Well worth watching. Uploaded by Fightfilmsguy on youtube .... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7i1rF1F2Fc[/ame]
I didn't see your film yet, but Max Baer was quite a guy, and he had great natural abilities as a boxer, but he never took it, or himself too seriously. He maintained his great sense of humor right up to the end. He had a stroke or a heart attack alone in a hotel room, so he dialed the operator who asked him if he wanted the house doctor. No, he replied, I want a people doctor!
Fascinating. This documentary really captures Baer as he was in the ring - heavy fisted and with an iron chin. And it shows the kind of decent human being he was. Quite a find!
Great footage but has its own fallacies... a) Schmeling was not a Nazi. He refused to join the party. He refused to fire his Jewish manager. That's how you end up a paratrooper in the war's closing days. b) Baer was not exactly a Jew. His father was, his mother was not, which by Orthodox rules means, not a Jew. Probably close enough for horseshoes, tho.
Ali & Frazier used the same telephone call advertisement trick like Galento and Baer did 35 years before as a build up to their fight too.
"Max Schmeling was a NAZI." Really could have done without that bit of nonsense. Otherwise, some interesting footage.