble art to a ‘bloody circus, and you the performing monkey’, it is a ‘statement’ fully supported by the mise-en-scene. Though the fight’s live national television broadcasting stretches credibility, the restaging of the London hotel setting is realistic. Throwing coins into the ring at the completion of the previous bout—we briefly see a knockout effected by future (1998) world middleweight champion Cornelius Carr (34-4-0)8—may recall the charity request from There Ain’t No Justice, but it remains (condescendingly) customary at such gala evenings. The boxers’ entrance to the accompaniment of a military band, dressed in red tunics with white pith helmets, was again based not on

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national satire but preparatory research. Thus, with the addition of front-­ table champagne-swilling patrons whiskered like Lord Kitchener, the bout is staged in an imperial time capsule, with both boxers effectively engaged in a gladiatorial combat for the entertainment of their former rulers. Faced with pummelling another victim of British neo-colonial rule, Danny disobeys the instruction to continue given by the English referee/(circus) ringmaster (though played by Dublin-born Fred Tiedt, 1961 Ireland welterweight champion (12-7-2)): instead he protectively cradles his defenceless opponent (Fig. 6.2). The crowd reaction also makes it clear that they expect Danny to move in for ‘the kill’: here, in the aftermath of Empire, the English still exploit their former colonial subjects in what Ike also terms a ‘meat trade’. Danny may think he has abandoned Belfast and its surveillance helicopters to focus on professional boxing, but England remains the controlling presence—politics, commerce and sport are inextricably connected. Danny realises that it is time to stop acceding to the manipulations of England’s political and business interests, and thus, as he earlier renounced political action, so he now renounces boxing in a scene that works to decolonise the genre. And the boxing itself? From its opening shot of a distant Danny shadow-boxing in hooded training top, through to the finale’s slow-­ motion sequence with heavy-punching accompaniment, The Boxer reveals

Fig. 6.2  The Boxer—no Irish, no blacks

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a stylistic indebtedness to Raging Bull. (Day-Lewis’ much publicised preparations also invited comparisons, but in truth made Robert De Niro’s method-acting shape-shifting seem, well, lightweight.) The Boxer does, though, break free in its aesthetic. To help capture Day-Lewis’ ring skills a new filming technique was devised, with a camera dropped into the ring on a rubber bungee-cord allowing a flexibility and fluidity of movement around the boxers beyond the scope of handheld/steadycam operators (Pizzello, 1998, pp. 96–97). Its increased use across the fighting action cogently matches Danny’s progressively recovered power and confidence. His opening gym bout is shot tight and close-up, with a frequency of messy action-halting holding untypical for boxing films but effectively exposing Danny as constrained and diffident. The Carroll rematch is filmed in a looser, wider style with fuller use of the hung camera, but the ring action remains compact and, with Danny repeatedly flooring his opponent, is concluded inside a minute. The third fight receives longest coverage, and most strongly echoes Scorsese in its stylistic speed and power. Notable, though, are the frequent in-ring whip pans, free-flowing movements that enhance the distinction of the late slow-motion footage which, baulking genre expectations, is used to non-violent effect as Danny hesitates then refuses to finish off his defenceless opponent. The boxing itself, though, cannot match the intensity of The Big Man: while Day-­ Lewis has the lean torso and credible moves as displayed in some clearly improvised sparring, the bout’s staccato presentation, and at times ‘telegraphed’ choreography fails to do full justice to his preparations. The Boxer’s distance from the template of Hollywood genre product can be assessed through its greater similarity to a £1.4 million boxing film concurrently festival-released and entirely independent of US funding or international aspirations—TwentyFourSeven, from 25-year-old Shane Meadows. Undeterred by The Big Man’s box-office mauling, producer Stephen Woolley returned to boxing with his new company Scala Productions, now in partnership with BBC Films. Meadows, son of a truck-driving amateur boxer and already a prolific DIY short-film maker, first came to public attention with The Gypsy’s Tale, a ten-minute documentary on Bartley Gorman, the world champion bare-knuckle boxer hailing from Meadows’ home town of Uttoxeter. Combining interview footage of Gorman discussing the Gypsy heritage that his boxing career upheld with bucolic montage shots of his surroundings, the piece, shown during Channel Four’s ‘Tales of Battered Britain’ series in June 1995, offers a thumbnail template for Meadows’ later work: an examination of

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the link between violence and masculine self-identity, an understanding of the problems faced by the socially marginalised, and an identification with the topography of (East Midlands-set) regional communities.9 TwentyFourSeven, conceived as another short until Woolley intervened, was written by Meadows with Paul Fraser: both envisaged Bob Hoskins for the lead role who, impressed by their script, accepted the part for a low fee. While telling a tale similar to Ike Weir’s running of the Holy Family gym, Meadows has explained his film’s roots in personal experience: ‘I was in a boxing club as a kid. I wanted to be a boxer when I was a lad, and they closed the club down where I was living. We all spilt out on the streets, and there was nothing for us to do really. We used to shoplift and we were starting to get in trouble. And this guy came to us and started to set up a football team. I think that really inspired us’ (quoted in Null, 1998). Similar to the process undertaken with Real Money, a week of intensive preparation saw the cast, mostly amateurs selected from local auditions (including debutant James Corden), grow into their parts through improvisations. Boxing advice, and roles as opposition fighters, came from ex-­ heavyweight and local coach Derek Groombridge (10-8-0) and amateur boxer/stunt coordinator Vincent ‘Ginger’ Keane. The film was then shot over five weeks in and around the housing estates of Sneinton on the outskirts of Nottingham, plus an excursion to the Peak District. It premiered on the festival circuit at Venice in August 1997 and opened theatrically in the UK in April 1998. A limited US release followed a month later. Beginning with Tim Evan (Danny Nussbaum) discovering his old mentor Alan Darcy (Hoskins) is now an alcoholic vagrant at death’s door, the film goes back five years to the late-1980s when ‘forgotten 30-something’ Darcy reopens a boxing club for the bored and disenfranchised young men from opposing gangs on the local housing estates. Tim attends with mates Stuart (Karl Collins), Benny (Johann Myers) and Youngy (Anthony Clarke), plus initial rivals Knighty (James Hooton), Daz (Darren Campbell), Meggy (Jimmy Hynd), Gadget (Justin Brady) and drug-­ dealing Fagash (Mat Hand). The 101 Boxing Club is funded by shady entrepreneur Ronnie Marsh (Frank Harper) on the proviso that his overweight son Karl aka ‘Tonka’ (Corden) can attend. Investing emotionally in his young charges, Darcy takes them on a hill-walking holiday to Wales (cue the Charlatans’ ‘North Country Boy’), nurses Fagash through an overdose and prepares them for a boxing contest against the local Staffordshire Terriers amateur team. When, on the night, Tim’s abusive father Geoff (Bruce Jones) refuses to let his son box, Darcy loses control

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and beats Geoff unconscious. The event descends into chaos, the club is disbanded and distraught Darcy slides into alcoholism. Back in the present, Darcy dies, and Tim phones around his former club mates who regroup to attend the funeral. TwentyFourSeven did negligible business at the box office (roughly £75,000 worldwide), but greatly impressed the critics, many of whom saw striking (entirely serendipitous) similarities with The Boxer. Beyond that, Jake Hamilton praised how ‘The naturalistic acting blends perfectly with Ashley Rowe’s magnificent black-and-white photography making TwentyFourSeven the most challenging British debut in years’ (Empire, April 1998, p.  42). Philip French, offering additional comparisons with ‘the uningratiating autobiographical movies by those regional mavericks Terence Davies (whose editor Bill Diver cut TwentyFourSeven) and the late Bill Douglas’, hailed ‘a film of great promise, if not of great subtlety, by a highly individual talent’ (Observer, 29 March 1998). Even America was charmed by the film’s localism, Derek Elley praising Meadows’ ‘funny and sometimes touching love letter to his native Midlands’ as ‘solid in all departments’ (Variety, 21 September 1997). The film was nominated for Best British Film at 1998’s BAFTA awards, while Meadows won both the British Independent Film Award’s Douglas Hickox Prize for debut direction and the International Federation of Film Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival. TwentyFourSeven has, alongside The Boxer, received considerable academic attention, most understandably placing the film within Britain’s dominant social realist strand. The Nottingham setting, as with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960), has encouraged reading the film as inheriting the New Wave tradition (Forrest, 2009, pp.  191–200)—and yet, unlike director Reisz and producer Tony Richardson, Meadows is no middle-class visitor but part of the community he films. With its wide shots, long takes and emphasis on environment, the film has been adjudged a successor to Ken Loach (Shail, 2007, p. 148)— but Meadows has none of the unintegrated polemical anger that occasionally overtakes Loach’s work. Most commonly, TwentyFourSeven is analysed alongside concurrent films seeking to articulate the social dereliction resultant from the application of Thatcherite policies and the disenfranchisement of the male ‘no-longer-working class’ (Monk, 2000, p. 156)— the linkage is cogent, but Meadows’ film eschews the cool (Britannia) ironic attitude to drug addiction pervading works like Trainspotting

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(Danny Boyle, 1996) and the escapist adaptation to new economic realities as in The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997). This study argues that TwentyFourSeven can, in addition, be enlighteningly positioned within an older indigenous and transnational lineage—of boxing narratives. Within it and against it. An early scene has Darcy promise the lads that, through boxing, ‘you’ll have all the girls after you’: his supporting evidence—‘What about Sylvester Stallone?’—fails to convince Benny, whose retort—‘that’s a movie, though’—both undercuts and confuses cinema for real life. Even so, Youngy soon boasts of a one-night stand after telling the girl his name was Sylvester, and Stallone’s film pervades the local consciousness, most explicitly when the lads celebrate climbing a Welsh hillside like Rocky atop the steps to Philadelphia’s Museum of Art. Overall, though, the film’s black-and-white aesthetic, the classical music-bolstered soundtrack, the link of boxing with masculine identity and a subtext about redemption, all have the ring of Scorsese’s Raging Bull, Meadows’ ‘favourite all-time film’ (Wilson, 2014, p. 915). Nonetheless, for all its verbal and visual references, TwentyFourSeven matches its immediate ‘British’ predecessors in offering an antithetical and here anglicised perspective to America’s commercial and aesthetic boxing film apogees. As James Leggott notes, Meadows ‘use[s] generic references not in the service of empty pastiche but as a framework for the consideration of social issues of pressing concern in contemporary Britain’ (2008, p. 74). Meadows has, in interview, extolled the catharsis and control the sport can give, beneficial not just to alienated young men: ‘In a town where there’s very little hope … boxing is a specific part of the culture … and if there weren’t amateur boxing clubs then the community would be suffering in other ways’ (quoted in Macnab, 1998, p.  15). In line with Real Money’s genre flipping of the site for community support, Darcy hopes that his revived boxing club will instil a missing sense of discipline and self-­ respect, will ‘give them something to believe in’ as he reminds his childhood acquaintance Sally (Tanya Myers), now the court judge trying Fagash. There is, however, a generational warning here. Former club spectator Sally has made something of her life: by contrast, the fellow club members from Darcy’s youth—Gadget’s interested but ineffectual dad (Tony Nyland), and Tim’s physically and verbally abusive father Geoff— have ‘got nowhere’, revealing that, if boxing has offered a safe outlet for teenage pent-up aggression, its long-term effect is more doubtful.

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In a film (and director’s work) full of damaged fathers, Darcy, a committed parental substitute, glosses the film’s title. Though Tim ‘gets shit twenty-four seven’, Darcy sees the real obstacle as the lack of opportunity to change: ‘The lads and the people in this town have been living the same day their whole life.’ His proffered solution replays The Boxer’s paradigm, in details such as refusing gym-entry to drug-takers, and overall in failing to deliver. This is not just inscribed in the film’s fatalistic flashback structure. When Darcy ensures attendance from Knighty’s gang by winning a park-ground penalty shoot-out, the non-diegetic crowd roar as he saves the key spot-kick (in the groin) recalls the ludic football scene in Loach’s Kes (1969), another work ‘unwilling to transcend complex and challenging social circumstances through the intercession of sport’ (Crosson, 2013, p. 139). A de rigueur training montage shows a new unity of purpose, but no discernible improvement in technique, while in-ring sparring sessions remain less the ‘art form’ advocated by Darcy than opportunities for raw emotional release. These intimations culminate in the fight night itself, ultimately—but not entirely—bathetic. The presence of local scouts alongside the competitors’ girlfriends and parents indicates the potential for a new cross-­ generational sense of community, forged by and not against boxing, and while the slow tracking shot across the lads in the changing room may be Scorsese-inspired, UK genre precedents such as the line of boxing champions introduced in Excuse My Glove confers an associated dignity to their apprehensive faces. The MC’s position may be a sop to Ronnie’s father Jimmy (Sammy Pasha), but Marsh Snr is the only person (out of court) to dignify the lads by introducing them with their full names. Against that, cigar-smoking promoter Ronnie betrays all the authenticity of Sid James’ Adams from The Square Ring, while the evening shows how Darcy, for all his good intentions, has tragically built up expectations too far, too soon. The genre’s enduring casting conundrum here enhances credibility as the actors constituting the ‘101 Warriors’ face Staffordshire Terriers’ real-­ life trained boxers. Wesley ‘Fagash’ Fraser, first up, is entirely out of his depth: swinging like George Formby rather than Foreman, his second-­ round knockout sees him burst into audience-embarrassing tears. Ian ‘Wolfman’ Knight starts well, but when downed in round two, launches into a frenzied attack, even punching out the referee when disqualified. With Darcy, disgusted, pulling him away and out of the arena, it is here, in truth, that the dream dies: reaction shots show Knighty’s nonplussed parents while VIPs Ronnie and Sally join the exiting majority. Those who

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remain witness the ensuing confrontation when Geoff goads Darcy who turns ‘fuckin’ psycho’ and beats him senseless into a half-filled skip. It is only now, in the impromptu outdoor fight, that the genre staple of a handheld camera pushes close into the uncontrolled violence and the editing accelerates, only relenting in line with Darcy’s exhaustion. As the soundtrack swells with Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble’s ‘Parce Mihi, Domine’ (‘Forgive me, Lord’—from the ‘Office of the Dead’ by Cristobal de Morales), the film’s sole crane shot, surveying the damage as Darcy crouches in dismay, recalls Scorsese’s ending, not to Raging Bull, but his earlier coruscating narrative on the ‘fall’ of (a well-intentioned) man, Taxi Driver (1976). The quasi-religious motif continues when the lads return and, with a different motive to Liam from The Boxer, torch the hall rather than see it transformed into a ‘fuckin’ storage unit’—‘their last wish was to burn our church’, notes the final page of Darcy’s diary. Is Darcy therefore an unleashed psychopath or unrecognised Saviour? From start to finish, the film’s ambivalent depiction of boxing is paralleled in the representation of its advocate as a social panacea. For Sarah Godfrey Darcy ‘develops into a nostalgic paterfamilias, representative of a previous era when “traditional” masculinity had more defined and stable social and domestic roles’ (2013, p. 851). As such, his failed project and final passing indicate, for good or ill, the ‘death’ of this traditional masculinity and its expression through codes of (disciplined) violence which Darcy tries to reinstate with a generation reluctant to commit to patterns of required behaviour, and which ultimately engulf him. Whether this is adjudged a total defeat, though, turns on the nature/nurture debate. Paul Dave, echoing Geoffrey Macnab’s response to The Boxer, sees Tim’s late tenderness towards Darcy as no ‘revelation’ but ‘a confirmation of pre-existing characteristics’ which, extrapolated, means that the lads’ ‘response to the challenge of that emblem of male, working-class self-help—the boxing ring—becomes largely irrelevant’ (2006, p. 85). However, one can equally read Tim’s expressions of compassion as built on lessons learnt precisely in that emblematic and unifying space where, as Darcy notes, ‘when you get in the ring you are equal’. It was proven early when Benny’s more ‘natural’ boxing aptitude made Daz look foolish and offered reparation for the latter’s estate bullying. It is the confidence (rather than technique) instilled by Tim’s gym work that enables him finally to stand by his battered mother and up to his father’s ‘spineless little bastard’ taunts, facing him down with fists clenched. In a strong parallel to Darcy’s caring for the overdosed Fagash, a matured Tim later gently nurses his dying former mentor.

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The becalmed coda where the lads reunite for Darcy’s funeral also suggests he has made a difference. All are at least coping with their lives, which in this dour, dole-bound, drug-flushed Nottingham environment constitutes a significant result—even Fagash is now a father in a steady relationship. And there is one further final positive. Excised from the original screenplay is a punch-up slur where Geoff accuses the coach of being homosexual: it was a judicious removal since, unlike Harry Dunn in There Ain’t No Justice, there is no trace of homoeroticism in Hoskins’ attentive and painfully sincere portrayal. However, in opposition to the heteronormative insistence of the decade’s lad culture, the coda registers, almost in passing, the romance that has developed between Daz and Benny. It is a vindication of Darcy’s final diary entry, to ‘Be who you are’.10

6.3   Boxing at the Margins This section explores representations of gay, Jewish and women boxers in recent British cinema. The intent is not to ‘ghettoise’ the genre’s expression of these areas, but Jewish and female fighting are, by dint of the paucity of film treatment, necessarily a confined area and, while gay fighters have long appeared at an encoded or tangential level, it was only with TwentyFourSeven’s conclusion that the explicit queering of the British boxing film canon began. It continued with Like It Is (Paul Oremland, April 1998), four years seeking funding and realised in four weeks on super 16mm by Fulcrum Productions and Channel Four Films. Though a £500,000 debut feature, the cast was headlined by the Who’s lead-singer Roger Daltrey who, like Bob Hoskins on TwentyFourSeven, admired the script, while the lead was played, after trawling through over 200 open auditions, by Steve Bell (18-3-2), ABA featherweight champion in 1997 and 2001.11 Having overcome draft titles such as Deep in You and The Fister, the film premiered at London’s Lesbian and Gay Festival in March 1998, then ran for several weeks at the ABC Piccadilly: intermittent US festival screenings followed. The film follows Craig (Bell), an unemployed 21-year-old struggling with his sexuality and making a living as a backroom bare-knuckle boxer in Blackpool. Hearing his next opponent is a known ‘maniac’, Craig leaves for London, turning up on the doorstep of Matt (Ian Rose), a young record producer with whom he recently had his first, but unsuccessful, gay sexual experience. An unsteady cross-class relationship develops between Craig and Matt amidst Soho’s gay club scene, not helped by

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attempts from Matt’s music coterie to drive the pair apart. Exasperated at Matt’s refusal to commit, Craig returns to Blackpool and accepts the dangerous fight engagement. Matt follows him, but cannot watch his brutal defeat: Craig, though, has deliberately lost, betting all the money he made in London against himself, and the pair agree to start again. The film received limited press coverage. Charlotte O’Sullivan’s review, headed ‘Out and a bout’, praised ‘pretty-boy Bell’ but found the dialogue’s ‘self-­ righteous wish-fulfilment’ reminiscent of ‘a Jackie Collins novel’ (Observer, 19 April 1998). More positively, America’s David Elley thought it ‘a respectable lowbudgter’ with its biggest plus ‘the naturalness in the way gay relationships are depicted, sans the usual angst and mostly without any preachiness’ (Variety, 18 May 1998, p. 77). A pitch for Like It Is could describe the film as combining elements from The Big Man and Run with the Wind. It has faults in scripting and delivery, but is bolstered by Bell’s convincing performance in both boxing and thespian corners: his film-bracketing fight scenes display the boxer’s authentic stand-up long-range style, while his acting shows an unaffected raw vitality. His final bout is a highly competent low-rent Big Man, two minutes of authentic-looking cellar hitting from Bell and fellow amateur, middleweight Nigel Travis, their knowledge of where to hit and how to pull punches giving credibility to the contest’s fluctuating fortunes if not its copious application of fake blood. Outside of fighting, Bell’s character is succinctly conveyed in the film’s exposition, Craig standing outside a gay club and watching with confused desire the men entering and leaving. Circumscribing his ambitions to ‘I just wanna be happy’ recalls the similarly affective claim of Bradley Stone from Fighters, while his first failed encounter with confident city-boy Matt is played as tenderly traumatic. The cut to an illegal basement fight where Craig (in slow-motion) savagely beats ‘old alkie’ Billy (former wrestler Tony Van Silva) is far less tactful in equating explosive violence to sexual frustration and relating the marginalised social standing of bare-knuckle boxing to homosexuality, repressed or otherwise. Equally disengaging, the film’s characters are, bar conflicted Craig and his concerned brother Tony (Chris Hargreaves), uniformly unsympathetic, especially Matt’s boss, Kelvin—jarringly overplayed by Daltrey—whose Larry Parnes-style predatory impresario purposefully mirrors the physical and financial exploitation of precariat pugilists typified by Craig’s underworld fight-finder Minto (Paul Broughton). As with Shonteff’s 1960s film, each industry vies for supremacy in ruthlessness and corruption.

