Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) | Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason

Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) | Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason | Powerful movie.

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Requiem for a Heav...

	Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason Sony Pictures, 1998 average customer review:based on 26 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This feature version of Rod Serling's memorable teleplay, theatrically released in 1962, was previously produced in 1956 for live television. The grim tale stars Anthony Quinn as a brain-damaged fighter suffering from too many years in the ring yet pushed into another and yet another punishing round by his corrupt manager (Jackie Gleason). Yearning for a life of his own, Quinn's burned-out hitter falls for a shy social worker (Julie Harris), while Gleason's small-timer tries fending off the pressures of truly bad guys who want the money he owes them. Directed by Ralph Nelson (who also made the TV version), this Requiem opens up into a powerful piece of social realism with the undercurrent of a cautionary fable. The characters are almost archetypal, the story never stops moving, the acting is superb (Mickey Rooney is very good as Quinn's reluctant trainer), and the ending is nightmarishly apt. --Tom Keogh

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Brutalization of innocence

"Requiem for a Heavyweight" is a number one contender for the best movie concerning the "sweet science" that I have ever seen, along with Scorsese's "Raging Bull". Trademark Rod Serling, this powerful little film (originally made for TV) is a remorseless and scathing indictment of a society that worships force while it flourishes and edges toward the top, then is quick to jeer when it falls to the inexorable canvas of nature.

Anthony Quinn gives a gut wrenching performance as the quirky, sensitive and slightly punch-drunk Mountain Rivera, an aging prizefighter who falls at the hands of a young Muhammad Ali (still Cassius Clay at the time this film was made) at the beginning of the film and suffers a detached retina. From the opening scene to the last, "Requiem" is determined to give the viewer a bitter taste of what it meant to be a boxer when mafia thugs controlled the sport and fighters were chewed up and spat out with all the grace and empathy of an ugly car accident. Here Quinn transcends even his portrayal as Zampano the Australian strongman in Fellini's "La Strada".

The forces that control Rivera's destiny are pitiless (his manager Maish, played by Jackie Gleason, is a self-divided man occasionally showing signs of real tenderness toward Rivera but ultimately interested in saving his own neck) and only one other man in this whole tragic story seems to understand his plight--a young Mickey Rooney, turning in an Oscar worthy performance as his trainer Army, a former fighter turned cut-man who despises Maish for his cruel manipulation of Mountain's almost childlike loyalty to him for his own purposes. Unfortunately, Army doesn't have much say in what happens and only has the guts to stand up to Maish in spurts, his resignation getting the better of him as he carts the old pug from employment agency to employment agency, trying to make him understand that the world is no longer his oyster and hasn't been for quite awhile.

Rivera's abrupt and somewhat unrealistic relationship with social worker Grace Miller played by Julie Harris ("The Haunting"), is possibly the only real spark of hope in Rivera's doomed life. I don't see where Mountain couldn't have become a camp counselor or something to that effect: he does not seem so incapacitated or punch-drunk that this would be an impossibility. Maish, with the mob breathing down his neck for the money he lost betting against his own fighter, makes sure that this doesn't happen, getting him drunk on the night of his appointment with yet another famous guest star of boxing lore, the huge Jack Dempsey.

Each scene of this film is an excruciating exercise in degradation, but somehow we feel compelled to watch. You almost hate Serling for getting us to identify so strongly with this tough but very innocent shell of a man, and then throwing him into a pressure cooker he is neither smart enough nor mature enough to even glimpse a way out of. That is real talent.

The ending is perhaps the strongest part of the film and is achingly honest. When faced with the decision to pursue his own dubious prospects in life or save his manager's skin--by extension sacrificing every value he has lived by his entire ugly, violent life--the decision is inevitable. An unforgettable, heart rending artistic accomplishment and more evidence that Serling could have been much more than the creator of that groundbreaking television series "The Twilight Zone".

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Powerful movie.

I feel that this is one of the most powerful movies that Anthony Quinn has ever starred in.I recomend viewing it to everyone;also all the supporting cast is absolutely wonderful. I'm glad I bought this DVD.

requiem for a heavyweight

Rod Serling's screen play for one of the 3 greatest fight movies ever made.

These 1* reviews are ridiculous!

After many years of not seeing this film, I just 'burned' this movie off the TCM channel - included presumably all (or at least) most of the 'deleted' scenes mentioned on those 'badmouthing' the DVD release for its incompleteness; although, I cannot object to this complaint, their ratings are irrelevant to the overall quality of the original production - there probably should be a different rating system but to 'downgrade' a great film to 1* because of a disagreement in 'how' the film is edited & packaged is stupid. BTW, I did see the original TV version, and would love a re-match!

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IS THERE LIFE AFTER BOXING??

The film begins in the ring with the aging heavyweight boxer Mountain Rivera (Quinn) getting pounded by the then real life Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali). Once ranked as high as 5th in the world, he has been reduced to a sure win for those on the way up and a payday for his manager. It's all he's ever done and he's not prepared to do anything else in life. The doc tells him this is it. Another blow to the head and his eyesight may not survive that one. His manager (Gleason) and trainer (Rooney) have other ideas. Mountain is their paycheck and besides, Gleason just bet (and lost) that Mountain wouldn't last 4 rounds against Clay. He needs to keep the franchise going because he isn't prepared for anything else, either. Mountain tries the unemployment office where the case worker (Harris) takes a personal, as well as professional, interest in helping this 'mountain' of a man who is lost outside the ring. The scene when he takes her to the bar where he always hangs out and tries to treat her like a 'lady' is a classic. Gleason, meanwhile, is being pursued by the mob to make good on his bet. Rivera is caught in the middle of this tragedy as friendship and loyalty are put to the test. This is NOT an uplifting, all ends well story. I can't imagine a better cast for this story written by Rod Serling (Twilight Zone) for TV six years earlier. WWW.LUSREVIEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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