April 21 Anthony Quinn

Happy Birthday Charles Grodin and Anthony Quinn

TCM celebrated Anthony Quinn’s birthday. I wasn’t really interested in any of the films except Road to Morocco, which is on almost every month. I like the film so that is not a complaint, but I wanted to watch something different. So I decided to watch Ben’s Pick Requiem For A Heavyweight. I tried to find a link to the printed version in the Now Playing guide article, but could not. It takes a while for the video to come up with the link for me.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/381780/Now-Playing-Ben-s-Pick-TCM-Original-April-2011.html

The opening scene is a panning long shot of men standing at a bar riveted to something off screen (television) with the sound of a broadcasters voice of a fight. It then cuts to the fight from the fighters view of Cassius Clay throwing punches. The camera stays as the point of view of the fighter with blurry view and then the picture changes to the ceiling and then sideways. The voice over still going, announces Cassius Clay the winner by a knockout. People come in and out of the shot and finally Mickey Rooney comes into frame and talks to the fighter. He guides him out of the ring into the hallway towards the locker room. You get the view of the fighter going through the ropes and down through the crowd. They come along to a mirror where you see the fighter is Anthony Quinn badly beaten and the point of view goes back to normal. The bell rings and Anthony as the “Mountain” Rivera goes into fighter mode. Jackie Gleason and Mickey calm him down and get him to the locker room. The doctor recommends no more fighting. His eyes are damaged.

He goes to the unemployment office, but he is not qualified for anything. He has been a fighter for 17 years. He speaks with a very soft, stumbling, pausing voice. The unemployment councilor is Julie Harris. In an elevator he stands in the corner with his hands hanging on the rails on each side of him. He walks at night to the arena where his fight promotion is being changed to another. As he walks he puts his fist up like he is practicing or reliving a fight. Julie comes to a bar to tell him he would be great as a children’s sports councilor in a summer camp. She lines up an interview. Jackie sabotages the interview by getting Anthony drunk. He goes to the apartment house and ends up knocking on the wrong door (he has forgotten the #) and knocking over a waiter with a tray of food. Embarrassed he leaves without talking to Julie, who was disturbed by the sounds.

Julie goes to visit him at his house to find out what happened. She runs into Jackie as she is leaving, telling her there is nothing she can do for Anthony. Jackie gets Anthony into wrestling. He is to be “Big Chief Mountain” Rivera where he wears a costume of wig with long braids, feathered head-dress and an outfit. Anthony states he doesn’t want to be a clown and refuses to wrestle as they are in the dressing room. The owners of the group don’t like the fact that there was money exchanged and Anthony not wrestling. The owners are going to take it out of Jackie, physically. Jackie seems to accept that fate, but Anthony does not want that to happen and goes out onto the ring. Like a repeat of the beginning the point of view switches back and forth from what he sees to his eyes. He doesn’t say anything and you don’t know what he is going to do. Does he actually wrestle or does he not? Since Ben won’t give away the ending I won’t either.

Ben wrote that Jackie was the pathetic character in the film, I don‘t see that. Yes he is frustrated at loosing his meal ticket, but there are other fighters if he wanted to start over. If he is loosing money with one fighter maybe he can make money with another even though it might take a little time. I agree with Mickey’s character that after Jackie admits to betting that Anthony would go down in 4 (he went 7) with Clay, Mickey says “You fink. You dirty stinking fink.”

I don’t care for boxing or boxing in film, even when Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin are doing the boxing in a comedic fashion. Ok I do like the 3 Stooges, usually Curley Howard fighting or wrestling. I like this film. The music is bluesy and jazzy, depending on the situation. I like the point of view at the beginning, that is the closest I want to be in a ring with a boxer. The actors do a fantastic job in their portraits of the characters. The story is well written and really shows the depth or shallowness of the characters. There is stunning photography with the placement of the actors. It stands out to me that there are few shots of a single person and even fewer close ups. If one person is speaking you see the person or people that are being talked with even if they are not looking at each other. Everyone seems to be involved that way.