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Like It Is explores the tensions of being gay in the heteronormative boxing clubs of working-class Blackpool, but also exposes what it depicts as the ultimately shallow lifestyle of London’s gay club scene. Craig’s difficulty in locating his place in society is paralleled by Like It Is finding an audience: would conventional boxing fans want to see a feature film about a gay fighter struggling with his sexual identity, and would a modern LGBTQ+ crowd be sympathetic to the boxer’s at times self-loathing decisions? Since 2000 and, in part, the founding of the UK Film Council, the gay/boxing pairing has (to date) found its primary outlet in a return to cinema’s earliest format, the short film. As well as offering a training ground/‘calling card’ for cast and crew, Dylan Cave notes how ‘A significant trait of UK short film is that it offers filmmakers from diverse backgrounds an opportunity to present new narratives about life in Britain’ (2016), and two such films explore the gay boxer experience from a black perspective. Prophet Pictures’ 17-minute Blood (Kolton Lee, 2005), centred on closeted amateur champion Danny (Jason Steed) who loses his first professional fight but wins acceptance for his homosexuality, is painfully (over-)earnest, but toured the UK as part of the BFI’s ‘Black World’ programme. In Heavy Weight (Jonny Ruff, 2016), a 13-minute short from Clarendon Work Films, the arrival for gym training of talented Irish traveller Conner (Jace Moody) stirs up repressed feelings in previously cock-­ sure Paris (Chuku Modo): awoken to his sexuality by Conner’s surprise in-ring kiss, Paris’ subsequent over-aggressive sparring gives way to a final locker-room embrace. Exhibiting a more skilfully modulated intensity, the film earned official selection at 2017’s BFI Flare LGBT Festival. The previous year Flare had selected another boxing short featuring an Irish traveller. In Greeble Films’ 14-minute Breathe (James Doherty, 2015), filmed in County Offaly but funded by Film London, bare-knuckle boxer Patrick (John Connors) is increasingly concerned that his son Francie (Lee O’Donoghue) is growing up ‘soft’. Francie’s recourse to an inhaler after a swift boxing knockdown brings a look of disgust from his father; an experiment trying on his mother’s lipstick brings a beating with the belt: only when Francie suffers a severe asthma attack does Patrick accept his son needs room to discover his emergent sexuality, to ‘breathe’. With its pastoral setting an effective foil to patriarchal rigidity, Breathe was selected for #FiveFilms4Freedom, the first-ever global digital LGBTQ+ festival. Trying out lipstick also featured in Slap (Nick Rowland, 2014), a 25-minute National Film and Television (NFT) School short exploring transvestism. Northern teenager Connor (Joe Cole) finds that, rather than

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the burgeoning boxing career micro-managed by his single father George (Stephen Bent), wearing make-up (‘slap’) and female clothing gives him a proper sense of identity. When rejected by his girlfriend Lola (Skye Lourie), the cut to Connor in the ring furiously beating an already floored opponent repeats the troublingly reductive trope of violence’s origins from Like It Is, but its otherwise engaging presentation won Best Short category at 2014’s Edinburgh Film Festival. Alongside sexuality, these shorts show returning treatments of ethnicity in the contemporary boxing film. Orthodox (David Leon, February 2016), a micro-budget independent production from Zeitgeist Films, was expanded from the writer-director’s 2012 half-hour ‘pilot’ short and retained much of the cast. The first Jewish-centred boxing film in over 80 years, it revisits tensions central to A Son of David and Money Talks by exploring the continued opposition to Jewish boxers both from without and within the Jewish community. Set in north London (though filmed in Newcastle and Hartlepool), a flashback structure pieces together the life of orthodox Jew Benjamin Leby (Stephen Graham) who, when faced by anti-Semitic bullying as a schoolboy, took up boxing, a solution which alienated both his family and local Haredi Jewish community. As an adult he supplements his failing kosher butcher’s business with illegal bare-­ knuckle bouts against GRT fighters, plus enforcement work for shady gym owner and supposed-friend Reg Shannon (Michael Smiley). Jailed when an arson attack for Reg accidentally kills squatters, he emerges to find his wife Alice (Rebecca Callard) has committed suicide (after sexual blackmail from Reg), while his two sons have been shipped off for fostering in Israel on the orders of community rabbi/corrupt businessman Joseph Goldberg (Christopher Fairbank), instigator of the arson request. Working at the gym, Benjamin befriends part-Jewish teenager Daniel (Giacomo Mancini), helps him to escape Reg’s baleful influence, and heads off in search of his sons. Orthodox performed poorly, its negligible box office compounded by a critical pounding. Leslie Felperin decried ‘absurd material, very obviously stretched, beyond breaking point’ (Guardian, 19 February 2016), while David Jenkins found it ‘a misery-inducing debut’ from Leon where the lead ‘goes to hell and back, taking us with him’—and not in a good way (Observer, 21 February 2016). This is a touch harsh: while ultimately unsuccessful, Orthodox has moments of positive engagement, and cogently employs boxing not as corrupting in itself but to expose the fault lines in a community that conceals moral corruption and self-interest behind pronouncements of faith

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and positions of authority. Mafia-esque Goldberg’s concern for his property portfolio leads him to fatally expedient arrangements with broad-­ stroked villain Reg, while Benjamin, caught between the two, realises that teenage drifter Daniel risks a similar fate. Symbolism is not spared: the boxers first meet when Benjamin pats the two German Shepherd dogs Daniel has tied up while he goes shoplifting. The frequency of cuts from Benjamin, all inner torment and absent agency, to caged or racing greyhounds encourages reading these tethered dogs as similarly metaphorical, not only for the two marginalised pugilists, but also the twin ligatures on its ex-con lead. Much as the film’s title conveys both Benjamin’s religious upbringing and boxing technique, so specific scenes convey his double tethering: by the tefillin with which he wraps his arms, hands and fingers as part of morning prayer rituals; and by the bandages with which Reg binds his fists before unlicensed boxing bouts. These twin forces destroy Benjamin’s life: he has married a non-Jewish woman (who generically disapproves of his boxing, the one activity where he can succeed), but his orthodox compulsion to be sole breadwinner drives him into further fights which increases the displeasure of his close-knit community, and into the concomitant illicit activities that ultimately tear apart his family. It is a confliction that Graham conveys well—even if his stilted boxing style impedes otherwise vibrantly shot fight scenes. He easily defeats the similarly divided Goldberg, whose amalgam of caring patriarch and ruthless gangster overstretches credulity, especially in Fairbank’s cartoonish interpretation. The supposedly sage rabbi’s warning to newly released Benjamin that ‘You must avoid your past’ is openly contradicted by Orthodox’s regular interjection of flashbacks on Levy family life which show how fully previous events direct present motivations, and explain Benjamin’s determination to steer Daniel from similar mistakes. Thus the gym again becomes a site for personal redemption. It is a typical recycling of genre tropes in a film that, while its premise may suggest originality, is indeed orthodox in execution, its uncertainty in direction and characterisation prompting the reliance on a by-rote murky mise-en-scene and all-too-­ predictable narrative development and resolution. Although working from the smallest sample size, feature film numbers suggest that (as of 2021) the contemporary British film industry has been twice as willing to accept women in the ring as gay male or orthodox Jewish boxing stories. The history of women’s boxing can be traced back to the 1720s bare-knuckled careers of Elizabeth Wilkinson-Stokes and Hannah Hyfield (Smith, 2014, pp. 1–5), but in Britain and abroad it was

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effectively outlawed until the late-twentieth century. Attempts in 1926 to stage a London exhibition bout featuring renowned female boxer Annie Newton brought objections equal to those mounted against Jack Johnson, with the Mayor of Hackney and Home Secretary (again unable legally to intervene) both condemning ‘a gratification of the sensual ideals of a crowd of vulgar men’ (Hackney and Kingsland Gazette, 29 January 1926): the fight was duly banned by Shoreditch Borough Council, though Newton’s skills later resurfaced in Gaumont’s 1931 documentary Women London Boxers (Jennings, 2015, pp.  65–66, 76). While intermittently revived—Barbara Buttrick toured Britain’s boxing booths through the 1940s—Sweden led the way by legalising women’s amateur boxing in 1988, with the first UK women’s boxing competition not sanctioned by Britain’s ABA until 1997, and the sport only entering the Olympics at London 2012 (but restricted to three weights). Commercially, the US was ahead of the game with women boxers gaining large gates and television coverage from the late-1980s, and this dichotomous background influences the first British feature film to focus on a female boxer, Glinwood Films and Film Four International’s Blonde Fist (October 1991). Written and debut-directed by Frank Clarke, best known for scripting Letter to Brezhnev (Chris Bernard, 1985), Blonde Fist’s commitment to family was embodied in its casting with the lead taken by Frank’s sister Margi Clarke and roles given to four other sisters, their parents plus assorted relatives. An American entrée was sought by hiring Oscar-­ nominee Carroll Baker, while the boxing finale pitted Margi against Susan Atkins, All-England Female Boxing champion (though not recognised by the BBBofC) and pioneer of UK female boxing—in 1994 she would launch the British Ladies Boxing Association (BLBA) to ensure proper training and protection. Filmed in eight weeks for £600,000 with location shooting in Kirkby and Brooklyn, (its big fight actually shot at Liverpool’s Victorian Grafton Rooms), the film succeeded The Big Man in opening 1991’s Edinburgh Film Festival. Blonde Fist follows working-class Liverpudlian Ronnie O’Dowd (Clarke) who, imprisoned for beating up the new girlfriend of ex-partner Tony Bone (Gary Mavers), flees with her young son to New York to find her father, bare-knuckle fighter John (Ken Hutchinson). Believing him to be a successful boxing promoter, Ronnie finds instead a burnt-out alcoholic dishwasher and promises to find the money to take him home. When a nightclub hosting female boxing matches has a competitor go missing, Ronnie takes up the $1000 offer to last three minutes against their trained

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fighter. She wins, is invited to another fight with a $10,000 purse, wins that too, and the family return to Liverpool ‘in style’ on the QE2. Despite Ronnie’s victories, the film scored with neither Britain’s public nor critics. Philip French, most on-side, found it an ‘intermittently effective, broadly acted fairy tale’ but warned ‘a succession of violent fights between women (stylised and bloodless though they are) will not be everyone’s idea of fun’ (Observer, 18 August 1981). By contrast Michael O’Pray, resistant to Leland’s The Big Man ‘fairy tale’, was enraged by Frank Clarke’s ‘sentimental and rather patronising’ variant: ‘That the sport which produced Raging Bull is so naively used here simply highlights the dreadful state of maintrickle cinema in this country’, he fulminated (Sight and Sound, 7, 1, November 1991, p.  37). It again garnered better notices in America, Susan Ayscough noting how ‘In a gritty Thelma and Louise [Ridley Scott, 1991] meets Rocky, Clarke is a knockout’ and, though ‘the complex story drags’, its ‘Fight scenes are dynamically choreographed, beautifully shot and provide pic’s most engaging footage’ (Variety, 30 September 1991). In her meditation ‘On Boxing’, Joyce Carol Oates memorably noted that ‘Raw aggression is thought to be the peculiar province of men, as nurturing is the peculiar province of women. (The female boxer violates this stereotype and cannot be taken seriously—she is parody, she is cartoon, she is monstrous)’ (1987, p. 73). Blonde Fist can be seen as conforming to most, but not all, of these hegemonic gender configurations. Despite its radical female focus, Clarke creates perhaps the most formulaic post-war boxing film in its mining, to the cusp of parody, of generic tropes. The invite for a courageous/foolhardy member of the public to fight for cash stretches back to Boxing Fever (and Pongo’s Rodeo), while the last-­ minute loved one’s appearance ringside recalls Battling Brown of Birmingham (and The Ring). Much of Blonde Fist’s Merseyside characterisation and carry-ons have a distinct cartoon feel, notably when Ronnie sorts out the Crane family’s bullying matriarch (Tina Malone), her knockout blow accompanied by spinning eyes and comic bird-twittering. Elsewhere the film betrays a tonal uncertainty as it works, like concurrent genre examples, to expose the scant sense of wider class solidarity or effective community cohesion. With Tony an ex-con who, like Joe, abandons his child (also called Tony, suggesting generational repetition), the film promotes instead a precarious notion of ‘sisterhood’, with proletarian spirits essentially maintained by its women. The opening scene has Ronnie’s sudden al fresco birth administered by female market shoppers. In adulthood, as well as defending her female neighbours in Kirkby and in prison,

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Ronnie is encouraged into the ring and seconded by her American friend, ex-showgirl chambermaid Lovelle Summers (Baker). It is Ronnie’s efforts, rescuing her son from Social Services and her father from New York, that ultimately reconstructs the O’Dowd family and marks her as the nurturing successor to her deceased mother Anne Jane (Eileen Clarke). Though the cartoonish aspects diminish any jeopardy in Ronnie’s single-­parent belligerence, the film’s serio-comic mix does allow both a nature and nurture scenario for Ronnie’s life-long recourse to fighting. When John, home from a promise-breaking pub-yard scrap, lifts his new baby, he thinks he has a son and proclaims the arrival of ‘Liverpool’s first heavyweight champion’; gender clarified, a later flashback shows him still encouraging his young daughter to punch his outstretched hands. Growing up on a violent estate, Ronnie learns to use her fists to survive, and learns well, her Ma Crane knockout followed by a two-minute dispatch of redoubtable bully ‘Big’ Alice (Jane Porter) in the prison gym. The belated career advice of close friend Mary (Sharon Power) that she should have been a professional boxer has, however, scant chance of realisation—in Britain, at least. America is different. Intrigued by a Knuckles Nightclub flyposter, her date-night fight success against Brooklyn Heights Helen (Julie Aldred) earns her the lucrative call-back with Crazy Sue. Both fights are similarly choreographed: rapid punches against the opponent’s gloves, intercut with regular close-ups and point-of-view shots, add a kinetic energy while obfuscating Clarke’s clearly limited boxing technique. Most innovatively, the graphic cut from an overhead shot of the star-adorned ring to a pull-­ back from a star on the American flag intimates that, while decamping to Manhattan may not have worked for her father—he claims to be ‘trapped in a movie, a movie called America’—for Ronnie, and by extrapolation for all potential women boxers, it is incontrovertibly the land of opportunity (Fig. 6.3). Although predictably plotted there is nothing ‘monstrous’ in this blood-free, slickly edited presentation. The shortening of Veronica to the gender-neutral ‘Ronnie’ can suggest a transgressive ‘female masculinity’ (Halberstam, 2018) and Ronnie herself may claim she is too broad-­ shouldered for lingerie, but Mary notes that plenty of men in Kirkby are ‘just itchin’ to get hold of her’, while her ring opponents, brunette Helen and blonde Susan, similarly fit within conventional definitions of female beauty. Their selection is here diegetically readable as a nightclub strategy to increase the attraction for a primarily male audience, while the focus on

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Fig. 6.3  Blonde Fist: seeing stars

attractiveness/sexualisation foregrounds a constant issue with/for the female athlete. A punter’s remarking ‘I’d go a couple of rounds with that!’ when Ronnie first enters the ring would have been known for real by Crazy Sue boxer Susan Atkins, whom Steve Bunce labelled an unwilling real-life ‘poster-girl for the dirty-mac brigade, who did their best to hijack her honest intentions by packing out her shows with wandering perverts’ (Independent, 13 January 2020).12 Add in Joe as an ungrateful drunk and inveterate liar and, if there is a monstrous dimension to Blonde Fist, it lies firmly in the male domain—fittingly Ronnie describes her nightclub blind date as ‘monster bad’. Blonde Fist’s place in the boxing film pantheon is generally adjudged as a million miles from America’s Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood, 2004) for both artistic achievement and (quadruple Academy Award-­ winning) critical acclaim—Robert Murphy, for instance, curtly dismisses Clarke’s film as one of 1990s British cinema’s ‘disappointingly amateurish’ efforts (2000, p. 2). It offers, though, in its own prolix piecemeal fashion, a more empowered take on female sporting agency than the prize-laden Hollywood film that, while ostensibly exploring the rise and tragic fall of boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), works insistently, with its Morgan Freeman voiceover and affective dominance of trainer/surrogate father Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), to ensure the enterprising sportswoman is ‘clearly framed (and contained) by a masculine and patriarchal perspective’ (Crosson, 2013, p. 117). In Blonde Fist, Ronnie may seek out then

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help her father, but she ignores his command not to fight, receives responsible guidance only from other women and, rather than dying from an illegal blow like Fitzgerald, her contest’s clean hard-hitting leaves her handsomely rewarded for transgressive sporting behaviour. That, at least, is worth taking seriously. It took almost 30 years for British women to return to the film ring,13 in another writer-director’s feature debut. Hallworthy Films’ The Fight (Jessica Hynes, March 2019), shot over 12 days for £140,000  in and around Folkestone, Kent, follows Tina Bell (Hynes), a care-home assistant and mother-of-three assailed by family problems—her parents Gene (Anita Dobson) and Frank Dunn (Christopher Fairbank) are about to separate, her husband Mick (Shaun Parkes) struggles working nights, and their eldest daughter Emma (Sennia Nanua) is bullied at school. To assuage her general anxiety, and specific guilt at the reappearance of Amanda Chadwick (Rhona Mitra) whom she bullied when they were pupils together, Tina moves on from her (Russell Brand-voiced) relaxation app and box-fit classes by entering the ring and training up for her first amateur fight. Critical opinion was again split. Edward Porter considered The Fight ‘Memorably honest, heartfelt and surprising’ (Sunday Times, 17 March 2019), but Jonathan Romney thought it ‘lumberingly earnest, as well as visually unambitious’ (Screen International, 20 October 2018). The Fight is more stylistically restrained and tonally serious than Blonde Fist, but it offers a more robust rebuttal of the reductive binarism that Oates saw as the inevitable fate for female boxers. Bar a brief visit to a hippie home-school organiser (Alice Lowe), Hynes parks her usual comic mode and employs boxing as the kernel of a measured (if over-schematic) parable on the ‘fight’ to find self-worth, and how violence, if unchannelled, will corrode succeeding generations. In a well-played generic reversal Mick is here the unsupportive spouse, while ‘raw aggression’ passes through the female line, from Gene, abused in childhood now beating up her husband, down to former bully Tina, and across from her tormented victim Amanda onto her daughter Jordan (Liv Hill), now bullying Emma. Hynes’ dishevelled and sweaty appearance, as with her training opponents, also parks the overt sexualisation of women in sport, and rather than Blonde Fist’s pugnacious glamour, The Fight offers a more germane comparison to TwentyFourSeven. Boxing is again presented positively as a vehicle for personal empowerment and a means to control rather than create cycles of violence—the film ending after the opening punches of Tina’s maiden fight indicates the sport’s discipline matters more than

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the result.14 Tina’s training by Viv Best (Cathy Tyson), a character loosely based on American triple world champion-turned-trainer Ann Wolfe (24-1-0), parallels (pre-denouement) Darcy with her knotting together of glove-work drills and lifestyle coaching. Like Tim Evan, Tina finds the courage from her workouts to confront an abusive parent, while, like Darcy’s lads in Wales, a Rocky training parody/pastiche shows Tina, filmed in aggrandising slow-motion, finally conquering steep hillside steps. The Fight may only be a flyweight production and end in a sugar-rush of Bell family self-assertion, but it is still a winning effort, unobtrusively diverse in casting and punching thoughtfully against traditional gender configurations.

Notes 1. In these wilderness years, recognition is merited for the Leon Griffiths-­ scripted ‘Play for Today’ Dinner at the Sporting Club (BBC1, tx. 7 November 1978), a tale of misplaced hope where John Thaw’s small-time boxing manager Dinny Matthews sacrifices outclassed young fighter John Duncan (Billy McColl) to gain dubious contacts and sponsorship. It was commended for its ‘intriguing milieu’ and ‘bruisingly realistic boxing scenes directed with some brilliance by Brian Gibson’ (Plays and Players, 1, 26, November 1978, p. 43). 2. Rehearsal footage exists for Gangster, a dynastic family drama intended to complete Peck’s ‘boxing trilogy’: three years in development, the £2 million budget could not be raised. 3. In McIlvanney’s subsequent novel Strange Loyalties (1991), Danny Scoular is killed in a mysterious hit-and-run incident. 4. McGuigan made one acting appearance, as crime boss Jimmy McCarthy in the low-budget Malicious Intent (Danny Patrick, 2000)—there were no reciprocal encomia. 5. ‘Trainer to the stars’, Tohill made regular appearances in Sheridan and George’s 1990s films. Liam Neeson, who fought on early bills alongside Tohill, called him his ‘first real hero’ (Irish Times, 4 July 2015). 6. Recalling the film’s genesis, Sheridan noted: ‘I saw Barry in 1984 on the television saying “Leave the fightin’ to McGuigan”, which was kind of innocent and naïve, but it appealed to me’ (‘Love and Politics in Ireland’, Newsday, 29 December 1997). 7. Sugden and Harvey’s sociological examination of boxing’s impact in Northern Ireland similarly concludes that an ‘individual fighter’s rejection of the sectarianism and boundless violence … has little impact on the underpinning structure of cross-community conflict’ (1995, p. 133).

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8. Carr also features in James O’Brien’s promotional video for Morrissey’s 1995 top-30 single ‘Boxers’. 9. Unrealised as of 2021, Meadows retains a desire to film a full-length biopic on Bartley Gorman. 10. Meadows revisited boxing in the ten-minute black-and-white Three Tears for Jimmy Prophet (2000). Echoing Darcy, the titular protagonist (Paddy Considine) alternates gym training with recounting how he lost his boxing career and family when, on a night out, ‘something got into me’ and a single punch killed the man goading him. 11. Bell’s sporadic acting roles include ageing boxer Jimmy Hunter facing inring retribution for adultery in the Welsh BAFTA-nominated supernatural-­ inflected short The Ref (Tom Green, 2011). 12. Bunce also reported how Atkins’ inaugural BLBA event ‘featured (unbeknown to the women themselves) in three pages of a soft porn magazine’ (‘Ladies who Punch’, Observer, 2 March 2003). 13. Honourable mention is due for The Fighting Irish (Alex Shipman, 2016), a 12-minute short from the NFT Schools BFI Academy, where teenage Aideen (Meabh Mcauley) strives to become the next titular success. It was an official selection at 2016’s British Urban Film Festival. 14. Hynes acknowledges the influence of visiting a ‘life-changing’ Kent boxing club ‘drawing in guys who were needing focus and channelling and training them up and doing an amateur boxing tournament’. Interview with Danny Flexen, SecondsOut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR2YK MqCNvw&feature=youtu.be [retrieved 11 December 2020].

References Barton, R. (2002). Jim Sheridan: Framing the Nation. Liffey Press. Bryce, A. (1994). Nickels and Dimes and No Time: The Ups and Downs of Lindsay Shonteff. In S. Jaworzyn (Ed.), Shock Xpress 2. Titan. Cave, D. (2016). In Focus: What’s Great about UK Short Films?. Retrieved November 4, 2020, from https://film.britishcouncil.org/blog/uk-­shorts Coulter, C. (1999). Contemporary Northern Ireland Society. Pluto Press. Crosson, S. (2013). Sport and Film. Routledge. Dave, P. (2006). Visions of England: Class and Culture in Contemporary Cinema. Berg. De Witt, H. (n.d.). Fighters. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from http://www. screenonline.org.uk/film/id/548464/index.html Finney, A. (1996). The Egos Have Landed: The Rise and Fall of Palace Pictures. Heinemann. Forrest, D. (2009). Shane Meadows and the British New Wave. Studies in European Cinema, 6, 3.

