The Harvard Film Archive pays tribute to an iconic movie genre, the boxing movie, in true endurance fashion. The Big Fight is an all-night marathon of fight films, all screened in 35mm, beginning at 7 p.m. on Sept. 1 and ending about 6 a.m. on Sept. 2. Although some classics didn’t make it into the ring, The Big Fight offers a solid representation of the genre, starting with “The Champion’’ (1915), a 30-minute silent directed by and starring Charles Chaplin. Edna Purviance costars and there will be live musical accompaniment by Bertrand Laurence.
Screenwriter Frances Marion wrote “The Champ’’ (1931) specifically for Wallace Beery, who won the best actor Oscar for playing an alcoholic father and washed-up, ex-heavyweight champion in King Vidor’s emotional drama. Jackie Coogan’s memorable costarring role as the champ’s protective young son made him one of the major child stars of the ’30s.
Director Robert Wise’s taut, gritty noir “The Set-Up’’ (1949) stars Robert Ryan (a champion pugilist at Dartmouth College) as over-the-hill boxer Bill “Stoker’’ Thompson. His manager (George Tobias) takes a bribe to fix a fight but doesn’t tell Thompson. Wise’s influential film, which uses real-time narrative structure, also stars noir favorite Audrey Totter as Thompson’s wife, who wants out of the fighting life.
Charles Bronson is an aging boxer, Chaney, in Walter Hill’s directing debut, “Hard Times’’ (1975). Chaney competes in outlawed bare-knuckled boxing matches across Depression-era New Orleans, with James Coburn as his crooked agent. Bronson’s wife, Jill Ireland, plays Chaney’s love interest.
Mark Robson’s “Champion’’ (1949), based on a short story by Ring Lardner, stars Kirk Douglas as an unscrupulous fighter determined to win at any cost. The role earned the actor an Oscar nomination — and won an Oscar for Harry W. Gerstad’s editing.
A boxing movie with a rich pedigree, “Requiem for a Heavyweight’’ (1962) began as a 1956 teleplay by Rod Sterling (a boxer while in the military). Ralph Nelson directed the live television version. Six years later, he helmed the feature film, which stars Anthony Quinn as once-promising but now washed-up boxer Luis “Mountain’’ Rivera. The stellar supporting cast features Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, Julie Harris, and the future Muhammad Ali, who appears as Quinn’s opponent in a boxing match at the start of the film. It’s a memorable sequence, shot from Mountain’s point of view.
The marathon closes with arguably the greatest boxing film, Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull’’ (1980). Neither the film nor Scorsese won Academy Awards, a slight that still astounds, but it did earn Oscars for Robert De Niro’s searing portrait of the world middleweight champ of 1949, Jake LaMotta, and for Thelma Schoonmaker’s bravura editing.
Go to hcl.harvard.edu/hfa.
Independents days
Boston-based filmmakers Christopher Di Nunzio, Jason Miller, and Nolan Yee launched the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival in 2011 to give other local filmmakers a way to show their work and find appreciative audiences in Boston. Since then, the festival has grown to a two-day event, screening many shorts and features. It takes place Aug. 25-26, at Arlington’s Regent Theater. Highlights include “In a Sentimental Mood,’’ writer-director Michael Gold’s Boston-set story of love and friendship among twentysomethings; “When the Witches Came to Town,’’ David Fresina’s look at the New England-shot production of “The Witches of Eastwick’’ in 1986; and Noah Canavan’s thriller “93 Miles’’ about a baseball player who defects from Cuba and ends up hiding with his girlfriend in a Mexican hotel room.
Go to www.regenttheatre.com.
Loren King can be reached at loren.king@comcast.net.
