Der braune Bomber

Two years after the Jackie Robinson Story came out another and slightly better film tribute to a black sports icon came out. Joe Louis had a bit more sense than Jackie Robinson did and let someone else play the part of Joe Louis.

Coley Wallace who had a boxing background stepped into the part and it helped. Of course the same cheapness of production classified this film as the Robinson biographical film. It did however give more information about Louis and his rise and fall though not nearly enough.

Joe Louis, born Joseph Louis Barrow, from an incredibly poor Alabama sharecropper family started his professional career in 1934 and became heavyweight champion in 1937 knocking out the Cinderella Man, James J. Braddock whose story was told two years ago in a film of the same name. Louis met and took on all comers for the next twelve years.

Only three people defeated Joe Louis, Max Schmeling former heavyweight champion on the way to a comeback as Louis was rising in heavyweight ranks, Ezzard Charles when Louis decided to come back himself for financial reasons, and Rocky Marciano on his way up to be champion in Louis's last fight. Interesting that all three men who defeated him became champions themselves.

His ring record was 68 wins with 54 of them by knockout, 3 losses, one of them a decision for Ezzard Charles and he was knocked out by Schmeling and Marciano. He made a still standing record of 25 successful defenses of the heavyweight championship.

Along the way Joe Louis managed to get himself in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations twice. The first is covered in the film as he said at a War Bond Rally in 1942 that we will triumph "because we are on God's side."

The second concerns his title defense against Billy Conn which was not mentioned. Conn, a light heavyweight had bulked up to challenge Louis in his division and Conn was known as one who was lightning fast in the ring. When asked how he would counteract his speed Louis was quoted as saying, "he can run but he can't hide."

Best acting performance in the film without a doubt goes to James Edwards who played old time lightweight fighter, Joseph Blackburn who originally trained Louis. Edwards with the proper breaks could have had the breakthrough career for black leading men as Sidney Poitier had.

Paul Stewart is in the film in the role of a fictional sportswriter character and narrator in the same type of part that Walter Brennan had in Pride of the Yankees. John Marley has an early movie role as Mannie Seamon who succeeded Blackburn as Louis's trainer.

Given the cheapness of the production it's good that they covered as much as they did. A made for TV film was done about the two Louis- Schmeling fights. Maybe someone will do a good biographical film at some point.

Joe Louis was one class act who reached the very heights and had a lot of heartache and bad times after leaving boxing. Even doing stuff like going into professional wrestling to earn money to pay the tax man, he still was a class act. Fitting and proper that Joe Louis is buried in Arlington National Cemetery because he was nothing less than a national treasure.

I saw this film on demand from Netflix and the print was very poor--incredibly dark and fuzzy. Perhaps there are better copies out there. Much of the film consisted of stock footage of Louis' fights and it was hard to tell if this footage was lousy or if it was simply how the rest of the film looked.

Coley Wallace stars as Joe Louis. This was an interesting choice, as Wallace was an amateur boxer--and so he could convincingly play a boxer. In addition, he physically looked reasonably like Louis. As for Wallace, I was surprised to see on IMDb that he was the ONLY person to have ever beaten Rocky Marciano, was one of TWO who beat Marciano AND is one of FOUR who beat Marciano! The only consistent thing the trivia got right on this is that this occurred when Marciano was an amateur.

The film also features the very familiar face of character actor Paul Stewart--an excellent actor that lent the movie a professional look. As for the rest of the cast, they were pretty much unknowns of varying capabilities as actors. A few (such as the one playing his wife, Marva) were rather limp and some of the others were very good.

As far as a biography of Louis goes, this one does have two handicaps. First, it came out just after Louis retired--and his post-boxing life isn't covered. This is a shame, as this period is quite interesting...though a bit depressing. A brief career in pro wrestling, failed marriages and bankruptcy are not especially fun to watch but they all occurred to Louis. Second, biopics of the 40s and 50s tended to be VERY sanitized and must be taken with a grain of salt. There are many examples but the best was "The Babe Ruth Story"--a film that made Ruth look like a combination of a priest and Will Rogers! So, if you want the inside scoop on the real life Louis, this probably isn't your best bet, as it glosses over his mistakes and portrays him mostly in a heroic manner. It did allude to Louis' mismanagement of his money and cockiness before the first Schmeling fight, however--so it wasn't all positive and gloss. However, his personal life is pretty much sanitized--such as why he and his first wife divorced and not even a hint is mentioned of racism--something that MUST have been an issue for the first black heavyweight champ since Jack Johnson.

By the way, the old blind boxer, Sam Langford, who gives Joe a pep talk in the film was a real boxer. He fought over 500 fights and lost only 17--so no wonder he lost his eyesight! It was not him playing himself, however.