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Gifford, D. (1996). Imagining Scotlands: The Return to Mythology in Modern Scottish Fiction. In S. Hagemann (Ed.), Studies in Scottish Fiction: 1945 to the Present. Peter Lang. Godfrey, S. (2013). ‘I’m a Casualty, But It’s Cool’: 1990s British Masculinities and Twenty Four Seven. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 10, 4. Hill, J. (2006). Cinema and Northern Ireland: Film, Culture and Politics. BFI. Jennings, L. A. (2015). She’s a Knockout!: A History of Women in Fighting Sports. Rowman and Littlefield. Leggott, J. (2008). Contemporary British Cinema: From Heritage to Horror. Wallflower. Macnab, G. (1998, March). The Natural. Sight and Sound, 8(3), 14–16. McIlroy, B. (1998). Shooting to Kill: Filmmaking and the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Flicks Books. McLoone, M. (2000). Irish Film: The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema. BFI. Monk, C. (2000). Men in the 90s. In R.  Murphy (Ed.), British Cinema of the 90s. BFI. Murphy, R. (2000). A Path through the Moral Maze. In R. Murphy (Ed.), British Cinema of the 90s. BFI. Murphy, R. (Ed.). (2006). Directors in British and Irish Cinema: A Reference Companion. BFI. Murray, J. (2015). The New Scottish Cinema. I.B. Tauris. Null, C. (1998, June/July). Interview with Shane Meadows. eclectica.org, 2, 4. Retrieved September 13, 2020, from http://www.eclectica.org/v2n4/null_ meadows.html Oates, J. C. (1987). On Boxing. Dolphin/Doubleday. Petley, D. (2004). Contemporary Scottish Fictions: Film, Television and the Novel. Edinburgh University Press. Pizzello, S. (1998, June). True Luminaries. American Cinematographer, 79(6). Shail, R. (2007). British Film Directors: A Critical Guide. Edinburgh University Press. Sheridan, J. (1985). Leave the Fighting to McGuigan. Viking. Smith, M. (2014). A History of Women’s Boxing. Rowman and Littlefield. Sugden, J., & Harvie, S. (1995). Sport and Community Relations in Northern Ireland. University of Ulster. Tibbs, J. (2014). Sparring with Life. Trinity Mirror Sports Media. Wilson, J. (2014). Shane Meadows and Associates: Selected LeftLion Interviews. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 10(4), 746–768.

CHAPTER 7

Final Rounds: 2000–Present

7.1   Boxing for Geezers The British boxing film  genre’s broadening of representational scope would not go uncontested. In sporting terms, the late-1990s and 2000s saw a revival in the fortunes of male British boxing, topped by Lennox Lewis’ 1999–2003 tenure as undisputed world heavyweight champion. The increased broadcasting commitment from 1996 by Sky television also raised boxing’s profile, while the BBBofC’s requirement from 2000 for increased on-site paramedics lessened fears over the sport’s safety. Concurrently, a series of British films were widely theorised for their focus on representations of masculinity, with TwentyFourSeven’s ‘underclass’ strand paralleled by a genre espousing the values of (New) ‘Lad Culture’ and its reactionary gender politics—the British gangster film (Edwards, 2006, pp. 39–42). As exemplified by its most successful exponent, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 2000), these films were powered more by perceived threats to white male hegemony than the reality of London’s underworld which, as Steve Chibnall notes, is ‘skewed in a very nostalgic direction’, ignoring contemporary cybercrime and human trafficking to ‘remain preoccupied with protection rackets, armed robbery and unregulated betting and boxing’ (2008, p. 376). This last activity as a site for hard masculinity and homosocial bonding is central to writer-director Guy Ritchie’s sophomore feature Snatch (September 2000), produced by Ska Films and Columbia Pictures with a © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2_7

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£6 million/$10 million budget. Shot over eight weeks in London and Pinewood Studios, the film kept a core of Lock, Stock actors but added transatlantic talent, notably Brad Pitt whose request for inclusion led to the creation of an Irish traveller boxer and seedier reprise of his scenes as id-embodying Tyler Durden from Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999). Pitt’s film-bracketing opponents were played by ex-heavyweight Adam Fogerty (18-1-0) and Scott Welch aka ‘The Brighton Rock’, former British, Commonwealth and WBO intercontinental heavyweight champion (22-4-0). Set in the heart of London’s gangland, the complex plot is narrated by unlicensed boxing promoter Turkish (Jason Statham) who, with associate Tommy (Stephen Graham), is drawn into organising a rigged boxing fight with local villain and fellow promoter Brick Top Pulford (Alan Ford). All goes ‘Pete Tong’ when hellraising Irish gypsy ‘One Punch’ Mickey O’Neil (Pitt) refuses to throw the fight, and Brick Top demands a high-stakes bare-knuckle rematch. Meanwhile Franky Four Fingers (Benicio del Toro), purloiner of an 86-carat diamond and with hard-man Bullet-Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones) on his trail, also enters the fray, placing a bet for ex-KGB agent Boris the Blade Yurinov (Rade Serbedzija). Although psychopathic Brick Top threatens to kill all involved, including O’Neil’s campsite of travellers, the fighter again refuses to play along: he wins with a fourth-round knockout, picks up the winnings after betting on himself, and his companions ambush and kill Brick Top’s men. Turkish and Tommy find the diamond swallowed by a traveller’s dog and broker its sale to New York jeweller Cousin Avi (Dennis Farina). Snatch was, like its predecessor, a considerable commercial success, taking £12.1 million at the UK box office, $30.3 million in the US and $83.6 million worldwide. Critical opinion was more reserved. While the Sun heralded ‘the movie of the year’ (2 September 2000), several questioned its advance on Ritchie’s debut. Andrew Collins noted how ‘In terms of this heavily-stamped style, Snatch is identical to Lock, Stock. Fair enough. But it’s also identical in terms of plot, structure, subject, pace and setting … Why bother?’ (Empire, October 2000, p. 42). America was similarly split: for Elvis Mitchell it was a ‘spicy comic strip without an inch of fat’ (New York Times, 19 January 2001), though Roger Ebert wondered ‘What am I to say of Snatch … which follows the Lock, Stock formula so slavishly it could be like a new arrangement of the same song?’ (Chicago Sun-Times, 19 January 2001). The film has since developed a cult status, placed at 466 in Empire magazine’s October 2008 poll of ‘the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time’, while a same-named television spin-off series starring

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Rupert Grint (also executive producer with head-writer Alex de Rakoff) ran for two ten-episode series (Crackle, 2016–2017), to underwhelming reviews.1 Ritchie’s Snatch is generally discussed as a gangster or heist movie, but its narrative and action quotient make it equally a boxing film, strikingly cinematic in its flamboyant style and film-derived content. Whatever categorisation adopted, academic responses have emphasised how Ritchie eschews notions of authenticity in favour of a self-reflexive genericity—a ‘smelling the fake’ that transcends ring action to encompass the entire film construct. In contra-distinction to the temporal and geographical specificity of post-war ‘spiv’ films like No Way Back, Snatch and its ilk possess what Chibnall terms ‘faux-ness’, characterised by ‘a knowing theatrical distortion of real life, a mutually condoned simulacrum, that, by a typically postmodern conceit, is something better than the real thing’ (2008, p. 283). ‘Better’ is, of course, debatable. Snatch may exhibit fuller national and ethnic diversity than fellow cycle members—Jews, Scots, Americans, gentrified Russians, Greeks, Indian factory workers, black British and Irish travellers all feature—but, as Paul Dave notes, they operate as objects of ‘parody’, especially via the regular (white) expressions of comically signalled prejudice against ‘pikeys’, thus ‘slyly referencing the kind of reflex illiberalism that seeks to challenge a multiculturalism it sees as fake and sentimental’ (2006, p.  16, 17). Repeated across the film, as with the foreign-­ named but ultra-English ‘Turkish’, the strategy is exemplarily postmodern in its openness to double—or contradictory—readings. Thus, amidst Snatch’s ‘phony creations’, Xan Brooks finds that, with Pitt ‘twitching and gurning at the edge of ludicrousness’ and ‘refusing to take the part seriously, he winds up as the film’s most convincing inhabitant’ (Sight and Sound, 10, 10, October 2000, p.  60). Within this clueless underworld, only the traveller seems ‘rooted’, sure of himself and his actions— postmodern, perhaps, but also perpetuating the boxing film  genre’s romanticisation of the gypsy fighter. Snatch is, indeed, wide open to accusations of employing stereotypes and repetition: with Statham and Jones reprising their ‘diamond geezer’ strut and spiel, the plot motor (or ‘MacGuffin’) has Ritchie merely substitute a diamond ‘the size of a fist’ for his debut’s antique shotguns for all to chase. Still, replacing the set-piece poker match with a bare-knuckle boxing contest constitutes a purposeful shift as it creates a totalising ‘objective correlative’ for Snatch’s intertwined plot motives and ideological pointers. The fight’s unlicensed/illegal status chimes fully with the

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underworld setting, while their public displays of hypermasculine aggression and ‘last man standing’ codification fit with the surrounding characters’ ‘designer violence’ and flaunting of penis-substitutes—as when Bullet-Tooth Tony intimidates three wannabe hard-men (‘dicks’) toting replica guns by displaying his decidedly more tumescent Desert Eagle .50 shooter. Even the over-riding ethos to attain self-management and not, as Turkish expresses it, be in someone else’s ‘pocket’, is adhered to by O’Neil’s maverick pugilist and (despite the cycle’s sheen of Blairite ‘Cool Britannia’) further articulates the brutalising alienation resultant from an increasingly globalised neo-liberal capitalism. Fight-centric, Snatch mines myriad tropes from boxing movies. Exploiting the ‘fighting Irish’ element taps into a popular transatlantic strand evident from The Quiet Man, but the mix of ring action, risqué comic tone (and the diamond’s final resting place) also render the film a serendipitous microcosm of the British genre’s early sound development— fistic funnymen (and a dog)—while the genre’s longer history is acknowledged with the first fight’s 1920s (Streatham) ballroom setting and the finale’s sepia tinting. Bar a few welcoming words from Mickey’s mum (Sorcha Cusack), Snatch is resolutely male in personnel and preoccupations—even the plot-resolving Staffordshire Terrier (otherwise reminiscent of Bill Adams’ dog from Excuse my Glove) (literally) displays his full masculinity when incited to aggression. More concurrently, Turkish is like Matt Maguire from The Boxer in supporting his boxing business by running an amusement arcade, while his flashback narrative provides a more positive parallel to the circular structure of TwentyFourSeven. Ritchie offers three fight sequences, regularly spaced across the film with increasing intertexuality. The opening bout, accentuating the Romany with its horse-stable setting, sees Mickey dismiss Tommy’s ‘heavy’ Gorgeous George (Fogerty) with a single knockout blow. His first hired (and gloved) contest ends in similar fashion after his heavily backed opponent Bomber ‘Mad Man’ Harris (James Bond stuntman Trevor Steedman) foolishly head-butts Mickey before the bell goes. In sporting terms these swiftly concluded fights augment the list of Snatch’s epistemological anomalies—to risk a generalisation, boxers of GRT origin have a reputation less for concussive force than defensive adeptness, avoiding punishment and skilfully wearing down an opponent.2 That is not the fighting style on show here which, with Bomber Harris, replays an infamous—and widely bootlegged—1986 contest between Lenny McLean and Brian Bradshaw (discussed later). The ‘faux-ness’ is scarcely modified in the

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climactic bare-knuckle contest which, shot over three days, is constructed less from pugilism itself than (in postmodern fashion) the processes of film-making. The gangster-driven context for the fight between Mickey and Horace ‘Good Night’ Anderson (Welch) is acknowledged as an appropriation from The Big Man (Gardiner, 2005, p.  116), while the in-ring action is recognised as offering the de rigueur homage to Raging Bull (Hayes, 2005, p.  15). The latter, though, has Martin Scorsese filtered through an MTV aesthetic as Ritchie, an adept pop-video and commercials director, employs a frenetically mannered style privileging fast cutting, Dutch angles, swish pans, stop- and slow-motion photography and tinted film stock, all delivered to Oasis’ heavy-riffed ‘Fuckin’ in the Bushes’. This approach ultimately renders the ultra-violence palatably cartoonish in its drawing of pain and consequence, and blatantly generic in its rhythm of alternating knockdowns and ‘one punch’ conclusion. In actions, the referee’s instruction for Mickey to ‘finish him’ when Anderson is floored may recall Danny Flynn’s hesitations from The Boxer, only here we know Mickey is spinning out the finish like Tommy Mutch in There Ain’t No Justice, while both sets of seconds starting their own interval fight presents a dramatic intensification tried-and-trusted since When Giants Fought. In words, another Anderson knockdown at the round’s end has its clichéd trope signalled by Turkish’s relieved exclamation: ‘Talk about saved by the bell!’ He also meta-mentions the need to appear authentic—for Mickey to stop ‘dancing like a fairy’ since ‘they’ll hang us with the ring-ropes if they think it’s rigged’. Stylistically, each fighter’s subsequent knockdown is rendered in slow motion: Anderson hits the canvas with a thud but Mickey’s descent, an ultra-slow CGI backward dive filmed at 800 frames-per-second (Fig. 7.1), abandons all realism and becomes instead a fall into water, a subjective submersion redolent less of Trainspotting’s drug-chasing Renton (Ewan McGregor) than another generic quasi-religious cleansing, a boxing-ring baptism before Mickey re-­ emerges to administer his decisive knockout, meet out justice against Brick Top and leave the venue to a crowd-filled riot no more threatening than that concluding And the Same to You. Untraceable by Turkish or the police, Mickey fully ‘cleans up’. Despite his followers, a parallel strand of new millennium British boxing films eschewed Ritchie-esque mobster chic and humour-tinged hagiography to mine a more traditional genre focus on the perpetrators—and victims—of underworld violence. The first merits star billing.

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Fig. 7.1  Snatch—‘Truth’ 800 frames-per-second

7.1.1  The 2000s Boxing Film Champion: Shiner (2001) After Snatch came Shiner, directed by John Irvin and starring Michael Caine, recent recipient of both a knighthood and Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Cider House Rules (Lasse Hallström, 1999). Shiner, produced by Wisecroft in partnership with Miramax, enjoyed a £6.7 million/$10 million budget. Written by television scriptwriter Scott Cherry, it was shot over nine weeks in early 2000 at London locations with the key contest filmed at Bethnal Green’s York Hall. In-ring realism was enhanced by casting Chicagoan WBC Continental Americas light-heavyweight champion Derrick Harmon (25-7-0), while the big fight’s limousine-­ escorted ringside guests constituted the largest gathering of boxing cameos since Excuse My Glove: Frank ‘Nosher’ Powell back from There Is Another Sun; lightweight Jimmy Tippett (27-10-1); 1956 Olympic gold medallist and 1960–1961 British featherweight champion Terry Spinks (41-7-1); 1954–1955 British featherweight champion ‘Smilin’ Sammy McCarthy (44-8-1); British, European and 1983 WBC flyweight champion ‘Champagne’ Charlie Magri (30-5-0); Leeds heavyweight boxer-­ turned-­referee Dave Parris (23-30-7); Brixton-born referee Roy Francis;

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and ‘Lord of the Ring’ MC Mike Goodall. Caine noted in interview the veracity of auditoria and audience: ‘I’ve been to those boxing places. My dad used to take me to Manor Place Baths in Southwark, and in the film there are boxers I know from that time who’d fought in Bethnal Green’ (cited in Bishop, 2003, pp. 194–195). Shiner premiered out of competition at the San Sebastian Film Festival in September 2000 (where Caine received a career achievement award). It did not reach UK cinemas for another year, and then for a short run, while financial problems with Miramax delayed the film in North America until an August 2002 home-­ market release. Shiner follows 36 hours in the life of Billy ‘Shiner’ Simpson (Caine), an East End ‘cheap little boxing promoter’ who believes he can finally crack the big-time by pushing his son Eddie (Matthew Marsden)—‘former junior and ABA middleweight champion’ and, like Terry Spinks, nicknamed ‘Golden Boy’—into a world championship eliminator with American ex-world champion Michael ‘Micky Lightning’ Peck (Harmon). On his big night all goes awry: not only is Simpson wanted by the police for illegal fighting misdemeanours, but an outclassed Eddie is knocked out in round two then shot dead by an unidentified sniper. Outraged at his son’s fate, his impending arrest and financial ruin, Simpson seeks revenge, slipping towards insanity as his suspicions switch between professional collaborators, underworld companions and even his daughters Georgie (Frances Barber) and Ruth (Claire Rushbrook), before all ends in a fatal three-way shoot-out with loyal minder Jeff ‘Stoney’ Stone (Frank Harper) and Eddie’s murderer, Simpson’s promotion associate Gibson (Kenneth Cranham). The delayed release schedule hindered Shiner’s commercial performance, taking only $50,000 at the UK box office. Reviews were also largely negative. Susan Sharpe championed a welcome shift from Snatch and Co., eulogising how ‘The back-to-basics approach is refreshing: a great story, classy ensemble, and a director confident enough to take his time’ (Time Out, 3 October 2001). Hers proved a lone voice: Sheila Johnston more typically argued that ‘This thriller set in London’s boxing underworld isn’t exactly a knock-out, but … doesn’t have the dash to stand out from the current crowd of British gangster pictures’ (Screen International, 1280, 13 October 2000, p. 24). Many felt the energy dissipated after the mid-film fight, but commended Caine’s towering performance—Simon Goddard, alluding to Brad Pitt’s recent genre effort, noted that ‘the first rule of Fight Club is: Don’t mess with Michael Caine’

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(Uncut, 53, October 2001), while Peter Bradshaw, who thought Shiner ‘a sort of Elia Kazan Jacobean tragedy’, concluded cuttingly that ‘Caine can’t help but be a class act, but this movie moves like Joe Bugner at the end of his career’ (Guardian, 14 September 2001).3 The original idea from producer Geoff Reeve was for Shiner to be a modern reworking of King Lear—the bard does boxing—and that imprint is traceable in the failing patriarch, howling at the wilderness as he tears apart his family and questions his servants’ loyalty: Georgie is here the scheming Goneril, Eddie the mistreated Cordelia, his new minder Mel (Andy Serkis) the maligned fool.4 This may recreate an environment where, as Albany claimed, ‘humanity must perforce prey on itself’ but parallels are not consistently pursued as they are in My Kingdom (Don Boyd, 2001) with Richard Harris’ ageing Liverpool don Sandeman. Shiner can also be categorised as completing a trilogy of Caine crimes films: while more London-centric in its underworld investigations than Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971), and more Caine-centred in its study of character disintegration than Mona Lisa (Neil Jordan, 1986), the plotline, especially the denouement, underwhelming in its ‘whodunnit’ reveal, constitutes dramatically diminishing returns. Simpson’s fate can also be read as a retread of London gangster Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) from The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980): both men excitedly work through the day of their potential making while disaster lies in wait; both anticipate American arrivals, Shand with Eddie Constantine’s Charlie from the Mafioso, Simpson with Martin Landau’s equally derisory US promoter Frank Spedding. Again, up against such stiff opposition, Shiner can appear as outclassed as ‘Golden Boy’ Eddie. If viewed as a boxing film, however, its consistency in compass and intrinsic strengths shine forth. The boxing scenes are skilfully paced, the comically under-strength undercard a softening up for the brutal onslaught to come. The big fight is effectively handled, with Harmon’s casting against an ephemeral pin-up from Coronation Street (ITV, 1960–present) for once aiding the dynamic of a one-sided contest. Conveyed in close-to real time with a pulsating jazz-inflected underscore from Paul Grabowski, the fight sequence may avoid concerted full-body action for a close-up, claustrophobic shooting style but this still conveys Eddie’s immobilising panic as he succumbs immediately to Peck’s onslaught and is twice floored. Brief point-of-view shots reveal contradictory and disorientating instructions being yelled in Eddie’s direction—‘hit back’ Stoney shouts; ‘take a rest’ advises Simpson—all of which continues in his corner during the

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break, and only precipitates his round two knockout. While the short-­ changed crowd jeer and throw their crunched-up programmes into the ring, Simpson grabs his boy and flees the arena, convinced he was persuaded to take a dive. The ‘post-mortem’ from Stoney, Eddie’s trainer Vic (Gary Lewis) and even television broadcaster Ian Darke that the 20-year-­ old ‘looks like a rabbit frozen in the headlights’ further contextualises Marsden’s unconvincing boxing moves—to which can be added Simpson’s earlier self-serving meta-advice to his terrified son to ‘become the champ, then retire and become an actor’ and ‘go into movies’. Such pre-fight encounters situate Eddie as the real victim in the Simpson family saga, spilling his heart to Georgie but contemplating suicide from the Hall roof rather than confess fears of inadequacy to his insistent father—Eddie’s fate, like Cordelia, is to ‘love and be silent’. Gibson’s late cri de coeur reveal of Eddie’s fast-tracking through a judicious selection of weak opponents definitively answers Darke’s pre-match inquiry if the title bout was ‘too deep, too soon’ for the boy from Bermondsey. Thus, while the fulcrum fight scene may be no Raging Bull, it succeeds in its intended boxing bathos—and structurally offers a rehearsal for the film’s rooftop resolution. Overall, Shiner is generically distinct in detailing the strict hierarchy operating within the domain of boxing promotion, internally enforced with a level of violence equal if not greater to any ring action. Simpson’s disappointment on discovering the low-quality supporting bouts arranged by Gibson causes him to have his associate’s arm broken as punishment (with later tragic consequences). At the fight itself, for all his financial and emotional investment in what he terms ‘the proudest moment of my life’, Simpson may be hubristically happy to take centre-stage (Fig. 7.2) but this merely exposes him as a minor promoter out of his league. To emphasise the point, Peck’s manager repeatedly signals his condescension at ‘fighting in a toilet’ (though his agreement to such a contest signals his own waning influence) and has Shiner summarily beaten up for impeding his entourage’s departure. Despite its gritty aesthetic, Shiner nonetheless shares traits with the voguish Snatch both in and outside the ring. Simpson has a shady boxing past, financing Eddie’s title tilt with the laundered proceeds of illegal bare-­ knuckle bouts—it is video evidence of one such fatal event that Georgie sends the police to scupper her father’s family-fortune-risking plans. The low-grade cage fight recording, wrapped around the film, first plants a narrative clue with Gibson visually foregrounded then ends intertextually

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Fig. 7.2  Shiner—a man more sinned against than sinning?

with Stoney viciously kicking his prostrate opponent—a Snatch-like recall of the infamous McLean-Bradshaw encounter. Shiner also shares a ‘Laddist’ (or Lear-ist?) recalibration of gender depictions. Simpson’s daughters repeat the long-standing female dichotomy, Ruth docile and domesticated, obediently organising the hotel banquet in anticipation of Eddie’s victory, Georgie disloyal and avaricious, dashing to Simpson’s gated house to strip its possessions ahead of his anticipated bankruptcy. Elsewhere, women only appear in subservient roles, as waitresses and PAs, or decorous ring-girls regularly ogled and propositioned by Simpson. Even Detective Sergeant Garland (Nicola Walker) has little say in police proceedings—other than to tell her boss how much she hates boxing. The boorish masculine outlook is everywhere dominant in this boxing world, most fully embodied in Simpson himself. He exhibits a male authority established through violence rather than reasoned negotiation—‘if you wanna keep your bollocks, fuckin’ shut up!’ is one of his more conciliatory pronouncements—and, while mostly operating through his enforcers, is not above getting his own (arthritic) hands dirty, slapping around disloyal son-in-law solicitor Karl (Danny Webb) and pointing a gun at the stomach of Mel’s pregnant girlfriend (Siobhan Fogarty), an act beyond the pale even for Stoney—but passed by the BBFC.  Such is Simpson’s raging self-pity that he even punches out his

