Original Airdate: October 11, 1956
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Ralph Nelson
Producer: David J. Eagle, Martin Manulis, Alvin Rakoff
Cast: Jack Palance, Keenan Wynn, Ed Wynn, Kim Hunter
This was my first experience watching one of the hundreds of
live television broadcasts from the ‘50s, and I must admit I did not have the
highest of expectations going in. I thought I was going to see a low-quality
version of a soap opera—a filmed play with the actors talking and monologuing
instead of communicating while reading off unseen cue cards. I couldn’t have
been more mistaken.
“Requiem For a Heavyweight” vibrates with energy, has better
direction and camerawork than any other television program I’ve seen from the period
and features a trio of performances with incredible depth and nuance. This was
all done live, and that just adds to my admiration for the episode.
Writer Rod Serling and director Ralph Nelson present us with
a fascinating opening: in the aftermath of an especially brutal boxing match,
we first see the triumphant fighter exit the ring, surrounded by his adoring
fans. Moments later, Maish (Keenan Wynn) and Army (Ed Wynn) drag the barely
conscious Harlan “Mountain” McClintock (Jack Palance) out and into an empty
changing room. A doc comes in to investigate the damage, and the truth becomes
clear immediately: Mountain cannot continue to fight without doing permanent
injury to his already-damaged body.
“Just like that?” Mountain’s manager Maish asks. But of
course it wasn’t “just like that.” Mountain has two cauliflower ears and
Palance’s face looks more like a patchwork of broken bones pieced together
oddly than a human being. This is the tipping point of Mountain’s life. He’s a
heavyweight fighter who was once very good (he placed fifth in the country a
few years back), recently fair and now done with fighting whether he is ready
or not. He’s not.
Mountain dropped out of school in the ninth grade to become
a boxer and has only known this life. For over a decade he’s depended
completely on Maish and Army, his trainer, for literally everything in his
life, from his bed to his next bout to his next meal. Now that is all gone.
Serling implies, but does not underline, that Mountain has probably sustained
brain damage during his career, another impediment for a man already stuck
behind the eight-ball. I know little to nothing about boxing and the life of
these fighters (beyond the fact that Rocky Balboa is the coolest one ever), but
that doesn’t matter. My heart immediately and totally goes out to him. I can’t
fathom someone ever taking my voice as a writer away from me, and to think that
Mountain has lost everything he’s ever known (at only 33 years old!) is like an
emotional sucker punch, and I’m dreadfully sorry about that accidental pun.
The show doesn’t offer up a whole lot of hope for Mountain
as he tries to start over. He goes to 35 employment firms with nothing, and
when a pretty young employee named Grace (Kim Hunter) at lucky number 36 calls
him back for a meeting, Mountain almost begs Army to go back with him…simply
because he does not know how to function without him in the room. Grace
hypothesizes that Mountain might do well in teaching children, but is
accidentally (and realistically) harsh when she compares Mountain’s plight with
that of returning veterans who have sustained horrible injuries during the war.
We also follow Maish and learn that he had bet against
Mountain in that final fight (specifically that Mountain wouldn’t last three
rounds when he went seven) and has lost $3000 as a result. Instead of owning up
to it, he handles the situation like the snake he is—using Mountain’s loyalty
to try to get him to become a “wrestler” and play in fixed games. Army is
sickened by this and tells Maish as much on multiple occasions, but in a
realistic twist, when the chips fall and Mountain learns the truth, it’s Army
who gets the uppercut to the jaw and not Maish. Then there’s a beautiful, quiet
moment where Mountain cradles Army as his surrogate father begs him to leave
and move on with his life.
Serling introduces Grace as the necessary love interest for
such programs, but has a different, more interesting agenda for her. She’s
curious about Mountain more than she is attracted to him. She tracks him to a
boxer’s bar, where Mountain seems destined to join the other dozen former
boxers who can do nothing more than get drunk and recount the glory days, and
they have something like a date together. But the scene isn’t about the
characters and their chemistry—Serling uses Grace as our eyes into
understanding Mountain. They don’t end up together, and by treating the
relationship more realistically than so many other similar shows, it is all the
more impactful.
The tape used to film the show has faded somewhat, but
certainly not enough to hurt your enjoyment. It’s about the equivalent of
watching a movie from one of those 50-films-for-2.99 sets. I was shocked by the
atmosphere Nelson was able to build on just a few sets. The way he shoots the
street set in relation to the ring and the bar is especially moody and
memorable. And where I expected the actors, particularly Palance, to overact
because of the live television format, I was so pleasantly surprised to see
them giving subtle, multi-layered performances. I’d actually dare to rank
Palance’s work here equal to Marlon Brando’s washed-up fighter in “On TheWaterfront.”
And while there are long sections where you genuinely forget
that this was a live television program, it is still fun to watch every inch of
the frame to look for things that might not have gone according to plan. At one
point Keenan Wynn seems to have misplaced a book of matches, and Ed Wynn points
them out to him. In another, Palance tries to pour an empty bottle of beer. But
really, isn’t that how life is? Sometimes you really do lose the damn matches,
after all, and while it gives this viewer a little smile to see it, the tiny
mess-ups work as a reflection of real life more than anything else.
Here and with other such live teleplays, Serling proved he
was one of the greatest writers in the history of television, reinforced that
statement with “The Twilight Zone” and then put an exclamation point on it with
“Night Gallery.” The most shocking thing is that he worked so well in so many
different genres and could write with such speed and power. Like David E.Kelley or Paddy Chayefsky, Serling has so many crowning moments it’s impossible
to point a single one out as his definitive work. That must be an amazing
problem to have.
Like several of these live broadcasts (including “Days ofWine and Roses” and “Marty”), “Requiem for a Heavyweight” was turned into a
feature film written by Serling and directed by Nelson. The roles in that
version were filled by Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney and Julie
Harris, respectively. I have not seen the film version, and don’t know if I
want to. In a way, the live version says just about everything that can be said
about the story in only an hour and twelve minutes. You really feel as if you
are seeing four souls onscreen trying to make sense out of this unfair life.
“Requiem for a Heavyweight” is available on as part of the
Criterion Collection’s “The Golden Age of Television” DVD set.
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