There is not much to recommend about this film. It is a standard issue biopic saddled with inept editing that makes the pace really lag and a screenplay that is nothing but flat undramatic exposition. It is only worth checking out because about 35 minutes are the film are actual Joe Louis fights-including his fight with James J. Bradrock, aka Cinderella Man. Even there the filmmakers decided to try to splice created footage in with the archival material, which doesn't work and distracts from the value of the archival footage. You must be a hardcore boxing or boxing movie fan to get anything from this.

This is a biopic of Heavyweight Boxing Champ Joe Louis (Coley Wallace). It starts with his early days training without his mother's consent. It follows his life and his career to his loss to Rocky Marciano.

This is a lower grade B-movie production. The camera work is a little static at times. The technical is not that good. The acting is somewhat limited. Coley Wallace is an actual boxer and a functional sports-actor. This is always a compromise in movies like these. For this one, they are going with the physical and hope for the emotional. I don't mind his acting for the most part, but the director isn't pushing him too hard. They have inserted some real fighting footage. Overall, I am not engaged in this emotionally and that is due to a variety of reasons.

Why is it that a film production company and its supposed professionals undertake a project that would seem sufficiently elastic to really emerge as a significant exponent of its subject-matter...only to become a pale facsimilie, causing its knowledgeable audience to feel slighted?

This was the case with the shouldn't-have-been low-budget "Joe Louis Story."

After Rocky Marciano one-and-for-all ended Joe Louis' memorable career, with that devastating TKO at Madison Square Garden that October night in 1951, everyone---not just fight fans---realized that a great sports era in this country had ended. Even non-liberal Americans reluctantly understood Joe Louis' significant impact not only in sports but on society.

A decade before Jackie Robinson, there was Louis. Joe not only had to win his battles inside the ring, but---in a struggle to win-over White fans---he had to remove much of the residue tarnish from the (1908-1915) reign of the first Black heavyweight champion, the talented but unsavory Jack Johnson.

Thus, when officials of the Chrysler Company, shortly after Louis' final fight, chose to do a film about the fighter's life/career, there was immense material at-hand.

Rather than utilize sufficient funds and really produce a true feature film---covering the story's multi-dimension potential---officials instead chose to go the cheap, shallow route. That's truly unfortunate because both Louis and his impact deserved so much more.

The biggest problem with the movie is that it sugar-coats the circumstances Louis faced, in-and-out of the ring. It shows him coming from a strong, middle-class Detroit neighborhood. He certainly did not come from this type of affluency.

When Black business leaders, John Roxborough and Julian Black, assumed roles as Louis' mentors/financial backers, much of their motivation was financial. They saw his ring potential and, despite their own economic status, wanted to ride his coat-tails to greater fortune.

This was not addressed in the film. Neither was the combination of prejudice and attempted mob-influence Louis encountered.

Few of Louis' early fights were shown/depicted, though clips from his key early bouts with Primo Carnera and Max Baer were shown.

When people think of Louis' opponents, two immediately come to mind: Max Schmeling and Billy Conn. The film discusses, and offers clips from, the Schmeling fights but virtually ignores the Conn bouts. Very brief mention is made of the anti-climatic second Conn fight; but it was the classic first fight that should have been developed and shown. Had light-heavyweight Conn---a huge underdog to a vintage Louis---survived the 13th round, and won either the 14th or 15th, he would have taken Louis' title.

There should have been much more continuity shown as Louis' career is presented. More clips from his title defenses would have been excellent---and necessary---bridges as we relived Louis' great career. He came within an eyelash of losing his Dec. 5, 1947, defense against Jersey Joe Walcott. Then, six months later, he made his final defense with a KO of Jersey Joe.

There were, however, a few positives. Coley Wallace facially resembled a young Louis so much that it was almost eerie. And Wallace, who had a brief, undistinguished professional career during the late-1940's and early '50's, of course accurately handled the up-close training and fighting scenes. Ironically, Wallace also is remembered for having been the last man to beat Marciano---if he actually did. Though all accounts say that Wallace was given a gift three-round decision of Marciano in their early-1948 amateur bout, he did win the official decision. Wallace was smart enough not to fight Rocky when both were pros.

Strong character performances were given by James Edwards, as Jack Blackburn, Louis' trainer and close friend; Paul Stewart, as a sportswriter and Louis supporter; John Marley, as Mannie Seamon, a Louis latter-career trainer; and Hilda Sims, as Joe's lonely, increasingly nagging, wife Marva.

The few clips of Louis' bouts add a touch of realism to the program.

This film should have been a major undertaking. It comes-off as a small-letter production when it should have been in all-caps.