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own reflection in the mirrored wardrobes of his new—and newly lost— upmarket home. His language reveals a deep-seated xenophobia—‘to think I flew those cunts over club class’, he notes of Spedding’s US retinue, while his self-congratulatory ‘Cockney’ humour is both offensive and outdated—one of Gibson’s overweight bookings, reputedly a sparring partner for (world cruiserweight and heavyweight champion) Evander Holyfield, draws a comparison to Carry On actress ‘Hattie—fuckin’- Jacques’. For all his manipulative egocentricity (or because of it?), Simpson remains a committed boxing man—his house may not yet have its furniture unpacked but the walls are already mounted with boxing prints—and the first two acts of Shiner present a credible psychological study of the small-fry fast-practising promoter risking all for a final breakthrough, hoping definitively to abandon ‘a two-bedroomed semi in Leytonstone’ and match the likes of Spedding with his Bermuda bolt-hole’s ‘wraparound veranda’. His eulogy over a print of young underdog Jack Dempsey battering Jess Willard on 4 July 1919 helps him, alongside a promised meeting with ‘Golden Boy’, to persuade fellow boxing fan and pursuing Detective Inspector Grant (Peter Wight) to postpone his arrest until after the fight. The parallel being drawn, though, is not primarily with young Eddie: Simpson passionately relates himself to Dempsey’s position, especially with regard to the BBBofC—‘For thirty years now I have been hitting my head against a brick wall. They’d never give me a license to promote!’—and hates having to kowtow to Boxing Board manager Fleming (Malcolm Tierney). Simpson declares himself a man more sinned against than sinning, though Fleming’s riposte that ‘the best thing I did for boxing was to keep you out’ seems increasingly justified as the night unfolds. Simpson’s solipsistic psychology is primarily investigated through the processes of his big night’s boxing promotion. The arena’s façade has been brazenly adorned with huge posters of the two fighters, flanked by a Union Jack and Stars and Stripes, and proclaims a major coup: the evening will be broadcast ‘Live and Exclusive on Sky Sports’. While hoping for four hours of boxing, the (cheap) undercard of ‘dead bodies’ is so weak—‘Hattie Jacques’ is shown lasting all of 29 seconds—that Simpson and his VIP-filled stretch limo have to hurry to the venue. Throughout, Simpson’s instructions for the big fight expose his lack of ‘class’. Instructing the PA to turn the sound down for Peck’s arrival with ‘The Final Countdown’ brings a look of disgust from Spedding; raising it full volume for his boy’s entrance

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to AC/DC’s ‘TNT’, plus added fireworks and laser lights, leads the Sky television director (Nicholas Hewetson) to note that ‘“Shiner” Simpson makes the National Lottery look highbrow’. Gibson’s revenge may be narratively contrived but is psychologically sound, a retort to the business partner he hoped was a friend but who used then abused him as he did all around him—Simpson, he confesses, had been his target, not Eddie. To the end, though, Simpson cannot be moved from the self-­exculpating explanation that ‘they won’t admit it, but they got to my boy: they all did’. And yet, despite these myriad failings, Caine, without a discernible shift in acting style, succeeds in wringing a late sense of pathos from the fate of this small-time showman whose big-time ambitions (literally) blow up in his face. It may not be King Lear but the performance punches well above its weight and, together with its distinctive promoter focus, earns the decade’s Boxing Film Champion award. * * * Shiner’s Stoney-Mahoney fight footage echoes the environment (and, alas, filming technique) of another hardnosed boxing adaptation, 3 Finger Productions’ Sucker Punch (Malcolm Martin, April 2008), which eschewed Shakespeare for a micro-budget British remake/update/travesty of Hard Times aka The Streetfighter (Walter Hill, 1975). In the US original, 1930s illegal prizefighter Chaney was played by Charles Bronson—real name Charles Buchinsky: in homage the similarly taciturn fighter here bears the same name. Sucker Punch relates how Buchinsky (Gordon Alexander), newly returned to London’s boxing underworld, is taken up by flash, fast-­ talking but strictly small-time illegal fight promoter Ray ‘Harley’ Davidson (Danny John Jules)—the equivalent of James Coburn’s garrulous conman Speed from Hard Times. Accompanied by a soundtrack from the Stranglers’ Jean-Jacques Burnel and Baz Warne, Buchinsky progresses to a climactic fight-off against rival manager Victor Maitland (UFC veteran and 2004 Cage Rage world heavyweight champion Ian ‘The Machine’ Freeman) and the chance to avenge a previous heavy beating: after a ten-­ minute laboured slog with repeated fake blood-spitting, he does so. Comic cameos from Antonio Fargas, Tamer Hassan and (a pre-fame but subsequent release-prompting) Tom Hardy seek to leaven the fight scenes’ dubious brutality, but only accentuate the tonal uncertainty—a match for the film’s alarmingly erratic camera focus and lighting. Hill’s writer-­ director debut was commended for its historical New Orleans recreations and powerful depiction of Bronson’s literal/metaphorical fight for

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Depression-era survival—Pauline Kael thought it ‘effective pulp, perhaps even great pulp’ (New Yorker, 14 December 1975). In Martin’s sole writer-direction, one could strain to analyse the asocial and emotionally cauterised Buchinsky as deeply damaged by Maitland’s earlier beating, but character and plot are essentially the pretext for a series of indifferently staged fights which, taking place in dimly lit back alleys and hallways, have no sense of place or purpose, but save on the expense of studio sets and audience extras. Four years in the funding/making, Sucker Punch premiered at 2008’s (niche) Fighting Spirit Film Festival then passed straight to DVD after a further three-year wait: at least its title offered fair warning to anyone willing to pay to watch it. Worthier of entering the ring with Shiner was Urban Way’s The Man Inside (Dan Turner, July 2012), a low-budget independent helped into production by the participation of A-list actors David Harewood and Peter Mullan. Adding appeal to a young audience (the film gained a 15 certificate), Ashley Thomas aka UK grime artist Bashy was cast as the boxing lead. Set in south London, the film centres on talented young boxer Clayton Murdoch (Thomas), whose progress under the watchful eye of tough, paternalistic trainer Gordon Sinclair (Mullan) is disrupted when his brother Jay (Lenox Kambaba) is murdered in a local gang feud by Karl Lee (Theo Barklem-Biggs), the abusive ex of Sinclair’s drug-addict daughter Alexia (Michelle Ryan). However, when their father Eugene (Harewood), an ex-boxing gangster now behind bars for murder, arranges for his surviving son to avenge the death, Clayton chooses instead to walk away. Given a limited UK release, the film grossed a mere $20,000, swallowed up (like many films) in the wake of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. Judgements, largely split along publications’ political persuasion, offered a draw. Peter Bradshaw applauded how the writer-director ‘created an urban drama with the disturbing look and feel of a psychological nightmare; he has shown some real technique and flair in making it very different from the normal run of geezer thrillers’ (Guardian, 27 July 2012). Against this, Robbie Collin concluded, ‘It is capably assembled but so incessantly, furiously gloomy as to be almost unwatchable’ (Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2012). Like this critical reception, Turner’s film title can be differently interpreted. Ostensibly it references Clayton’s father (played by Harewood with unhelpfully manic broad strokes) who exerts from prison an inexorable influence on his family. More rewardingly, the title also denotes Clayton’s psychological turmoil, his struggle to contain his anger and control ‘the man inside’ (though Thomas’ understated reticence can appear

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monosyllabic stroppiness). In genre terms, Mike McCahill saw a film attempting ‘to update the old-school boxing melodrama’ (Metro, 27 July 2012), and this emphasis on a rising boxer’s mental turmoil offers a fictional bookend to No Way Back’s study of Johnnie Thompson’s decline. It also tests the hypothesis advanced by contemporary directors like Shane Meadows that boxing can constitute both personal and broader social safety-valves for troubled and/or disenfranchised urban youth. Boxing at Sinclair’s gym clearly represents Clayton’s sanctuary from his inner demons and his estate’s gang infighting, but his in-ring success is again explored from a nature-versus-nurture perspective. More insistently than TwentyFourSeven Turner’s film examines the possibilities of violence being a generational transfer. Clayton does not share his brother’s horizontal-­ axis attraction to the symbols and practices of youth gang culture: he believes instead he is fashioned in his father’s image—literally so, with others constantly remarking how much he looks like Eugene (a motif undermined by the physical dissimilarity between Thomas and Harewood)—while his toxically religious mother Elizabeth (Jenny Jules) insists on a more deep-seated resemblance meaning he will turn out just as evil. A key flashback suggests, though, that childhood trauma has moulded his troubled temperament: Eugene robs and stabs a Pakistani store owner (Bhasker Patel), then insists his young son watch the man die. Clayton carries the incident with him through a dysfunctional adolescence and into the ring, where Sinclair promotes a Darcy-like discipline but cannot fathom his prospect’s ultimate reserve. The answer is revealed in the problems that pull Clayton fatally into community fighting and highlight the ambivalent nature of boxing clubs—how, if not fully contained, they merely train young people to inflict violence with greater efficiency. This potentially rich exploration of the pugilist psyche and boxing’s social worth is dissipated, however, by a busy, indeed messy plot that lashes out too broadly, taking swings at domestic violence, paternal and maternal neglect, unemployment, knife and gun crime, abortion and racial tension. Where the film unquestionably registers a generic advance, though, is in its primary focus on a black fighter and family. While the gangland context may adhere to stereotypical negative racial representations, over a century into cinema history The Man Inside is the first British feature film to concentrate on the black boxing experience. That, at least, merits an overall points victory.

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7.2   Boxing and the Biopic Film studios’ new millennium reluctance to risk new material not only glutted the market with sequels and adaptations but also facilitated the ascent of another built-in audience ready-made, the biopic (Cheshire, 2015, p.  3). In sporting terms, a sporadic US cinema trend gathered momentum and major releases including The Hurricane (Norman Jewison, 1999), Ali (Michael Mann, 2001) and Cinderella Man (Ron Howard, 2005) demonstrated boxing’s specific potential for critical and/ or commercial success. The British boxing film eventually followed suit. Although exploring a new hybrid, Britain’s opening boxing biopic knew not to stray from fiction’s template of the underdog triumphing against adversity: it did, though, offer the first focus on a Welsh boxer since A Pit Boy’s Romance with Jimmy Wilde. Risen (Neil Jones, 2010) told the (early) life and fighting career of Merthyr Tydfil’s Howard Winstone (61-6-0) who, overcoming a traumatic teenage injury, in 1968 and aged 29, won the WBC world featherweight title—Wales’ first world champion since Wilde in 1923.5 A 15-minute short from Burn Hand Films, The Fifteenth, where an aged Winstone relates his story to a young boy, was shown at 2006’s Cannes Film Festival and facilitated funding for a full feature. Working with an eventual £200,000 budget, the same producers, key cast and crew began filming that summer, but funding shortfalls delayed proceedings until late-2008, with final scenes only shot in April 2010. Barnstable-born Stuart Brennan, co-writer with director Jones, reprised the role of Winstone. Other cast members’ boxing scenes were prepared by 2005 and 2008 British middleweight champion Steve Bendall (30-7-0), but Don James (4-3-0), Welsh flyweight champion and Winstone’s close friend (played in the feature by Ed Eales White), trained Brennan throughout filming (and played veteran Welsh featherweight champion Billy Evans (16-20-1)).6 This dedication led, as with Daniel Day-Lewis, to evaluations that Brennan could have turned professional.7 Risen premiered on 29 July 2010 as the centrepiece of WBC’s Night of Champions event, held at Cardiff’s International Arena (where it received a five-minute standing ovation from the 5000 crowd), before attaining brief UK and US cinema exhibitions in May 2011 prior to DVD release. Beginning at the weigh-in for his 1968 world title challenge, Risen— taglined ‘the rise of a true British champion’—returns to 1956 and chronologically follows Howard Winstone’s career, its remarkable feature being that, as a promising amateur, an industrial accident resulted in him losing

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three fingertips on his right hand. Having lost the punching power from his dominant fist but determined not to throw in the towel, Winstone completely remodelled his fighting style to lead with a straight left, and boxed his way back up the amateur ranks, culminating in winning the bantamweight gold medal at 1956’s Cardiff-held Empire and Commonwealth Games. Turning pro, and with guidance from long-time trainer, ex-European welterweight champion Eddie Thomas (40-6-2) (John Noble), he progresses to win the British featherweight title in May 1961 from Terry Spinks, and in July 1963 took the European title from Italy’s Alberto Serti. Interspersed with scenes of his family life and struggling marriage, the film’s fighting core lies with Winstone’s three heroic but close-run defeats to Mexico’s southpaw Vicente Saldivar (at Earl’s Court, then a controversial half-point defeat before 25,000 at Cardiff’s Ninian Park, then at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium), while the climax sees Winstone finally win the (vacant) title with a ninth-round TKO from Japan’s Mitsunori Seki at a thrilled Royal Albert Hall. Beyond the narrative interest, an additional pleasure—for boxing aficionados—lies in identifying the film’s plethora of cameos from boxing personalities. Unprecedented in number, the sheer length of this list is its significance. Many appeared as in-ring opponents, adding integrity to the fight scenes. Primus inter pares, Winstone’s arch-rival Saldivar was played by Erik Morales, the first Mexican-born world champion at four weight classes (52-9-0). His Empire Games opponent, Ollie Taylor, was portrayed by Commonwealth super-bantamweight champion James Arthur (19-6-0); Spinks was UK lightweight Billy Rumbol (2-0-0), with Serti played by Pontypool-based welterweight Tony Docherty (21-2-0). Steve Robinson (32-17-2), 1993–1995 WBO featherweight champion, fought as American lightweight Leroy Jeffrey (20-5-0), the architect of Winstone’s first professional defeat and career refocus, while long-term target Sugar Ramos (55-7-4) was portrayed, losing his world title to Saldivar, by WBC light-welterweight champion Junior Witter (43-8-2). The home-country feel continued with Merthyr Tydfil featherweight Dai Davies (14-26-2) playing Cardiff lightweight Harry Carroll (22-1-2), plus Matthew Morgan (2-3-0) as sparring-partner bantamweight Gerald Jones (16-18-2). With clever meta-casting, another Merthyr stablemate, future (1969–1971) British and Commonwealth light-heavyweight champion Eddie Avoth (44-9-0), portrayed in the film by 2006–2008 WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli (41-8-0), is introduced alongside Winstone to famed East End boxing promoter Jacob ‘Jack’ Solomons—consummately played by Avoth himself.8

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This illustrates a riskier casting strategy where boxers perform other than with their fists. Some stayed in the ring: Robin Reid (42-8-1), 1996–1997 super-middleweight champion, referees the first Saldivar contest, with 1998 ABA welterweight champion David Walker (25-4-1) acting as MC.  Outside the ropes, Cardiff-born super-welterweight Kevin Hayde (3-23-1) offers a credible turn as a pernickety brewery foreman, while Jane Couch (28-11-0), Britain’s first officially licensed female boxer and four times world light-welterweight champion, is totally at ease as a radio presenter interviewing Winstone on his title hopes. However, depicting BBBofC members adjudicating Winstone’s application to turn professional were three English boxers, The Krays’ fairground victim John H. Stracey joined by WBC super-middleweight champions of 1998–1999, Richie Woodhall (26-3-0), and 2000, Glenn Catley (22-7-0): their interview with Winstone is more painful than any ring action. Former British, European and 1980 undisputed world middleweight champion Alan Minter (39-9-1) was less stretched portraying a club owner, while playing his club-door bouncers—and surest sign of this passion project’s esteem beyond local boxing circles—Scottish light-heavyweight John Murphy (7-4-0) was joined by US titans Tim Witherspoon (55-13-1), 1984 WBC and 1986 WBA world heavyweight champion, and 1978 undisputed world heavyweight champion Leon Spinks (26-17-3)—all appearing free of charge and paying homage to ‘Welsh Wizard’ Winstone. Despite/ because of such pedigree casting, the few printed reviews (rightly) found that Risen did not satisfactorily get to grips with its subject matter: Kim Newman indicatively thought it ‘appropriately old-fashioned’ and ‘stodgy fare that eulogises the man rather than delving deeply into his compelling life’, all of which ‘leaves this featherweight in the drama department even if it packs a punch in the ring’ (Empire, May 2011, p. 87). While finances could not be found from national film bodies, Risen became the first-ever British film officially supported by the World Boxing Council, recognition only previously accorded to US biopics The Hurricane and Million Dollar Baby. It is a telling dichotomy since Risen is, to mix sporting metaphors, very much a film of two halves. At the January 2011 New Jersey Film Festival, where Risen won Best Feature Film award, the appraisal that ‘the boxing scenes are as good or even better than Scorsese’s Raging Bull’ generated much heat on social media film sites; to less furore Matt Bozeat recently placed the film number 46  in ‘The 50 Greatest Boxing Films’ (Boxing News, 18 March 2020). Risen’s

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(over-praised?) boxing scenes are extensive, covering 11 fights in total, and cinematically varied, although most early bouts confine themselves to a knockout blow or referee raising the winner’s hand. The concluding contest against Seki is, at over five minutes of screen time, the longest but also most conventionally depicted. A ringside pan of journalists typing, later matched by microphoned commentators, succinctly indicates the event’s multi-media global import, but also prompts several cuts to BBC commentator aka ‘Voice of Boxing’ Harry Carpenter (Simon Wakeford) offering over-explicit explanations of the fight’s generically compulsory fluctuating fortunes. The boxing action is mostly mediocre and filmed mid-shot—Seki being played by stunt performer Leon Sua stiffens the ring moves—but the emotional manipulation is ramped up with flashbacks to Winstone Snr (Boyd Clack)’s deathbed hopes for his son’s career, close-­ ups of his friends urging him on, and his mother Katie (Helen Griffin) crying at his final victory. The usual corner inanities include a patriotic slant—‘all of Wales will be behind you’, Thomas exhorts—that receives unsubtle musical endorsement: much as Spinks’ rowdy supporters had been tamed by the Dowlais Male Voice Choir belting out Wales’ national anthem ‘Hen Wlan Fy Nhadau’ (‘Land of My Fathers’), here the same collective harmoniously offer their man his second wind with a stirring rendition of ‘Gwahoddiad’. Risen’s earlier fight footage is more innovative and involving. The pioneering use of an HD ‘Glove Cam’ for his 1959 professional debut adds an accomplished dynamism, much as sweeping POV shots of Winstone facing a rampant Saldivar impress in their final meeting. The film’s boxing centrepiece, the famed second fight with Saldivar, renders Scorsese comparisons inevitable, given how slow-motion footage cedes to bursts of intensity and the employment of non-diegetic classical music—the Moonlight Sonata’s opening movement. Here, though, rather than such stylisation abstracting the in-ring violence, the speed variations and erasure of audience noise (including Thomas’ mouthed instructions) concentrate attention on the boxers and confirm that Brennan and Morales are, for good or ill, properly fighting with authentic blows to head and body, Brennan making a creditable fist of Winstone’s trademark fast left jab. The paucity of spectators (and ringside photographers) encourages low camera angles and a consequent aggrandising focus on the competition between two isolated but purposeful individuals, a mise-en-scene that, while expedient, belies Charles Barr’s cinematic complaint that British sporting activities ‘don’t easily

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translate into the elemental terms of intense struggle and confrontation that inform melodramas like Raging Bull’ (2003, p.  664). It may be typical of Britain’s sporting mentality to slant its focus towards heroic defeat, but the Cardiff fight, with its questionable result, offers a credible correlative to the music’s tone of lamentation: here, without bathos, Beethoven does boxing. Unlike most boxing films, however, it is the biographical sections around the bouts that prove less convincing. With so much invested in creating authentic/artistic fighting scenes, the accompanying drama suffers from deficiencies in acting, direction and production values. A stilted line delivery can be expected from employing so many boxer cameos (stand up Richie Woodhall), but even Brennan fails to convey modulations in Winstone’s speech and character, while budgetary constraints mean the maimed right hand is (almost comically) hidden out of shot or behind props. With the hagiographical impulse depriving Winstone of any compromising hinterland, he moves around stock character types, as with his coughing colliery-worker father determined to give his son back that male pre-requisite, ‘his pride’, and his wife Betina (Gráinne Joughin) who, like so many genre predecessors, comes to hate the fight game and the lonely life of a boxer’s partner. Her unhappiness, in particular, remains part of a life unexamined, and the domestic strife that, in reality, led her to stab her husband’s arm prior to his final Saldivar contest is excised. Instead, Betina’s announcement that she is seeing someone else, and worse still, an Englishman, registers only for its effect on Winstone’s fight focus. Above all, though, it is the USP of Winstone’s career, the early injury and recalibrated boxing technique, which is—surprisingly—seriously underplayed.9 Initially a carefree brawler, Winstone’s toy factory accident led first to deep depression before, with family support and intelligent guidance from Thomas in his Penydarren gym, he painfully fashioned a new stance and hand speed; sparring partners of all weights helped improve both skill and power, while stamina was built through long runs in the Brecon Beacons (Hughes, 2005). This could/should offer a novel training projection: instead the traumatic accident leads only to a solo walk in soaking rain with a trembling lip before both Howard Snr and Thomas instruct him to swap his hands and get his head straight, blunt advice which briskly triggers the generic ameliorating training montage. There are touches of a hard-won valleys ethic in Thomas attending training still caked in coal dust from the mine, and taking his boys into the hills to chop wood, but having Winstone prove his worth by punching a sack of coal

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overplays the pit-world Welshness even if referencing Rocky Balboa’a meat warehouse workouts (Fig.  7.3). With no concerted examination of the physical and psychological damage to be overcome, the (non-)sequence robs the narrative comeback of the emotional heft for once merited by its ‘true life’ underlay, and reduces the whole enterprise to another easy example of the sports film’s utopian sensibilities, deeply conservative in ‘the way it offers representations of a better life if we just follow the rules and try harder’ (Baker, 2003, p.  13). Overall, alas, this smoothing of a complex biography renders Risen another narrow points defeat for Winstone. Alan Hubbard declared Risen ‘the first non-American biopic about a fighter ever made’ (Independent, 5 July 2010). While technically true, it was beaten into cinemas by Tin House Films’ The Kid (Nick Moran, September 2010), adapted by the director and Kevin Lewis from the latter’s two-part memoir on his abusive Croydon upbringing and street-­ fighting survival. Made for £2 million, the film, affiliated on release with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, begins in 1993 with the adult Kevin (Rupert Friend), fresh from losing a bare-­ knuckle fight, attempting suicide in a squalid house, then flashes back to 1980 and the same South Allerton home where young Kevin (William

Fig. 7.3  Risen—bags of Welsh courage

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Finn Millar) is starved and beaten by his harridan mother Gloria (Natascha McElhone). Life intermittently improves when he is taken into care—cue montage to Altered Images’ ‘I Could Be Happy’—culminating when Alan (James Fox), his final foster parent, introduces adolescent Kevin (Augustus Prew) to boxing’s ‘healthy sense of competition’. Leaving school, City career plans go awry, forcing an indebted Kevin aka ‘the Kid’ (Friend again) into back-street bare-knuckle contests. Surviving his suicide attempt, Kevin writes a memoir explaining all to estranged girlfriend Jackie (Jodie Whittaker): it becomes a publishing success, bringing financial security and social respectability (i.e. a family home in Surrey). The adaptation, though, was less well received. For Anna Smith ‘this is an inspiring story, but it’s badly told. Best read the book instead’ (Time Out, 17 September 2010). Christopher Tookey typically found it badly miscast— Friend ‘never convinces as a fighter. Those chiselled features wouldn’t survive a round in a boxing ring, let alone a succession of bare-knuckle brawls’—and overall ‘so unsubtle in its characterisation and so plodding in its narrative that it’s unlikely to reach much of an audience’ (Daily Mail, 20 September 2010). Indifferent box-office returns proved him correct. Alongside conflating Kevin’s gangster associates into predatory Terry (David O’Hara), The Kid tones down the abuse levels from Lewis’ autobiography. The silhouette of Gloria repeatedly banging Kevin’s head against a wall provides sufficient affective power for the childhood sections, but the film loses narrative drive when the kid becomes an adult. The boxing motif, though, offers rare degrees of unity and positivity in Kevin’s trawl through his early memories of misery. This is the sole area where he feels a sense of agency and achievement—brief scenes show his happiness winning a school gym bout; a punch-bag offers an outlet for frustration when his trader applications fail; with his house repossessed and possessions binned, it is the boxing trophy he retrieves. Thereafter, The Kid problematises (bare-knuckle) boxing’s benefits as faux-friend Terry dupes Kevin into ‘a bit of entertainment for the boys’. This ‘entertainment’ is filmed with skill and ingenuity: the first scrapyard bout shows the naïve debutant learning quickly against tattoo-covered ‘Smudge’ (Tony Hood); his second bout, indoors against a posing martial arts exponent (Jeremy Bailey), provides the now-habitual but effective Scorsese section, slow-motion action accompanied by Erik Satie’s ‘Gnossiennes No. 3’; the final scrapyard return has Kevin (cf. Like It Is) beating the system (and Terry) by betting against himself then offering scant defence against redoubtable Irish opponent Whacka. However, while Friend trained for

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nine months, including sessions with 1994 WBO middleweight and 1995–1997 super-middleweight champion Steve Collins (36-3-0)—who appears uncredited as Whacka—results were ultimately compromised since build, posture and movement all betray an awkward stage school rather than authentic street-fighting dynamic. It is indicative of the deeper issue (shared with Moran’s directorial debut Telstar: The Joe Meek Story (2008)) that, despite Lewis’ involvement, the film fails to convince it has conveyed the psychology and emotional baggage of its challenged central protagonist. Events succeed one another with little sense of causation and, allied to the dingy mise-en-scene and risibly overwrought characterisations (step forward McElhone), The Kid’s avowedly reticent realism becomes instead quasi-Pythonesque in its accumulation of working-class hardship. Echoing The Big Man, there are broad attempts to link Kevin’s descent into illegal fist-fighting to the dynamics of 1980s neo-liberal capitalism, as with the visual parallel of arm-waving stock traders and punters offering bets on Kevin’s fights. However, with boxing facilitating the hero’s last-act literary expiation, the cinematic moulding of Lewis’ real-life story into yet another triumph-over-adversity narrative arc excises not just the uncomfortably painful, but the uniquely personal: ultimately, much like Risen, The Kid toes the generic line. Moran first came to attention acting in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and further iterations of the boxing biopic link to Guy Ritchie, specifically the mid-film fight from Snatch where Mickey O’Neil dispatches Bomber Harris with his titular ‘one punch’. This replicated the infamous unlicensed 1986 meeting between Brian ‘The Mad Gypsy’ Bradshaw and Lenny ‘The Guv’nor’ McLean (though reversing the ethnicity and omitting the subsequent head-kicking included in Shiner).10 McLean claimed a 20-year involvement in 4000 unlicensed fights (McLean & Gerrard, 1998, p.  70) and, a known associate of the Kray twins, had played (to type) criminal enforcer Barry the Baptist in Lock, Stock: dying prior to its release, Ritchie dedicated the film to him.11 A biopic of ‘the unofficial heavyweight champion of Great Britain’, directed by Ritchie with Vinnie Jones as lead, was mooted to complete an East End crime trilogy (Guardian, 14 August 2000), but failed to materialise with Ritchie Swept Away by projects with his new wife, Madonna. McLean eventually reached cinema screens in The Guv’nor (Paul van Carter, October 2016) which, including a Ritchie interview, explored the hard-man’s life from the perspective of his son, Jamie. Wendy Ide found it ‘a slightly prurient documentary, which goes heavy on nostalgia for the good old days of the East End, when big men

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in sharp suits only hurt their own’ (Observer, 9 October 2016), but sufficient interest was generated for Salon Pictures to bankroll a fictionalised biopic. Written by producer van Carter and McLean’s actor-nephew Martin Askey, My Name Is Lenny (Ron Scalpello, June 2017) was filmed around London’s Hoxton and Islington boroughs, with a seven-figure budget allowing the casting of Australian X-Men and Mad Max star Josh Helman as McLean, plus cameos from Rita Tushingham and (last theatrical release for) John Hurt. Set in 1978, the film explores McLean’s East End street-­ fighter origins, passing through the haunting effect of childhood abuse from step-father Jim Irwin (Askey), building his reputation through brutal underworld-driven bare-knuckle bouts, and his bitter rivalry with Roy ‘Pretty Boy’ Shaw (UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping) which culminates in Lenny assuming the sought-after ‘Guv’nor’ moniker. Flopping at the box office, the film was ignored by most mainstream reviews—perhaps fortuitously, Kevin Maher decrying how ‘Helman is woefully miscast in a paper-thin and blood-spattered biopic’ (Times, 9 June 2017). My Name Is Lenny does, though, offer an uncompromising take on how McLean, unable to secure a boxing license due to his prison record and violent reputation, became instead one of the ‘stars’ of the unlicensed circuit, legal but not sanctioned by the BBBofC. While shaped by family input, the film is filled with Ritchie touchstones: Jason Statham was originally slated as lead; Nick Moran again acts, adding humour as trainer Johnny Bootnose; McLean trains out of a dilapidated caravan modelled on Turkish’s basecamp; like Snatch, the film is threaded through three fights, all against Shaw. Generically compliant but factually consistent, McLean concedes the first bout (later claiming his gloves were tampered), but wins the next two with first-round knockouts. The contests, though, are cinematically rigged in McLean’s favour: Shaw is repeatedly dismissed as a two-dimensional ‘right ravin’ nutcase’ while McLean is depicted as a troubled soul, his childhood abuse exculpating the adult partial to mood swings, too much alcohol and a good ole’ punch-up.12 There are effective tender moments with his (for once) supportive wife Val (Chanel Cresswell), but Helman is elsewhere so excessive in gesture and approximate in accent—‘oy waan moy farcking manny!’—that any involving pathos loses hands down to involuntary parody. One scene, mainly off camera, has a drunk and enraged McLean nearly kill his cousin by biting into his throat, and two further UK films offer similarly unflinching but more accomplished portrayals of a boxer’s life,

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both physically and emotionally. Jawbone (Thomas Napper, May 2017) from Revolution and BBC Films is, perhaps, a ‘ringer’ in this categorisation. It constitutes a clear labour of love for British character actor Johnny Harris who co-produced, plays lead and, significantly, was screenwriter: it is Harris’ experience as a junior ABA champion who later hit rock bottom that deeply informs not just the quasi-autobiographical storyline but his convincing turn in the ring. The latter aspect was helped by script notes from Daniel Day-Lewis, while Barry McGuigan, as in The Boxer, trained Harris and, with son Shane, was credited as ‘Boxing Consultant’. Further heft came from casting Ray Winstone, three-times London Schoolboy boxing champion, and an original soundtrack from ‘modfather’ Paul Weller. Set in south London, Jawbone follows 30-something ex-youth champion Jimmy McCabe (Harris) who, when a series of setbacks leave him a homeless alcoholic, returns to doss down at his childhood boxing club, run by firm but fair (and terminally ill) gym owner Bill Carney (Winstone) and loyal cornerman Eddie (Michael Smiley). They allow Jimmy to start training again, on the understanding he avoids booze and unlicensed bouts. Desperate for money, however, Jimmy accepts a £2500 offer from local gangster/promoter Joe Padgett (Ian McShane) to face undefeated northern bruiser Damian Luke (a convincing turn by American amateur MMA fighter Luke Smith). Jimmy wins against the odds and, following Bill’s funeral, commits to sorting out his addiction. Jawbone was a minor commercial release but a critical success, uniformly lauded for its low-key realism. Tim Robey thought it ‘an underdog boxing drama worthy of Ken Loach’ (Telegraph, 12 May 2017), while for Matthew Bond ‘Jawbone isn’t just a good boxing film, it’s a fantastic one—dark to the point of being virtually nocturnal, uncompromisingly gritty and, best of all, morally ambiguous’ (Mail on Sunday, 14 May 2017). Jawbone can be held up as a prime example of the enduring strengths of genre filmmaking. There is nothing exceptional in its narrative trajectory or surrounding characterisation and yet, well-paced with a broodingly complex lead, it re-energises a familiar boxing set-up. There is little attempt to make Jimmy sympathetic: with meta-bravery Eddie slates him as ‘boring—just another boring drunk who had it all then pissed it up against the wall’. Rudderless after the recent death of his mother whose now-condemned Lambeth flat he shared, he wallows in videos of his teenage boxing prowess and becomes abusive towards local council figures trying to rehouse him. If the bureaucratic impasse chimes with I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach, 2016), Jimmy’s subsequent homelessness offers a stark

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rerun of depressives from Alan Darcy in TwentyFourSeven back to Batty Stubbs from The Fortunate Fool as he sits Thames-side downing bottles of Russian vodka. The Union Street Boxing Club to which Jimmy returns is based on Lambeth’s renowned Fitzroy Lodge ABC. There he revives his paternalistic relationship with Bill, whose surname indicates a homage to Mick Carney, the legendary Lodge head coach who helped young Harris (and many others) find focus in and outside the ring—and to whom the film is dedicated. Jimmy’s lost promise is wistfully noted by all, and his efforts to recover those teenage positives eschew the habitual fast-edited training montage. Instead, progress is shown as plausibly slow and painfully achieved—Jimmy’s first work-out concludes with him vomiting into the toilet, a stark contrast to the enjoyment manifest in Bill’s parallel session with a ring full of eager adolescents. His perseverance, however, explains the film’s title which, referencing the ‘jawbone of an ass’ used by Samson to slay the Philistine army (Judges 15, pp.  15–16), seemingly returns a religious resonance to the genre. Here, though, the underdog trajectory remains firmly with human suffering and redemption channelled through sporting determination—the jawbone also denotes a prime target for punching—and the opening credit’s quotation, ‘The victory was not in the arm / Not in the weapon / But in the spirit’, significantly stops before the Bible’s mention ‘of God’. Thus, there is no illumination or epiphany, just a dark palette struggling to record a broken man moving from a shapeless suicide-threatened existence to a motivated engagement registered by solitary runs through the oppressive cityscape, high camera-angles dwarfing his frame and signalling a continued vulnerability. This early restraint facilitates the momentum rush when Jimmy journeys up to Liverpool and confronts Luke who, as Padgett warned, is ‘a bit warm and a big lad’. The frenetic ten-minute fight is skilfully enacted, the protagonists authentic in shape, stance and movement, the camera ducking, weaving and flinching to convey the ring performance of a challenger with nothing to lose. Generic tropes and techniques appear: with Jimmy pinned on the ropes, the home officials delay the end-of-round bell; in Jimmy’s second-round knockdown, the sound is subjectively muffled as he just beats the count. He mounts the inevitable comeback, and by round five the crunching sound effects bleed effectively into Weller’s atonal electronica, while Napper’s varying shutter speeds create an immersive flickering effect; meanwhile Eddie’s corner advice and emotional investment add a crucial heart to the customary fight dynamics. Kinetic and credible, the

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contest remains, correctly, anti-climactic with Jimmy aware that, while boxing has re-engendered a sense of self-discipline, his real fight begins once he leaves the arena. It starts well: unlike with his mother, he contains his grief at Bill’s demise and, during the funeral’s boxing tradition of a ten-bell salute, the film segues to Jimmy revisiting Alcoholics Anonymous, this time voicing his need for the programme’s support. Where The Kid was prolix in its polemic, Jawbone, lean of focus and modest in scope, constitutes a cogent character study of a boxer on the ropes and merits a decade contender position. Differently framed but equally traumatic is Hanway Films’ A Prayer Before Dawn (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, July 2018), an international co-­ production adapted by Jonathan Hirschbein and Nick Saltrese from the 2014 memoir A Prayer Before Dawn: My Nightmare in Thailand’s Prisons by one-time England ABA prospect Billy Moore. The Liverpool lead was taken by Joe Cole who, progressing from the short Slap, trained extensively, including with Moore, for fight sequences choreographed by ex-­ Thai boxer David Ismalone. Moore’s prison trainer, Suthin, was played by Somluck Kamsing, at featherweight in 1996 Thailand’s first-ever Olympic gold medallist. Shot at Cebu Provincial Rehabilitation and Detention Centre in the Philippines, further realism was added with Moore’s fellow inmates all played by real ex-prisoners. Premiered at 2017’s Cannes Film Festival, UK exhibition followed in July 2018, with limited American release the month after. The film shows how Moore, a heroin-addicted illegal boxer, is arrested in Thailand and sent to the notorious Klong Prem Central Prison complex. He struggles to survive in the crowded Chiang May mass cell ruled by ruthless inmate Keng (Panya Yimmumphai) and attempts suicide, but life improves when he starts training in Muay Thai aka Thai boxing. His impressive performances earn a transfer to the prison’s separately housed boxing team, then selection to represent the prison in the national Muay Thai tournament at Lard Yao—the first foreigner ever to compete. Despite a ruptured hernia and threats of retribution from Keng, Billy wins his fight, but is hospitalised. Declining a chance to escape, he is reunited with his father (played by Billy Moore) and allowed to finish his sentence in Britain. Though a hard-sell at the box office (grossing $1 million worldwide), A Prayer Before Dawn was critically well-received, with Cole winning Best Actor at 2018’s British Independent Film Awards. Andrew Lowry applauded ‘something very rare: a testosterone-driven narrative that’s about nurturing, rather than destruction. And one that achieves a

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bleeding-knuckled profundity’ (Empire, July 2018, p. 54). America also approved, Guy Lodge’s Cannes report lauding ‘a big, bleeding feat of extreme cinema, given elevating human dimension by Cole’s ferociously physical lead performance’ (Variety, 21 May 2017). A Prayer Before Dawn is (to western viewers) both alienating and involving. Foregoing the biopic’s penchant for flashback, the film deliberately removes all exculpatory backstory such as Moore’s violent upbringing and years in UK jails, and barely explains the reasons for his Thailand incarceration beyond hints of drug-dealing and/or firearms. Also avoiding discussion of future plans (beyond survival), it unfolds in a constant and context-less present. This sense of dislocation continues with the omission of subtitles for crucial Thai dialogue: the viewer shares Moore’s bewilderment as he lashes out to protect himself from unexplained yet omnipresent menaces. Paradoxically, prison life so pushes at codes of masculinist behaviour that it blurs with other sexual identities. To prove his alpha-male status, cell boss Keng makes Moore watch, at knifepoint, the gang rape of another new inmate (who subsequently hangs himself). The Brit’s redemption begins via his burgeoning relationship with transgender inmate Fame (Pornchanok Mabklang) who helps Moore bribe his way into boxing training. Soon dropped like many strands in the (deliberately) amorphous narrative, Moore’s rare emotional reveal on learning of Fame’s infidelities places the pair’s few moments of intimacy as the film’s nearest equivalent to the generic boxing romance. A Prayer Before Dawn’s impressive boxing scenes present a concentration rather than contrast to surrounding events. The film beings in the ring, showing how Moore is trapped in a spiral of decline, a bare-knuckle heroin-high bruiser fighting in seedy Bangkok gyms to secure his next ‘hit’. In prison, the necessity to beat up Muslim kitchen workers to obtain a badly needed fix of YaBa from corrupt guard Preecha—played by Vithaya Pansringarm whose casting links to Nicolas Winding Refn’s US exploration of Thai boxing, Only God Forgives (2013)—brings Moore to a life nadir. Post-wrist-slashing, however, boxing gives him the drive to find a drug-free focus by joining the prison’s practitioners of Muay Thai, a gloved contest also permitting use of elbows, knees and shins. In following Moore’s progress, the film adheres to the genre’s long-held hegemonic (i.e. ‘invisible’) interest in the white boxer: here, at its ne plus ultra, Moore is not only the narrative centre, but Cole’s pale, almost translucent body stands out visually from his darker, heavily tattooed fellow inmates, implicitly adding (relative) moral depth to surface decoration. Although,

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as Richard Dyer points out, ‘it is not the whole story … that whiteness is only racial when it is “marked” by the presence of the truly raced, that is the non-white subject’ (1997, p. 14), Cole’s corporeal distinction, plus his enduringly cherubic features, strengthen early intimations that, while acknowledging that Moore is no innocent, the film will follow fare like Midnight Express (Alan Parker, 1978)—and even The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)—with its focus on demonising eastern brutality against the imprisoned western white male. In a film dialogue-light throughout, the body politic cedes to the body tout court as its later scenes follow Moore through the prison’s boxing culture. This sensory-heightened succession of training and fight sequences arguably offers the purest concentration on male bodies in fighting motion since British cinema’s beginnings with Acres and Paul, or even Muybridge— as Jeannette Catsoulis notes, ‘the meeting of flesh and photography is almost primal’ (New York Times, 9 August 2018). It is not, though, silent as imagery is immersively enhanced by a soundtrack combining Nicolas Becker’s indigenously influenced astringent score with the excoriatingly amplified and tonally varied smash and smack of flesh and bone under attack, a drone and drive hypnotically alternating with the push and pull of muscles being massaged and which, together, render tangible how this new cadre purges and improves the stranger in its midst. From Moore’s proof of endurance during the extended assault that constitutes his audition piece, through the real-time unfettered aggression of his first courtyard fight, and onto the five-minute fight finale, the recourse to oppressive hand-held camera angles may be stylistically familiar, but the long unsparing takes—alongside showing that Cole is fighting without film trickery— become brutally balletic in their blur of striking limbs, contorted torsos and twisted faces, a precision of movement that ultimately earns a dark grace from the prison’s clammy recesses. There are generic plot moves, especially in the final bout with Moore protecting an injury, his (evil) opponent hitting him after the bell and Suthin leaping into the ring to remonstrate. However, rather than what Geoffrey Macnab termed ‘Rocky done kickboxing style and behind bars’ (Independent, 19 July 2018), the film’s atmosphere and aesthetic more fully connotes a boxing version of the Foreign Legion-set Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999), a fixed, timeless world of ritualistic choreography, rippling with tensions both homoerotic and openly sexual—one training session where Moore wrestles in the ring visually parallels his later embraces with a topless Fame. Cole’s physical performance lays bare the hard-man’s essential

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vulnerability—alone and unloved, his only relationships come through the sport he has defiled but comes again to respect. Indeed, Moore’s memoir is filleted to provide a conversion narrative with boxing the medium for a spiritual journey to self- and communal acceptance. When, as a sign of integration, Moore is attended to by a prison tattoo artist, the whispering boxers gathered around him, one of whom holds Moore’s hand against the needle’s pain, cohere with the droning gamelan score and slowly circling camera to give the scene a quasi-religious gravitas. In what arguably constitutes the most visceral and exacting exemplar of British boxing film, the prayer is finally answered. In all, it constitutes another decade contender.

7.3   Boxing and ‘Retro’ Comedy Demonstrating British boxing’s social reach, and opposite in almost every aspect to the worlds of Winstone, Lewis et al., is Sylabik Films’ Blue Blood (Stevan Riley, May 2007), a documentary that, over 16 weeks, followed five of 40-plus students who join Oxford University’s Amateur Boxing Club and fight for a coveted place in the 98th annual varsity bout against Cambridge, thus gaining their sporting colours aka a ‘Blue’. This centuries-­ old rivalry returns the genre to origins, since the rules still shaping modern boxing were codified in 1867 by ex-Cambridge student John Graham Chambers and endorsed by his university friend John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (Colls, 2020, pp. 94–95). Riley’s film, combining interview footage with gym and ring action, plus de rigueur scenic shots of dreaming spires, offers a gilded reverse of the coin to Ron Peck’s Fighters—and the concurrently released Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone, 2006)—as its disparate novices, with neither the physical constitution nor financial constraints pushing them to become career boxers, receive evening training from hard-but-caring bricklayer/ex-amateur Des Brackett. Initially staggeringly inept, the fighting five are generic underdogs in an atypical locus and fall away or persevere for a variety of reasons. Parental issues are common: mathematician James ‘Boiler’ Boyle is desperate to impress papa, while biochemist Fred Brown channels anger towards an absent father. The desire for sensory experience also comes through: all-­ American astrophysicist Justin Bronder is an ‘adrenaline junkie’ fond of scuba diving with sharks, while fine artist Charlie Ogilvie notes that being a ‘Blue’ helps you ‘pull’ (with women dismissively termed ‘Blue-Tak’). Most of the humour centres on puny fresh-faced philosophy student Chris

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Kavannagh, keen on pontificating—‘my mind’s the most important thing’—but a pugilistic pessimist. Oxford (without Chris) indeed lose, but overall the film is a winningly affectionate portrayal that shares Des’ respect for his callow fighters. Nonetheless, opportunities are missed, both with gender and with class. The boxers’ girlfriends are regularly seen but seldom heard, while director Riley (himself ex-Oxford ABC) spurns the chance more fully to explore Britain’s social strata—a fixture against Sandhurst’s Royal Military Academy with dressed-up officers and bagpipers in tow suggests yet higher levels of (worryingly unworldly) pomp and privilege, but a preparatory ‘town vs gown’ match in the Oxford Union is sadly underplayed: just what did those local lads think of it all? Reviews perhaps provided an answer, some admitting ‘there’s something very satisfying about seeing over-privileged posh boys getting their toffee noses smashed in’ (Total Film, 11 May 2007). More, though, enjoyed its comedy: ‘lads’ mag’ praise for a ‘hard-hitting and humourous’ piece (FHM, May 2007) was shared by Philip French who warmed to ‘An amusing, observant documentary’ (Observer, 13 May 2007). Adapting this format, Working Title’s The Calcium Kid (Alex de Rakoff, April 2004) had introduced another hybrid format, the fictional comedy-documentary aka ‘mockumentary’—then filled it with tired, stale material. Though filmed in the autumn of 2002, its release date was repeated deferred, a delay that could (unconvincingly) be spun as maximising the impact of its young lead, Orlando Bloom, increasingly bankable since featuring as Legolas in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001–2003). Britain’s latest heartthrob was supported by a cast of well-known British comic actors, plus cameos from 1995 WBC heavyweight champion Frank Bruno (40-5-0) and 1990–1995 WBO middleweight and super-middleweight champion Chris Eubank (45-5-2). The film relates how, when British boxer Pete Wright (Tamar Hassan) breaks his hand a week before challenging world middleweight champion Jose Mendez (Michael Peňa), his sparring partner, Lambeth milkman Jimmy Connelly (Bloom), is enlisted as replacement by dodgy promoter Herbie Bush (Omid Djalili). A film crew cover the build-up, but ill-advised comments by the newly named ‘Calcium Kid’ about his Mexican-American opponent lead to press vilification, and Jimmy to consider his position. On the big night both boxers (and attendant film crew) are kidnapped by gun-wielding Pete: in the ensuing melee Jimmy knocks out Pete and, with the event filmed, is proclaimed a national hero. No such euphoric reception greeted The Calcium Kid with critics mercilessly milking the

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put-downs: Larushka Ivan-Zadeh bemoaned how, after starting ‘punchily enough’, the film ‘proceeds at milk-van pace’ (Time Out, 28 April 2004), while Wendy Ide decried how ‘Bloom gives a performance that’s as bland as a pint of semi-skimmed’ (Times, 28 April 2004).13 Whatever perspective adopted, The Calcium Kid is off the pace. If looking to exploit its new teen idol, it takes over an hour before Bloom disrobes to enter the ring. Stylistically, regular recourse to classic shot/reverse shot sequences undermines the mockumentary premise that events are being filmed as they happen. Generically, The Calcium Kid remains in thrall to 1976’s behemoth Rocky, offering parodic references at narrative, character and soundtrack levels: the challenger plucked from obscurity and piquing media interest; Jimmy’s whimsical Irish trainer Paddy O’Flanagan (David Kelly)—a lifeless rehash of Burgess Meredith’s Micky; and the (admittedly now compulsory) rock-backed training montage. Beyond that, though, in outline and ideology de Rakoff takes the boxing film back to the 1930s and beyond. Though The Calcium Kid, in broad concept, reworks Harold Lloyd’s boxing milkman comedy The Milky Way (Leo McCarey, 1936)—itself musically refashioned with Danny Kaye as The Kid from Brooklyn (Norman Z. Macleod, 1946)—in a British context it regresses to a patronising and coarsened rehash of the working-class values espoused by comedies such as Keep Fit and One Good Turn (though with less boxing credibility in its lead actor), while its hostage finale reworks a plot motor traceable back to 1912’s Lieutenant Daring. In Ealing fashion, Jimmy, though derided by the national press, remains loyal to his community, only returning to fight—with childhood friend Stan Parlour (Rafe Spall) as cornerman—when Herbie agrees to donate a gym to the local prison, an institution currently housing his father Clive (Frank Harper). Be they lads or lags, this is an unreconstructed firmly patriarchal proletariat, with Stan incorrigibly work-shy and Clive imprisoned for beating up a client who misinterpreted the ‘massage therapy’ offered by his wife Pat (Ronni Arcona). When the women are not, rightly or wrongly, seen as promiscuous—on his rounds Jimmy repels the advances of a randy housewife time-travelled from sexploitation films like The Amorous Milkman (Derren Nesbitt, 1974)—they are the traditionally passive reward for the hero’s moral fortitude and boxing bravery: Jimmy marries Angel (Billie Piper), one of Herbie’s promotion models aka ‘dolly birds’, smiling alluringly with just four lines of dialogue. The racism plot-line— Jimmy obeys Herbie’s instructions to add some ‘patriotism’ to his pre-­ fight press conference by dressing like John Bull and threatening to send

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Mendez ‘back on a banana boat’—promisingly foregrounds a strand implicit throughout the genre’s existence, only to deflect it away as comedic naivety by its young hero. Then, however, the film enacts it as, out of the various cartoon-depth depictions, only Mendez’s character ‘is overtly racialized in stereotypical ways as the pimped-out, malapropistic, Spanglish-­ speaking buffoon surrounded by a coterie of cholo-styled (plaid shirts, goatees) bodyguards’ (Aldama & Kelly, 2019, pp.  204–205). With his opponent comprehensively ‘othered’, young Jimmy revives the dormant genre trope of the great (milk-)white hope. Amidst such outdated genre and gender, class and racial representations, only the prolix self-absorption of Chris Eubank hits home as remotely genuine and endearing. Nonetheless, the mockumentary format returned in Frozen Echo Productions’ micro-budgeted On the Ropes (Hamdy Taha, Mark Noyce, December 2011). The casting of Lindsay Honey aka British porn actor/ director Ben Dover gives a sense of the work’s artistic reach, though it offers a major role for Dublin-born heavyweight and Mike Tyson sparring partner Joe Egan (3-1-0). Egan plays Big Joe, owner of a ‘proper fighting gym’ being filmed for a documentary by a Peterborough-based film crew. The sporting outlook appears progressive (in intention if not address) as Joe points out a woman working the punchbags and announces to camera that ‘hopefully for the 2012 Olympics they’ll allow women boxing—and this young lady is a potential Olympian’. However, the crew discover a rival gym run by unorthodox martial arts instructor Keith ‘Superfeet’ Kraft (writer-director Noyce), whereupon the film comedically regresses with Kraft’s karate-chopping rerun of Ricky Gervais’ David Brent from The Office (BBC2, 2001–2003). On the Ropes failed to find national exhibition or reviews, and passed quickly to DVD. Egan returned to the genre with a minor (security guard) role in MoliFilms Entertainment’s Gloves Off (Steven Nesbit, September 2018), another low-budget comedy with an impressive supporting cast including Ricky Tomlinson and Alexei Sayle. Co-written by director-lead Brad Moore, the film follows former prospect Douglas Evans (Moore) who runs Taffy’s Gym, inherited from his trainer (Michael Sarne) who died during Doug’s aborted championship fight. Unless he can find £50,000 Doug risks losing his mentor’s legacy to posh City boys who envisage a gentrified franchise gym. Salvation comes from training up a giant but simple-minded Romany called Nosher (Greg Orvis) and taking him to Appleby Horse Fair to tackle ‘King of the Gypsies’ Big Bill Brady (Snatch’s Adam Fogerty) in a £100,000 winner-takes-all bare-knuckle contest: all

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ends happily. Spending over a year in exhibition limbo with occasional festival showings before moving to DVD/VOD formats, Gloves Off was awarded Best Feature at 2018’s British Independent Film Festival. It is, though, a problematic work. The bare-knuckle bouts are competently choreographed, while Paul Barber playing ex-navy boxing champion Albert, one of the unemployed gym regulars who find new purpose working together, indicates the desire to create, three decades on, a fistic variant on The Full Monty. Alongside its location shooting at Appleby, billed as Europe’s largest traditional Gypsy Fair, plus cast members that, with Fogerty joined by Alan Ford as Doug’s father Burt, resonate with Guy Ritchie’s earlier boxing take, Gloves Off revisits the importance of fighting to the GRT community, with puny teenager Donny (Laurie Kynaston) attending the gym to work on his heritage and make his family proud. However, with his mother—and Doug’s love-interest—Vera (Denise Van Outen) happy to exploit her pliable brother Nosher, a character depicted with less nuance than a punch-drunk Arthur Mullard, the film’s stance on mental handicap is highly questionable, while its division of the GRT community into home-grown generous Romany (good) and belligerent Irish (bad) is simply offensive. Not even Snatch or interwar fare like A Gipsy Cavalier and Blue Smoke brought such a Little Englander perspective to boxing travellers.

7.4   2010s Boxing Film Champion: Journeyman (2017) The boxing film has often employed humour to ‘soften up’ the viewer for a hard-hitting follow-up. This chapter concludes with a similar strategy, its analysis of recent boxing ‘comedies’ ceding to a work uniquely focused on the results of injuries sustained in the ring. The British boxing film occasionally employed the narrative motor of fatality but, bar blinded Billy First seeking charity in There Ain’t No Justice, had never dwelt on sustained injury resulting from a professional contest—until Journeyman for Film4/BFI, the second feature, after Tyrannosaur (2011), directed by Paddy Considine. A close associate of Shane Meadows, Considine similarly admired boxing (and played in the upbeat Cinderella Man) but wrote and took the lead in this exploration of the dangers inherent in ‘the Sweet Science’. Considine and crew undertook research with UK brain injury charity Headway and included genuine occupational therapists and nurses

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in the film’s medical scenes. Its big fight was shot over two days at South Yorkshire’s Barnsley Metrodome, while surrounding action continued the generic strategy of enhancing realism (and fan pleasure) with genuine boxing exponents and associates. Centred on the strong boxing city of Sheffield, Considine was trained by Dominic Ingle, son of renowned Irish trainer-manager Brendan Ingle (who cameos in the film), while several boxers from the Ingles’ Wincobank stable also make appearances. Risen’s Junior Witter returns as the opposing trainer, while a benefit dinner is attended by 2014–2017 IBF welterweight champion Ezekiel aka Kell Brook (39-3-0 as of December 2020). Two visits to Frenchie’s barbershop, a Steel City boxer haunt, reveal 2013–2015 British, European and Commonwealth super-bantamweight champion Abdul-Bari Awad aka Kid Galahad (27-1-0), 2018 Commonwealth featherweight champion Jordan Gill (25-1-0), and light-heavyweight Atif ‘Unique’ Shafiq (21-3-0). Prominent at the pre-fight press conference is dynastic promoter Frank Warren; Mike Goodall returns from Shiner as MC; the bout is covered ringside by sports/boxing commentators John Rawling and Barry Jones; post-fight interviews and gala-night introductions are made by boxing pundit/presenter Steve Bunce. One of the first examples of the Wellcome Trust charity’s initiative to invest in fiction films ‘that explore themes relevant to biomedical research’ (ScreenDaily, 23 November 2015), Journeyman premiered at October 2017’s London Film Festival, before going on general UK release in March 2018. The film centres on ageing Sheffield boxer Matty Burton (Considine), WBO middleweight champion who enjoys a settled home life with wife Emma (Jodie Whittaker) and baby daughter Mia. In his first title defence, Matty wins a gruelling points decision against young Andre Bryte (Anthony Welsh), but that night collapses with a serious head injury. After brain surgery he returns home a changed man, uncertain in memory, movement and speech. Emma becomes his full-time carer, but Matty’s violent mood swings force her to leave with Mia. After an attempted suicide, Matty reconnects with his old fighting team, Richie (Tony Pitts) and Jackie (Paul Popplewell), who initiate a confidence-restoring training regime and organise a fundraising evening. In Matty’s gala speech he refuses to blame boxing or Bryte for his injuries and reaffirms his love for his family. Emma returns with Mia and Matty finds purpose supervising youngsters at Richie’s boxing club. Nominated for Best British Film (and Considine for Best Actor) at 2018’s UK National Film Awards, Journeyman’s critical reception was

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divided. James East unequivocally hailed the ‘bleak but compelling watch’ as ‘a truly astounding piece of work’ (Sun, 30 March 2018), while Robbie Collin wrote that ‘Considine’s heartbreakingly human boxing drama will floor you’, with the sport ‘both completely integral and beautifully beside the point’ and ‘the brave simplicity of its plot … complemented by performances of rare power and detail’ (Telegraph, 30 March 2018). Geoffrey Macnab, though, baulked at how, ‘In spite of its very bleak themes and moments of brutality … the movie eventually turns into as much of a feelgood affair as any other Rocky-style yarn—and feels as contrived as most of them’ (Independent, 29 March 2018). Edward Porter objected that Considine ‘isn’t too convincing as a top-level fighter. But then it’s not as if the film is much more persuasive in any other regard, beyond its well-­ meant performances’ (Sunday Times, 1 April 2018). Journeyman begins with a pan down from tree tops to find Matty on a training run in local woodland. It is a common, reassuring setting for the genre, but here an ambitious visual analogy is also being attempted— admittedly more successful in the film poster—between the fragile complexity of a tree’s structure and that of the human brain, the ‘target’ of the film’s attention. The intention indicates the film’s uncertain position in-­ between a mainstream and art-house production. The title may also seem approximate for a world champion, but Matty is no ‘typical’ film boxer. He is not the gullible man fallen on hard times: he has invested his money wisely and lives contentedly. Nor is there a dark deforming backstory: Matty is (in film terms) a potentially bland ‘good guy’, a quiet-spoken hard-working pure sportsman. Nonetheless, the notion hovers, not least in his own mind, that Matty has exceeded his talent’s due, initially winning the title-belt by default when his injured opponent retired. Beyond providing lasting family financial security, this drive to prove himself—to ‘feel legit’ as Emma terms it—plus the wish to honour his recently deceased father Robin (Brendan Ingle), cogently validates the trope of the ageing boxer risking ‘one last fight’ and renders understandable Matty’s initial jubilation when victorious. However, while the genre is full of works where redemption is eventually found in the ring, here the momentum is reversed, with the ‘big fight’ coming early and the film’s title more fully signalling a man on the journey to rebuild his life. A sense of foreboding fills the fight preamble. Not only is Matty’s departure from home uncomfortably tense (Emma, like many real-life partners, refuses to attend/watch the fight), but Bryte belittles him at the press conference and weigh-in, his threats laden with dire (and

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dramatically ironic) imagery—‘this will be a life-changer for you’ and ‘I’m gonna take your head off’, he snarls. It is a well-worn pairing, the old lag against the young pretender, and Bryte’s insufferable behaviour clarifies audience preferences. Nonetheless, the challenger’s nickname, ‘the Future’, implies Matty is yesterday’s man, and the champion’s calm if charisma-­light responses seem outdated, at odds with the trash-talking expected by current sports media and promoters. The pre-fight ritual confirms his family-man orientation, inserting a family photo into his boot and tying his wedding ring to its laces: it is Emma’s late discovery of these tokens in Matty’s kit bag that confirms her decision to return, uniting the ring and romance plot strands. This unremarkable characterisation arguably carries over into the championship contest. With the action taking just over two minutes of screen time (though expanded with later viewings from prominently advertised British subscription-television channel BoxNation), the fight’s attritional nature, and especially the blows Matty takes to the head, are mostly created impressionistically through fast editing and alternating camera speeds, plus slow-motion corner scenes where Matty spits out blood. While this is generic fare, there is rare realism in shots of Matty’s cornermen remaining cool and analytical amidst the in-ring mayhem. Nor is there the common exaggerated reversal of in-fight fortunes—Bryte is downed once (typically, he claims he slipped)—and the contest is decided not with a dramatic knockout but on a (much underused) tense announcement of the judges’ scoring. One could read the sequence as confirming Bryte’s taunts that Matty is a ‘sluggish fighter’ who ‘stands there and takes beats’: inescapably, though, it exhibits the genre’s ever-present casting dilemma and cannot conceal 44-year-old Considine’s screen-boxer shortcomings. The Barnsley bout, however, is but the catalyst for a more convincingly conveyed fight, as Matty’s post-bout brain haemorrhage promises a fresh angle for the British boxing film. The ensuing domestic scenes are Journeyman’s highpoint, offering sustained passages of both tenderness and horror. When Emma helps her cognitively impaired husband back into their home, it is presented as Matty now sees it: less a successful sportsman’s high-end residence then a starkly monochrome glass-encased private hospital. Both leads’ acting impresses throughout. Considine with his initial surface bonhomie betrayed by a late-career fearfulness in the eyes cedes to essentially a separate character, the stare now vacant, his arms regularly raised in defensive pose as if trying to remember their earlier breadwinning function. Whittaker, without histrionics, conveys emotions

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ranging from open love to the fear and frustration she feels she must keep hidden. While Matty mostly behaves like a child, he retains the body of an alpha male—which means a satisfactory sex-life is still possible—but when violence bleeds from the ring into the home, culminating in the previously gentle family man hitting Emma in the face and locking a crying Mia in the washing machine, Emma realises she must leave the man she still loves. Journeyman here both fits with more probing genre studies such as Fat City (John Huston, 1972) and offers the director’s new take on Tyrannosaur’s excoriating tale of domestic abuse, exposing the vulnerability behind hypermasculine displays of violence. The ultimate support, though, comes not from family but sporting relationships. Bar two brief occupational therapy (OT) scenes, the film removes all medical consultations, all rallying relatives or hired help, even all media interest in the ex-champion’s plight. Emma is entirely alone and unable to cope with Matty (and Mia) which, in a work otherwise closely wedded to social realism, nags at credulity. It also presages a betrayal of Emma’s significance, and her second-half departure drew substantial negative criticism in reviews. While textually expedient (her continued presence compromises Matty’s agency), it also offers a generic variant on the ring-romance pairing as here winning (back) the girl depends not on a big fight finale, but in the lengthy post-match training schedule, what Matty calls ‘getting fixed’. Not the first film internationally to treat boxing trauma, Journeyman foregoes the triumphant ring return of America’s Bleed for This (Ben Younger, 2016), yet adopts a more saccharine resolution than Million Dollar Baby—Emma returns at the gala evening to a better man, with Nick Cave’s ‘Into My Arms’ shifting into extra-diegetic accompaniment to ensure complete emotional catharsis. A British compromise, perhaps: Journeyman reveals itself willing to acknowledge the sport’s inherent dangers, but ultimately remains in love with boxing. The fulcrum comes when Matty, finding the Bryte fight on Emma’s laptop, experiences a first post-trauma sense of self—he repeatedly names himself as he watches the footage. When he then moves around the empty house, the sight of his face superimposed on framed photos in his boxing ‘shrine’ brings awareness of how far he has fallen: it is, in both visual and mental senses of the term, a key reflection (Fig. 7.4). His remorse initially leads to Matty taking his boxing belt and jumping into a nearby river: images of Emma and Mia literalise the notion of a life flashing before him, but the submerged fighter also reruns the images of Mickey O’Neil from Snatch, only here with a more substantial sense of rebirth and purpose—to

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Fig. 7.4  Journeyman—reflections (of the way life used to be)

fight to get his family back. He heads for his first and hardwired home, the boxing gym. On browsing old photos as part of his memory-jogging therapy, Matty had asked where former cornermen Richie and Jackie now were: ‘Good question!’, Emma replied. Their parallel first-half absence, explained away as fear/shame/ignorance at how to respond to such a seismic accident, again fails aesthetically to convince. Nonetheless, it allows for a flurry of character changes as, with Richie’s rallying cry of ‘he needs us, man, big time’, the hypermasculine boxing world learns as one to overcome its macho posturing and to offer both practical care and emotional support. While Matty’s domestic flights of temper imply an inherent violence stored deep in the masculine psyche, elsewhere the film offers a concerted counter-­narrative. On returning from the Bryte fight, Matty is not ashamed to collapse into his wife’s arms and cry; Richie and Jackie also shed tears on taking river-drenched Matty to hospital. Further exposing the performativity of masculinity, its public façade, a distraught Bryte visits Matty to apologise for his ‘naïve’ pre-fight stance, confessing that he is ‘ashamed’ at having acted the ‘bad boy’. Like Danny in The Big Man, he receives absolution. With Emma removed, Journeyman shows redemption coming through friendship, and a sport often seen as the ultimate in single combat is revealed as built on mutualism—and the source of amelioration. The scene of Matty’s OT with Richie in tow not only replays an earlier stair-climbing

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exercise with Emma, but with its focus on hand coordination offers a poignant parody of the opening (indeed the entire genre’s) training montage trope. And it works: as in Real Money and TwentyFourSeven, the boxing community shows its mettle with Richie’s gym becoming a quasi-sacred rallying point, a more efficacious site for rehabilitation than local hospitals or large houses. It takes time: Richie putting a man with brain injuries straight into sparring—two blows on the pads and Matty collapses in fear—reveals a potentially dangerous ignorance, but ‘Team Burton’ Mark 2 learn together, and Matty’s speech and movement improve. ‘I don’t blame boxing’, Matty clarifies to his gala audience when articulation returns, ‘I love boxing.’ His follow-up statement that ‘It made me what I am’ can (unwittingly) be read two ways, but the final scene where Matty works with sparring children (male and female) echoes films like Jawbone with its implicit message that boxing can not only heal troubled former fighters but keep youth off the streets and instil discipline and purpose. Despite its more  sober angle, Journeyman ultimately retains the arc of most boxing genre films with its positive late comeback and concluding love letter to the sport.

Notes 1. For Stuart Heritage, ‘In no way, viewed from any conceivable angle, is Snatch a good television programme’ (Guardian, 16 March 2017). 2. A good example is the points-decision victory over reigning linear heavyweight champion Vladimir Klitschko by Tyson Fury aka ‘The Gypsy King’ on 28 November 2015: with Fury boxing off the back foot, Klitschko barely landed a punch. 3. Joe Bugner (69-13-1), European, Commonwealth and British heavyweight champion (1971–1976), also holds 20-plus screen actor credits, most notably a torturer in the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Street Fighter (Steven de Souza, 1994). 4. In interview Caine noted the King Lear link: ‘I thought, it’s the nearest I’m ever gonna get to play it, so I’m gonna do it’ (Times, 20 September 2001). 5. The subsequent all-too-familiar fall, where Winstone lost his money, his marriage and died an alcoholic aged 61, is not covered. 6. James is commemorated in the documentary short The Boxer (Charlotte Dolman, 2011), an audience nominee for 2012’s First Light Awards. 7. At the film’s premiere Brennan was presented with an ‘Honorary World Champion’ belt by the WBC, ‘joining the ranks of Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and the Pope in doing so’ (Ely Standard, 17 June 2011).

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8. Avoth had earlier starred in Warner Bros’ action-drama Instant Justice (Denis Amar, 1987), Gibraltar’s first feature film. 9. There is scant film treatment of British boxers with disabilities: Night Train (Derville Quigley, 2003), an eight-minute short from Screen Yorkshire/ UK Film council, follows a young deaf boxer (Scott Marcus) being drawn into a climate of increasing aggressiveness. 10. Various crowd-filmed versions of McLean’s vicious attack on Bradshaw can be found on YouTube. 11. McLean had previously appeared as a police chief in The Fifth Element (Luc Besson, 1997) and as a prominent (if uncredited) ringside spectator in The Krays. 12. McLean later tarnished his reputation by refusing the challenge to fight ‘King of the Gypsies’ Bartley Gorman (cf. Shane Meadows). 13. The Calcium Kid received (gold-topped?) praise from one corner of British industry—for having ‘helped to boost the image of milk’ (Dairy Industries International, 69, 6, June 2004, p. 7).

References Aldama, F. L., & Kelly, C. G. (2019). The Good, Bad, and the Messy: Michael Peňa’s Browning of the Twenty-First-Century Silver Screen. In F. L. Aldama (Ed.), Latinx Ciné in the Twenty-First Century. University of Arizona Press. Baker, A. (2003). Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film. University of Illinois Press. Barr, C. (2003). Sports Films. In B. McFarlane (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of British Film (2nd ed.). BFI. Bishop, D. (2003). Starring Michael Caine. Reynolds & Hearn. Cheshire, E. (2015). Bio-Pics: A Life in Pictures. Wallflower. Chibnall, S. (2008). Travels in Ladland: The British Gangster Film Cycle, 1998–2001. In R. Murphy (Ed.), The British Cinema Book (3rd ed.). BFI. Colls, R. (2020). This Sporting Life: Sport and Liberty in England 1760–1960. Oxford University Press. Dave, P. (2006). Visions of England: Class and Culture in Contemporary Cinema. Berg. Dyer, R. (1997). White: Essays on Race and Culture. Routledge. Edwards, T. (2006). Cultures of Masculinity. Routledge. Gardiner, M. (2005). Modern Scottish Culture. Edinburgh University Press. Hayes, K.  J. (Ed.). (2005). Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. Cambridge University Press. Hughes, B. (2005). Reaching for the Stars: The Howard Winstone Phenomenon. Collyhurst and Moston Lads Club. McLean, L., & Gerrard, P. (1998). The Guv’nor. John Blake Publishing.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion: The Judges’ Verdict

Boxing is a binary sport: two fighters face each other, two fists each to beat their rival. The British boxing film is also permeated by doubleness, with this genre study adopting an orthodox two-fisted approach that requires ‘looking both at sets of formal conventions that define different film-types and at what these conventions signify historically’ (Dix, 2008, p.  178). Formally, the genre has been shown to develop in partnership with film-­ types encompassing comedy and romance, costume drama and social realism, plus sporting hybrids. Another dual demand, in casting, often limited the credibility of the central performer: actors mostly lack the innate skills and body-shape for the sports scenes, while athletes cannot convey the storyline’s surrounding thrills and/or romance. There have been exceptions, notably Victor McLaglen, Liam Neeson and Daniel Day-Lewis, but mostly the genre acknowledges the issue and places its boxing scenes in a wider social panorama. The introductory chapter’s extracts from the upper-class The Young Mr. Pitt and underworld The Krays, biopics employing boxing first as a deterrent to corruption and then its catalyst, demonstrate how the sport—and its cross-class film representation—is, like this study, a Janus-faced phenomenon. As Gerald Early notes: ‘The weight of its contradictions—being inhumane yet profoundly human in the various needs it satisfies—is what gives boxing its enduring power, its cultural relevance despite its persistent marginality’ (2019, p. 5). The Krays’ problems with the BBFC (cuts were required to a mutilation scene) also highlights that, while boxing is inextricably linked to key technological and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2_8

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stylistic developments in cinema, its reputation for corruption and violence renders it impeded from regular box-office success and inseparable from the medium’s constant corollary—film censorship. Thus, alongside its aesthetic development, this study argues that the boxing film is a viable source for social history, with the re-presentations of the sport and its associated gambling culture an ideological metonym for the concerns of wider society, exploring local, national and wider levels of British experience. Because of its importance not only in quotidian life but also, especially, its immutable place in Britain’s socio-cultural imaginary landscape, boxing serves as an accessible institutional structure through which to explore cinematic discussions about the nation—but also national approaches to its cinema. The latter raises a further duality, the correlation between Britain’s boxing films and the genre’s more prominent American iterations. Principally referencing Raging Bull and its Hollywood forebears, Pam Cook identifies how ‘The hero of boxing films, who is often too sensitive to succeed, travels a painful Oedipal journey, challenging the power of the father, punished for the attempt’ (1982, p. 42). The British boxing film itself can be seen as undergoing a similar Oedipal trajectory in its relationship to American cultural forms, starting out in close imitation as its recordings of renowned fighters like Jem Mace were quickly joined by comic turns like the pugilistic Pimple. However, as America increasingly dominated both cinema and sporting industries—the latter most problematically with the rise of Jack Johnson—Britain broke away in the 1910s to found its own lineage. It rebelled/experimented not with ‘youthful’ radical social content but—when not emasculating the threatening ‘other’ via blackfaced burlesque—by retreating, as with The House of Temperley, into the fistic period drama, indigenous formulations where it could feel secure, superior. Britain has long perceived itself as a nation whose identity is uniquely deep-rooted in past narratives since it ‘somehow has “more history” than others’ to explore (Monk & Sergeant, 2002, p. 1). Hence the trade press could herald 1915’s The White Hope with a full-page eulogy, beginning thus: ‘The British public still regards the noble art of self-defence as its own particular national institution, and in spite of that commercial aspect which has induced other nations to take a very active interest in its technicalities, there is not doubt that, regarded purely as a form of sport, the drama of the prize ring can only receive adequate representation from a British producer’ (Bioscope, 11 November 1915, p. 711). The (continued) reputation of Britain’s national cinema as largely promoting historical and

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costume genres was in part forged by its early boxing output, films testifying how stylistic innovations in the drive to capture the sport’s excitement were matched by a social retrenchment in attitudes to class, gender, and especially race. The ‘punishment’ of calming the moral majority with this hegemonic recourse to Regency romance was near-total American box-­ office rejection, though a late-silent validating sense of independent self-­ worth was heralded by Alfred Hitchcock’s consummate synthesis of comedy and romance with strands of realism and formalism—‘nothing that has come from America is in the same street as The Ring’, eulogised the Daily News (2 October 1928). The coming of sound brought a more discernible filial compliance as the boxing film genre, maturing in step with American examples, adhered to contemporary themes: similarly, if perhaps counter-intuitively, it ‘reveals a critique of the manly ethos of the ring’ (Grindon, 2011, p. 268). The twin tenets of the comic mode and narratives of corruption unite, however, to explore a very British take on masculinity. For Marcia Landy, a sporting context offers fertile terrain to explore working-class male conflicts, while boxing in particular ‘reinforces a familiar equation between the working-class male and physicality’ (1991, p. 252). With further duality, the films explored in this study both support and counter this argument. A common strategy for proletarian comedians like Sydney Howard and George Formby, moving from music hall into cinema, was to latch onto the proven cultural practice of boxing. This led to films with plentiful in-ring pantomime but also a ready repartee, actions and articulation that privileged wit and humour, even camp, over lumbering hypermasculine expressions of violence. A parallel strand, again foregrounding practitioners able to verbalise their professional and personal ambitions, examined the sport’s importance amongst Britain’s Jewish and GRT communities— though black boxers remained a significant absence. Landy’s interpretation that the boxer ‘serves to reinforce the image of the worker as physical rather than intellectual, using his brawn rather than his brains in the struggle against his oppressors’ fits best only with a small set of 1930s female-­ centred romantic dramas that foregrounded simpler presentations of the fighter’s essentialist—and working-class—decency. Here, as in the decade-­ ending There Ain’t No Justice, Landy’s class and gender equivalence is most pertinent: ‘As in the case of most representations of women, the working-class male is generally represented outside of language, expressing himself through his body’ (1991, p. 253).

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With post-war Britain slipping into austerity, its boxing films, refracting the nation’s growing disillusion and dishonesty, resumed a direct dialogue with the dominant American version’s characters and narrative contours, especially its ‘classic’ late-1940s noir cycle, but again broached a more fluid approach to notions of male sexuality. A film like No Way Back apes US content by illustrating the peacetime crisis of masculinity with its protagonist losing his sense of self-worth and drifting into crime when forced to retire from boxing. By contrast There Is Another Sun problematises masculinity by allowing a (scarcely coded) queer reading of its fairground criminal activity. The portmanteau composition of The Square Ring aids its summative employment of both indigenous and international generic features from the period and, when viewed diachronically as a British boxing film, offers a more nuanced, ambivalent stance towards the popular practice than existing auteur or industry readings may suppose. Daniel Chandler notes how ‘genre hierarchies shift over time, with individual genres constantly gaining and losing different groups of users and relative status’ (1997, p. 3), and the British boxing film, again keeping step with its American paterfamilias, declined from the late-1950s as ‘the prizefighter lost his grip on the popular imagination’ (Grindon, 2011, p. 60). This decrease in number was countered by greater diversity in both exhibition and exponents as evidenced in art-house entries such as Real Money and the openly gay investigations of Like It Is, while the personal motivations and social perceptions of female fighters, a long-standing if much banned strand of the sport, were finally examined in Blonde Fist— but seldom followed up. Pam Cook noted how, in America, ‘The boxing pic has often been used as a vehicle for left-wing ideas, and the virile working-­class hero is a prevailing image in the iconography of socialist politics’ (1982, p. 42), but it took until the 1990s for the British genre explicitly to inherit these characteristics and outlook. Perversely, it was when high investment returned that the genre left England’s capital city to explore the corrosive impact of London-based government policies on indicative boxers from Northern Ireland in ‘the Troubles’, disenfranchised youth in the East Midlands, and Thatcherite rejects from Scotland’s abandoned mining communities. Again, though, manifest is a level of articulacy outstripping Landy’s focus on the purely physical: ‘Not since the screen adaptation of Clifford Odets’s Golden Boy [Rouben Mamoulian, 1939] has there been a film about Good and Evil in which an inarticulate character talked so knowingly about principle’, noted Vincent Canby of The Big Man’s Danny Scoular (New York

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Times, 9 August 1991). Often referencing Rocky but always rejecting its neoconservative resolutions, these ‘mannerist’ films expose the limits of machismo and masochism in responding to the new challenges facing post-industrial masculinity. The new millennium saw the quantity of British boxing films match pre-war numbers and launch an ideological fightback to reaffirm traditional gender boundaries, be it by studying ageing promoters in Shiner or through broad-stroked replays of boxing’s place in GRT and Jewish communities. Amidst this cross-generational quest for remasculinisation, the British boxing film led finally, in 2012, to a treatment of the social and personal pressures on black boxers in The Man Inside—though this diversity of focus still awaits sustained development in a genre that remains unconscionably white and male in its protagonists and plot motors. Although the parameters of this study do not attempt a precise intervention in adjacent disciplines such as celebrity or leisure studies, the argument is advanced that, as commercial and ideological entities, the boxing film (and its reception) serves as and up précised exemplars for dominant and desired patterns of behaviour. These are indicative of shifting cultural tastes and ethical stances, re-presenting distinct class, race and gender positions and contributing to the discourse surrounding boxing and the viability of its very existence in a ‘civilised society’. The trials recently undergone by Matty Burton in Journeyman both encapsulate the sport’s double nature, a danger to life yet a means to self-fulfilment, and offer testimony to the boxer’s longevity in Britain’s film and broader popular culture. Despite periods of establishment antagonism and audience antipathy, the boxer remains a powerful icon in society with a complex semiotic currency, and thus the British boxing film fights on.

References Chandler, D. (1997). An Introduction to Genre Theory. Retrieved October 10, 2020, from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/chandler_ genre_theory.pdf Cook, P. (1982, September–October). Masculinity in Crisis? Screen, 23, 3–4. Dix, A. (2008). Beginning Film Studies. Manchester University Press. Early, G. (2019). Introduction: The Last Sport Standing. In G. Early (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Boxing. Cambridge University Press.

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Grindon, L. (2011). Knockout: The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema. University of Minnesota Press. Landy, M. (1991). British Genres: Cinema and Society, 1930–1960. Princeton University Press. Monk, C., & Sergeant, A. (2002). The Past in British Cinema. In C.  Monk & A. Sergeant (Eds.), British Historical Cinema. Routledge.



Boxing Filmography

(in chronological order of general release—decade ‘champion’ in bold) 1895 The Boxing Kangaroo (Birt Acres, Robert Paul) Boxing Match (Birt Acres, Robert Paul) 1896 Boxing Match aka Glove Contest (Birt Acres) A Prize Fight by Jem Mace and Burke (Birt Acres) 1897 Boxing Match Between Toff Wall and Dido Plum (Robert Paul) 1898 Has He Hit Me? (William Dickson) 1899 Comic Boxing Match (Unknown) 1900 A Prize Fight or Glove Contest Between John Bull and President Kruger aka The Set-to Between John Bull and Paul Kruger (John Sloane Barnes) © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Glynn, The British Boxing Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74210-2

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BOXING FILMOGRAPHY

1902 The Interrupted Prize Fight (Unknown) 1903 The Pocket Boxers (W.R. Booth) 1908 There’s Life in the Old Dog Yet (S. Wormold) 1909 Boxing Fever (A.E. Coleby) The Boxing Waiter (Alf Collins?) 1910 Black and White (Unknown) The Great Black v. White Prize Fight (Unknown) The Great Fight at All-Sereno (W.R. Booth) Pimple Meets Jack Johnson (Joe and Fred Evans) The Man to Beat Jack Johnson (Unknown) 1911 Billy’s Book on Boxing (H.O. Martinek) The Great Fight for the Championship in Our Court (Unknown) 1912 The Night I Fought Jack Johnson (Unknown) Lieutenant Daring Defeats the Middleweight Champion (Charles Raymond) Battling Kelly (A.E. Coleby) The Knockout Blow (Floyd Martin Thornton?) 1913 Billy’s Boxing Gloves (David Aylott?) Pimple’s Sporting Chance (Fred and Joe Evans) The House of Temperley (Harold M. Shaw) 1914 The Third String (George Loane Tucker) The House of Distemperley (Fred and Joe Evans)

  BOXING FILMOGRAPHY 

Asking for Trouble (Edwin J. Collins) The Last Round (Bert Haldane) Pimple Beats Jack Johnson (Fred and Joe Evans) How I Won the Belt (Harcourt Brown) The White Hope—On Championship (Andrew Heron) The Terrible Two on the Mash (Joe Evans) 1915 Coward! aka They Called Him Coward (Frank Wilson) They’re All After Flo (Frank Wilson?) Battling Brown of Birmingham (Charles Weston) The White Hope (Frank Wilson) The Winner (Charles Calvert) 1916 The Last Challenge (Harold M. Shaw) Kent the Fighting Man (A.E. Coleby) 1917 A Pit Boy’s Romance (A.E. Coleby, Arthur Rooke) The Happy Warrior (Floyd Martin Thornton) 1918 The Great Game (A.E. Coleby) 1920 A Son of David (Hay Plumb) Won By a Head (Percy Nash) Rodney Stone (Percy Nash) The Call of the Road (A.E. Coleby) The Pride of the Fancy (Richard Garrick, Albert Ward) 1921 Corinthian Jack (W. Courtney Rowden) The Croxley Master (Percy Nash) The Sport of Kings (Arthur Rooke) 1922 A Gipsy Cavalier (J. Stuart Blackton) The White Hope (Frank Wilson)

237

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BOXING FILMOGRAPHY

1923 The Knockout (Alexander Butler) 1924 In the Blood (Walter West) Fighting Snub Reilly (Andrew P. Wilson) The Gay Corinthian (Arthur Rooke) 1925 Pongo’s Rodeo (Dudley Buxton) 1926 Romances of the Prize Ring (Harry B. Parkinson) For My ‘Lady’s’ Happiness / The Game Chicken / When Giants Fought / For a Woman’s Eyes / Gypsy Courage / The Phantom Foe / Find the Woman / The Fighting Gladiator 1928 The Ring (Alfred Hitchcock) 1929 Auld Lang Syne (George Pearson) 1930 Bingo the Battling Bruiser (Norman Cobb) 1932 The Third String (George Pearson) Self-Made Lady (George King) Splinters in the Navy (Walter Forde) Money Talks (Norman Lee) 1933 Side Streets (Ivar Campbell) The Fortunate Fool (Norman Walker) Mannequin (George A. Cooper) 1934 The Bermondsey Kid (Ralph Dawson)

  BOXING FILMOGRAPHY 

1935 Blue Smoke (Ralph Ince) 1936 Excuse My Glove (Redd Davis) 1937 Fifty-Shilling Boxer (Maclean Rogers) Keep Fit (Anthony Kimmins) 1939 There Ain’t No Justice (Pen Tennyson) 1949 Meet the Duke (James Corbett) No Way Back (Stefan Osiecki) 1951 There is Another Sun (Lewis Gilbert) 1953 The Square Ring (Basil Dearden) 1955 One Good Turn (John Paddy Carstairs) 1957 Fighting Mad (Denis Kavanagh) 1960 And the Same to You (George Pollock) 1966 Run with the Wind (Lindsay Shonteff) 1990 The Big Man (David Leland) 1991 Blonde Fist (Frank Clarke)

239

240 

Boxing Filmography

1992 Fighters (Ron Peck) 1996 Real Money (Ron Peck) 1997 The Boxer (Jim Sheridan) TwentyFourSeven (Shane Meadows) 1998 Like It Is (Paul Oremland) 2000 Snatch (Guy Ritchie) 2001 Shiner (John Irvin) 2004 The Calcium Kid (Alex de Rakoff) 2007 Blue Blood (Stevan Riley) 2008 Sucker Punch (Malcolm Martin) 2010 The Kid (Nick Moran) 2011 Risen (Neil Jones) On the Ropes (Hamdy Taha, Mark Noyce) 2012 The Man Inside (Dan Turner)

  Boxing Filmography 

2016 Orthodox (David Leon) 2017 Jawbone (Thomas Napper) My Name is Lenny (Ron Scalpello) Journeyman (Paddy Considine) 2018 A Prayer Before Dawn (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire) Gloves Off (Steve Nesbit)

241

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Index1

A Acres, Birt, 10, 17–20, 43n1, 70, 71, 99, 216 Affleck, Rab, 155, 156 Aherne, Pat, 60, 86 Ali, 203 Ali, Muhammad/Cassius Clay, 149 Altered Images, 209 Amorous Milkman, The, 219 Anderson, Lindsay, 107, 109 And the Same to You, 139, 140, 158, 193 Arthur, James, 204 Asking for Trouble, 23 Atkins, Susan, 180, 183, 186n12 Attlee, Clement, 117 Auld Lang Syne, 86, 157 Avoth, Eddie, 204, 228n8

B Baden-Powell, Robert, 28 Balcon, Michael, 63, 94, 104, 105, 107, 109, 115n8, 127, 130 Barnes, John Sloane, 24, 30, 31 Barnett, Charles, 49 Battling Brown of Birmingham, 38, 70, 181 Battling Kelly, 31 Beatty, Robert, 127, 128 Beau Travail, 216 Beckett, Joe, 61, 78n5 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 207 Bell, Steve, 175, 176, 186n11 Beloved Brute, The, 59 Bendall, Steve, 203 Benn, Nigel, 152 Bennett, Charles, 100, 102 Berg, Jack ‘Kid,’ 97–99, 114n4, 127

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

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INDEX

Berks, Joe, 37, 60 Bermondsey Kid, The, 90, 102, 111 Berry, Tom, 60 Big Man, The, 155–176, 180, 181, 193, 210, 226, 232 Big Timer, The, 108 Billy’s Book on Boxing, 22, 71 Billy’s Boxing Gloves, 22 Bingo the Battling Bruiser, 85 Bisping, Michael, 211 Black and White, 26, 74 Blackmail, 69, 70, 79n9, 86 Blackton, J. Stuart, 56–59 Blair, Tony, 192 Bleed for This, 225 Blighty, 45n11 Blonde Fist, 180, 181, 183, 184, 232 Blood, 177 Bloom, Orlando, 218, 219 Blue Blood, 217 Blue Lamp, The, 127, 129, 130 Blue Smoke, 100, 103, 221 Bluff, Harry, 29 Body and Soul, 78, 118, 134, 135, 137, 144n5 Booth, W.R., 21, 27 Borrow, George, 53 Boxer, The (1997), 8, 10, 162–164, 168, 169, 171, 173, 174, 192, 193, 212 Boxer, The (2011), 227n6 Boxiana, 56 Boxing Cats, 27 Boxing Fever, 22, 70, 86, 139, 181 Boxing Kangaroo, The, 17, 18 Boxing Match (1895), 17 Boxing Match (1896), 18, 70, 71, 99 Boxing Match Between Toff Wall and Dido Plum, 20 Boxing Waiter, The, 23 Bradshaw, Brian, 192, 198, 210, 228n10

Breathe, 177 Brennan, Stuart, 203, 206, 207, 227n7 Brewster’s Millions (novel), 97 Bridge on the River Kwai, The, 216 Brighton Rock (novel), 107 Brisson, Carl, 64, 65, 76, 77, 79n15, 105 British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC), 86, 132, 180, 189, 199, 205, 211 Bronson, Charles, 200 Brook, Kell, 222 Broughton, John ‘Jack,’ 3, 60 Bruno, Frank, 218 Bugner, Joe, 196, 227n3 Bunce, Steve, 183, 186n12, 222 Buňuel, Luis, 142, 161 Burge, Dick, 20 Burke, James ‘Deaf,’ 60 Burnel, Jean-Jacques, 200 Buttrick, Barbara, 180 Byrne, Simon, 60 Byron, Lord, 2 C Caine, Michael, 194–196, 200, 227n4 Cal, 164 Calcium Kid, The, 10, 218, 219, 228n13 Call of the Road, The, 50, 51 Caplan, Benny, 90, 98 Carney, Mick, 213 Carnival, 52 Carpenter, Harry, 206 Carpentier, Georges, 30, 57–59, 78n2, 78n3, 78n4 Carpentier-Wells, 93 Carr, Cornelius, 167, 186n8 Carroll, Harry, 204 Catley, Glenn, 205 Cave, Nick, 225

 INDEX 

Chambers, John Graham, 217 Champion, 5, 118, 135, 151 Chaplin, Charlie, 5, 31, 59, 95 Charlatans, The, 170 Chien Andalou, Un, 161 Churchill, Winston, 2, 26, 28 Cider House Rules, The, 194 Cinderella Man, 203, 221 Cinematograph Act (1909), 26 Cinematograph Films Act (1927), 10, 63, 101 City Lights, 5, 88 Clarke, Frank, 180, 181 Clarke, Margi, 180, 181 Cole, Joe, 177, 214–216 Coleby, A.E., 22, 31, 40, 42, 50, 51, 54, 86, 138, 139 Collins, Steve, 210 Colman, Ronald, 49–51, 98 Comedy Set-To, 4 Come On, George, 94 Comic Boxing Match, 20, 70, 72 Connolly, Billy, 156, 157 Considine, Paddy, 186n10, 221–224 Convoy, 104 Cooper, Diana, 57 Cooper, Duff, 57 Cooper, Henry, 149 Corbett, ‘Gentleman’ Jim, 4 Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight, 4 Corinthian Jack, 52, 55, 61 Corner, Jack ‘Spot,’ 97 Coronation Street, 196 Corri, Eugene, 28, 39, 55, 64, 75–77 Couch, Jane, 205 Coward, Noel, 63 Coward! aka They Called Him Coward, 39 Cox, Jack, 64, 76 Craig, Frank, 61 Cribb, Tom, 37, 52, 61, 62, 78n5 Crowley, Dave, 118, 127

253

Croxley Master, The, 56, 70 Crying Game, The, 164 Curtis, James, 105 D Daltrey, Roger, 175, 176 Daly, George, 90 Darcy, Les, 64 Darke, Ian, 197 Dark Knight Rises, The, 201 Darkman, 155 Date with a Dream, A, 144n7 Davies, Dai, 204 Davies, Terence, 171 Davis, Rex, 35, 54–56 Day-Lewis, Daniel, 163, 164, 169, 203, 212, 229 De Marney, Terence, 118, 122 De Niro, Robert, 169 Dean, Basil, 94 Dearden, Basil, 10, 127–131 Dempsey, Jack, 57, 66, 77, 79n11, 91, 111, 199 Denny, Damien, 166 Dickson, William, 20 Dinner at the Sporting Club, 185n1 Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The, 142 Docherty, Tony, 204 Don Q, 32 Douglas, Bill, 171 Douglas, Kirk, 135 Downhill, 63 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 35, 36, 38, 45n13, 55, 56 E Easy Virtue, 63 Edison, Thomas, 4, 27, 36 Egan, Joe, 220

254 

INDEX

Egan, Pierce, 56 Empire State, 151, 160 Eubank, Chris, 218, 220 Evans, Billy, 203 Evans, Fred, 23, 27, 31, 36 Evans, Joe, 23, 27, 31, 36 Excuse My Glove, 89–94, 98, 101, 104, 108, 111, 112, 153, 158, 173, 192, 194 F Fairbanks, Douglas, 57 Fancey, E.J., 142, 143 Farmer’s Wife, The, 97 Farr, Tommy, 90–91 Fat City, 225 Felix the Cat, 59 Fields, Gracie, 89 Fifteenth, The, 203 Fifth Element, The, 228n11 Fifty-Shilling Boxer, 103, 112, 150 Figg, James, 3 Fight Club, 190 Fighters, 151–154, 176, 217 Fighting Gladiator, The, 60 Fighting Irish, The, 186n13 Fighting Mad, 8, 142, 143 Fighting Snub Reilly, 60 Fight, The, 184, 185 Find the Woman, 60 Finnegans Wake, 45n14 Fitzsimmons, Bob, 4, 8, 19, 90 Flint, Jimmy, 151, 153 Flowers, Theodore ‘Tiger,’ 78n6 Flynn, ‘Fireman’ Jim, 26 Fogerty, Adam, 190, 192, 220, 221 For a Woman’s Eyes, 60 Ford, John, 52, 143, 157, 159 Forde, Walter, 87, 88 Foreman, George, 173 Formby, George, 89, 94–96, 114, 136, 138–140, 173, 231

For My ‘Lady’s’ Happiness, 60 Fortunate Fool, The, 101, 213 Freeman, Ian, 200 Full Monty, The, 172, 221 Furse, Jill, 105, 106 Fury, Tyson, 227n2 G Game Chicken, The, 60 Garbarek, Jan, 174 Garfield, John, 134 Gay Corinthian, The, 53 George, Terry, 162, 163, 185n5 Get Carter (1971), 196 Ghetto Warriors, 114n4 Gill, Jordan, 222 Gipsy Cavalier, A, 7, 56–58, 73, 100, 221 Glorious Adventure, The, 57 Gloves Off, 220, 221 Goddard, Frank, 60 Golden Boy, 232 Goodall, Mike, 195, 222 Good Die Young, The, 125 Goode, Bill ‘Chesterfield,’ 39 Gordon, Kid, 50, 55 Gorman, Bartley, 169, 186n9, 228n12 Graham, Stephen, 178, 179, 190 Graziano, Rocky, 144n6 Great Black v. White Prize Fight, The, 27 Great Fight at All-Sereno, The, 27 Great Fight for the Championship in Our Court, The, 29 Great Game, The, 42 Greene, Graham, 87, 107, 108 Groombridge, Derek, 170 Gunther, George, 40, 41 Guv’nor, The, 210 Gypsy Courage, 60, 100 Gypsy’s Tale, The, 169

 INDEX 

H Hall-Davis, Lillian, 55, 64, 65, 69 Hanley, Jimmy, 105–107, 113 Happy Warrior, The (1917), 43, 50, 61, 70, 100, 105 Happy Warrior, The (1925), 45n16 Hard Times (1975), 200 Harker, Gordon, 71, 72, 74–76, 105 Harmon, Derrick, 194–196 Harris, Johnny, 212, 213 Harris, Sir Augustus and Lady Florence, 19 Harvey, Laurence, 124–126, 138 Harvey, Len, 90, 91, 93, 94, 102 Has He Hit Me?, 20, 141 Hayde, Kevin, 205 Heavy Weight, 177 Hedgehoppers Anonymous, 150 Heenan, John C., 38, 60, 61 Hines, Alf, 127, 136 Hitchcock, Alfred, 10, 63–78, 78n8, 78n9, 79n13, 79n14, 79n15, 86, 96, 97, 100, 104, 113, 114, 115n7, 122, 136, 167, 231 Hollington, Dean, 152 Hoskins, Bob, 170, 175, 196 Hough, Frank, 90 House of Distemperley, The, 36 House of Temperley, The, 35–43, 50, 55, 65, 113, 160, 230 Howard, Leslie, 43, 50 Howard, Sydney, 87, 88, 114n2, 231 How I Won the Belt, 38, 61 How the Champion of the World Trains, Jack Johnson in Defence and Attack, 27 Hunter, Ian, 64, 65, 76, 79n15 Hurricane, The, 203, 205 Hyfield, Hannah, 179 Hynes, Jessica, 184, 186n14

255

I I Believe in You, 127 I, Daniel Blake, 212 Informer, The, 52 Ingle, Brendan, 222, 223 Ingle, Dominic, 222 Instant Justice, 228n8 Interrupted Prize Fight, The, 21 In the Blood, 34, 52 In the Name of the Father, 162 Iron Man, 121 Ismalone, David, 214 It Always Rains on Sunday, 107 J Jack Johnson Paying a Visit to the Manchester Docks, 27 Jackson, ‘Gentleman’ John, 1, 2, 37, 103 Jacobs, W.W., 24, 87 James, Don, 203, 227n6 James, Sid, 127, 139, 173 Jawbone, 5, 212, 214, 227 Jazz Singer, The (1927), 86 Jeffrey, Leroy, 204 Jeffries, James J., 25–27 Jeffries-Johnson World’s Championship Boxing Contest, 26, 44n4, 56 Johnson, John ‘Jack,’ 25–30, 33, 39, 40, 44n5, 44n9, 45n11, 50, 51, 57, 59, 78n2, 180, 230 Johnson-Moran Fight, 30 Jones, Barry, 222 Jones, Gerald, 204 Jones, Vinnie, 190, 191, 210 Journeyman, 221–227, 233 Joyce, James, 45n14 K Kamsing, Somluck, 214 Kaylor, Mark, 151, 152, 154

256 

INDEX

Kazan, Elia, 196 Keep Fit, 94–96, 139, 219 Kendall, Kay, 135 Kent the Fighting Man, 40 Kes, 173 Kid from Brooklyn, The, 219 Kid Galahad (1937), 112 Kid Galahad/Abdul-Bari Awad, 222 Kid, The, 208–210, 214 Killer’s Kiss, 151 Killers, The, 118 Kimmins, Anthony, 94 Kinch, Soweto, 79n10 King Lear, 196, 227n4 Klitschko, Vladimir, 227n2 Knight, Esmond, 102, 103 Knockout Blow, The, 31 Knockout, The, 55, 64 Kray, Ronnie and Reggie, 1, 3, 5–7, 118, 124, 210 Krays, The, 1–3, 205, 228n11, 229 Kruger, Paul, 24, 30 Kruger’s Dream of Empire, 25 L Ladykillers, The (1955), 107 Last Challenge, The, 39 Last Round, The, 33–35, 49, 70, 160 Lauder, Harry, 86, 87, 157 Lavengro, 53 Lean, David, 101, 216 Leech, George, 140, 141 Leland, David, 155–157, 181 Lenglet, André, 90 Lennox: The Untold Story, 11n2 Letter to Brezhnev, 180 Lewis, Kevin, 208 Lewis, Lennox, 8, 189 Lewis, Ted ‘Kid,’ 50, 114n4, 142 Lieutenant Daring Defeats the Middleweight Champion, 32, 93, 219

Lieutenant Rose RN, 32 Like It Is, 175–178, 209, 232 Little Willy Versus Bombardier Billy Wells, 44n8 Lloyd, Marie, 20 Loach, Ken, 171, 173, 212 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 189, 190, 210 Lodger, The, 67, 70 Long Good Friday, The, 196 Lord of the Rings (film), 218 M Maccarinelli, Enzo, 204 MacDonald, Ramsey, 28 Mace, James ‘Jem,’ 19, 20, 230 Madonna, 210 Magri, Charlie, 195 Malicious Intent, 185n4 Man Inside, The, 201, 202, 233 Mannequin, 102, 150 Man to Beat Jack Johnson, The, 30 Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1934), 79n9, 104 Manxman, The, 70 Marciano, Rocky, 157 Mason, Harry, 102, 103 Matania, Fortunino, 64, 79n9 McCarthy, Sammy, 194 McCleave, Dave, 90 McCorkindale, Don, 90, 93 McGovern, Tommy, 118, 122, 124 McGuigan, Barry, 162–167, 185n4, 185n6, 212 McIlvanney, William, 155, 157, 185n3 McLaglen, Victor, 25, 51–55, 57, 59, 60, 78n1, 144n9, 153, 161, 229 McLean, Lenny, 192, 198, 210, 211, 228n10, 228n11, 228n12 McNaughton, Tom and Fred, 20, 141

 INDEX 

Meadows, Shane, 169–172, 186n9, 186n10, 202, 221, 228n12 Meet the Duke, 118, 120, 143 Mendoza, Daniel, 1, 2, 5, 100 Midnight Express, 216 Milky Way, The (1936), 219 Million Dollar Baby, 183, 205, 225 Mills, John, 117, 127 Minter, Alan, 205 Mizler, Hyman ‘Harry,’ 90, 98, 114n4 Moir, James ‘Gunner,’ 90, 101, 115n6 Molineaux, Tom, 37, 78n7, 167 Mona Lisa, 196 Money Talks, 96–99, 178 Moore, Billy, 214–217 Morahan, Jim, 127 Morales, Erik, 204, 206 Moran, Frank, 30, 45n11 Moran, Nick, 208, 211 Moran, Percy, 32 Morgan, Matthew, 204 Morricone, Ennio, 156, 162 Morrissey, 186n8 Mountain Eagle, The, 78n8 Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 67 Mullard, Arthur, 125, 138, 139, 221 Murder!, 67 Murphy, John, 205 Muybridge, Eadweard, 4, 216 Mycroft, Walter C., 64 My Kingdom, 196 My Left Foot, 163 My Name is Lenny, 211 Mystery of the Mary Celeste, The, 115n6 N Nash, Percy, 54–56 Nashville Teens, The, 150 Neame, Ronald, 94 Neate, Bill, 52

257

Neeson, Liam, 155, 156, 161, 185n5, 229 Newbolt, Henry, 105 Newton, Annie, 180 Nighthawks, 152 Night I Fought Jack Johnson, The, 29, 59 Night Train, 228n9 Noble, Tommy, 42 No Limit, 94 Noose, 120 Notorious, 67 Novello, Ivor, 52, 63 No Way Back, 118–122, 125–127, 132, 133, 136, 152, 154, 160, 191, 202, 232 O Oasis, 193 Oates, Joyce Carol, 181, 184 Odets, Clifford, 232 Office, The, 220 Ondra, Anny, 69 One Good Turn, 7, 138, 139, 219 Only God Forgives, 215 On the Ropes, 220 Orthodox, 178, 179 Osiecki, Stefan, 118, 120 P Paradine Case, The, 67 Parkinson, Harry B., 60 Parnes, Larry, 176 Parris, Dave, 195 Passionate Adventure, The, 64 Paul, Robert W., 10, 17–21, 25, 27, 39, 216 Pearce, Henry ‘Hen,’ 60 Pearson, George, 86, 87 Peck, Ron, 151–154, 159, 185n2, 217 Penwill, ‘Guardsman’ Charlie, 53

258 

INDEX

Permissive, 150 Peterson, Ralph W., 127, 129, 144n3 Phantom Foe, The, 60 Phillips, Shawn, 149, 150 Pilbeam, Nova, 104, 114 Pimple Beats Jack Johnson, 31 Pimple Meets Jack Johnson, 27, 74 Pimple’s Sporting Chance, 23 Pit Boy’s Romance, A, 42, 90, 203 Pitt, Archie, 89–91 Pitt, Brad, 190, 191, 195 Pitt the Younger, William, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 100 Pleasure Garden, The, 115n7 Plumb, Dido, 20 Pocket Boxers, The, 21, 22, 74 Pongo’s Rodeo, 59, 62, 85, 181 Pool of London, 127 Powell, Frank ‘Nosher,’ 124, 125, 143n2, 194 Powell, Michael, 104 Powell, Sandy, 87, 88 Prayer Before Dawn, A, 214, 215 Pride of the Fancy, The, 55 Prize Fight by Jem Mace and Burke, A, 19 Prize Fighter, The, 78n7 Prize Fight or Glove Contest Between John Bull and President Kruger, A, 24, 31 Proud Valley, The, 104 Q Queensberry, John Douglas, 9th Marquess, 217 Quiet Man, The, 143, 157, 192 Quo Vadis? (1913), 22 R Raging Bull, 3, 78, 151, 169, 172, 174, 181, 193, 197, 205, 207, 230 Ramos, Ultiminio ‘Sugar,’ 204

Rawling, John, 222 Real Money, 152–154, 159, 160, 166, 170, 172, 227, 232 Rear Window, 67 Ref, The, 186n11 Reid, Robin, 205 Reisz, Karel, 171 Relph, Michael, 127, 130 Reluctant Heroes, 89 Reville, Alma, 64 Rice, Johnny, 90 Richardson, Tony, 171 Richter, Hans, 76 Ring, The, 10, 11, 63–78, 79n10, 79n12, 79n13, 93, 96, 105, 112, 113, 125, 167, 181, 231 Risen, 203, 205, 206, 208, 210, 222 Ritchie, Guy, 189–193, 210, 211, 221 Rix, Brian, 139, 140, 142 Robinson, Steve, 204 Rocky, 3, 151, 157, 167, 172, 181, 185, 216, 219, 223, 233 Rocky Balboa, 217 Rodney Stone, 35, 55, 71 Romances of the Prize Ring, 60, 71, 153 Rome, Stewart, 39, 40, 50 Rose, Julien, 96–99 Rowland, Jason, 154 Rumbol, Billy, 204 Run with the Wind, 7, 149, 150, 158, 176 S Saboteur, 67 Saldivar, Vicente, 204–207 Sanders, Willy, 30, 44n8, 59 Satie, Erik, 209 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 171 Sayers, Tom, 38, 60

 INDEX 

Scorsese, Martin, 3, 169, 172–174, 193, 205, 206, 209 Scott, Phil, 60 Scrap in Black and White, A, 4 Seki, Mitsunori, 204, 206 Self-Made Lady, 101 Serti, Alberto, 204 Seton, Bruce, 100, 103 Set-Up, The, 118, 122, 128, 134, 151 Shafiq, Atif, 222 Sharkey, Jack, 45n14 Shaw, Harold W., 35–37, 39, 56 Shaw, Roy, 211 Sheridan, Jim, 8, 10, 162–164, 166, 185n5, 185n6 Shiner, 194–202, 210, 222, 233 Shiner, Ronald, 89, 90, 92 Shingleton, Wilfred, 106 Shonteff, Lindsay, 149, 150, 176 Shoulder Arms, 31 Side Streets, 101 Simpson, Nichol, 39 Slap, 177, 214 Smith, Dick, 60 Smith, Jem, 39 Snatch (2000), 189–192, 194, 195, 197, 198, 210, 211, 220, 221, 225 Snatch (tv series), 190, 227n1 Solomons, Jacob ‘Jack,’ 204 Somebody Up There Likes Me, 144n6 Some Mother’s Son, 162 Son of David, A, 49, 50, 98, 178 Soutar, Andrew, 52, 60, 153 Spinks, Leon, 205 Spinks, Terry, 194, 195, 204, 206 Splinters, 88 Splinters in the Air, 114n2 Splinters in the Navy, 87, 88, 95, 104, 140 Sport of Kings, The, 54, 76 Spring, Tom, 52, 61 Square Ring, The, 10, 11, 127–138, 143, 150, 151, 154, 158, 173, 232

259

Stage Fright, 67 Stallone, Sylvester, 172, 217 Stanley, Jack, 56, 60 Stannard, Eliot, 53, 64 Statham, Jason, 190, 191, 211 Stevenson, George, 60 Stewart, Clayon, 167 Stone, Bradley, 152, 176 Stracey, John H., 1, 205 Strangers on a Train, 67 Stranglers, The, 200 Street Fighter, 227n3 Strickland, Maurice, 90 Strueby, Katherine, 89, 92 Sucker Punch, 200, 201 Sunset Boulevard, 124 T Taxi Driver, 174 Taylor, Ollie, 204 Telstar: The Joe Meek Story, 210 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 104 Tennyson, Pen, 104, 105, 107–109, 111, 114, 115n7 Terrible Two on the Mash, The, 23, 70 Thatcher, Margaret, 2, 155, 159, 171, 232 Thelma and Louise, 181 There Ain’t No Justice, 104–114, 120, 127, 130, 131, 133, 135, 154, 160, 167, 175, 193, 221, 231 There is Another Sun, 124–126, 132, 194, 232 There’s Life in the Old Dog Yet, 20 They Drive By Night, 105, 107 They Made Me A Fugitive, 120 They’re All After Flo, 23, 70 Third String, The (1914), 24, 59 Third String, The (1932), 87 39 Steps, The (1935), 79n9 This Sporting Life, 109 Thomas, Ashley aka Bashy, 201, 202

260 

INDEX

Thomas, Eddie, 204, 206, 207 Three Fingered Kate, 32 Three Tears for Jimmy Prophet, 186n10 Tibbs, Jimmy, 151–154 Tibbs, Mark, 153 Tiedt, Fred, 168 Tippett, Jimmy, 194 Tohill, Mickey, 165, 185n5 Trainspotting, 171, 193 Travis, Nigel, 176 Trouble Brewing, 94 Trouble In Store, 138 Trowbridge, W.H.R., 39, 40 Tunney, Gene, 66, 77, 79n11 TwentyFourSeven, 169–172, 175, 184, 189, 192, 202, 213, 227 Tyrannosaur, 221, 225 Tyson, Mike, 220 U Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, 44n9 Up with the Lark, 142 V Variety (1925), 70 Villar, Claudio ‘Pancho,’ 90 Virgin Queen, The, 57 W Walker, David, 205 Wall, Charles ‘Toff,’ 20, 39 Wallace, Edgar, 60 Warne, Baz, 200 Warner, Jack, 129, 131 Warren, Frank, 222 Waterloo Road (1945), 117–119, 127 Watson, Michael, 152 Wayne, John, 143 Welch, Scott, 190

Weller, Paul, 212, 213 Wells, ‘Bombardier’ Billy, 27–30, 41, 42, 44n5, 51, 54, 57, 60, 64, 90, 93, 99, 105, 114n3 Wells, Matt, 91 West, Mae, 97 When Giants Fought, 37, 61, 62, 74, 78n6, 105, 167, 193 White Hope—On Championship, The, 31, 72 White Hope, The (1915), 39, 70, 71, 230 White Hope, The (1922), 50, 55, 71, 74 Whittaker, Jodie, 209, 222, 224 Who, The, 175 Wilde, Jimmy, 42, 45n14, 45n15, 51, 90, 93, 203 Wilkinson-Stokes, Elizabeth, 179 Willard, Jess, 78n2, 199 Winner, The, 32 Winstone, Howard, 203–208, 227n5 Winstone, Ray, 212, 217 Wisdom, Norman, 7, 138, 139, 142, 144n7 Witherspoon, Tim, 205 Witter, Junior, 204, 222 Wolfe, Ann, 185 Women London Boxers, 180 Won By a Head, 54 Wonder Man, The, 78n4 Woodhall, Richie, 205, 207 Woolley, Stephen, 155, 169, 170 Wordsworth, William, 43 Y Young Ali/Asimi Mustapha, 167 Young and Innocent, 114 Young Mr. Pitt, The, 1, 3, 37, 229 Young Zulu Kid/Giuseppe Di Melfi, 93