Baers portrayal in Cinderalla man??

His dad beat people up for a living. He was cruel to his opponents in the ring (mocking them, fouling them).

I'm glad his son had a great experience with his dad. But he was three when his dad retired.

I'm sure Ali's daughters who were too young to remember when their dad was boxing think their dad was nice to everyone, too.

 

Yes, clearly. Just poetic license.

 

Yeah, Hollywood is well known for this.

They could have made a possibly more accurate film where Braddock's manager is closely connected to Broadway racketeers who could pull strings everywhere and where Max Baer is a happy-go-lucky champion from California unhappily tied to defend in New York by the NY promoters. But that might not have worked.

Anyone who has seen Straight Outta Compton might have noticed the portrayal of Dr. Dre doesn't cover his well-known woman-beating escapades at all.
Hollywood scripts tend to make protagonist characters essentially good, and the opposing characters almost completely bad.
There are exceptions.

And Cinderella Man was the most sickly sweet sentimental type of Hollywood movie you'll ever see.
I didn't think much of it at all.

The recent Southpaw is an infinitely better film, and just as appealing to a sentimental audience too.

 

Was it even a better film for the artistic licence?

I mean the rocky films are not the most cerebral of all time, but they still make the antagonists morally ambiguous characters. Apollo Creed is brash and arrogant, but he is also an honourable man, and as courageous as Rocky. Even the menacing Clubber Lang has a moral case, in that he is legitimately being treated unjustly, and is only asking for what he is entitled to.

I submit that a more inspired director, might have rendered a more faithful and multi-dimensional portrayal of Max Baer, and that it would ultimately have made for a better film.

 

Max Baer Jr. was initially critical of Howard's portrayal of his father but (from what I've read) he forgave him and they reconciled their differences.
Sidebar: Interesting that Max wore the White Star of David on his trunks when he fought but, in the film, it was an off-color Star that you could barely notice.

 

Based on what I know, I would say that any similarity between the real Max Baer and the Baer character in the Cinderella Man film is purely coincidental.
One fellow told me that he met Max Baer, coming away with the feeling that Max had an extremely commanding presence.

- Chuck Johnston

 

i’m watching Cinderella Man right now and it’s a far better movie than you give it credit for

 

I thought it was both morally bankrupt & a total bore to boot. Ridley Scott saw Ron Howard’s hatchet job & turned it up to eleven with Napoléon, but a helluva blueprint for character assassination was laid here, & in a forgettable movie, no less.

I was deeply grateful to see both films flop.

 

Completely overblown accusations that Baer was overtly villainized. He was not a nice man. He was nice to fans and ladies because he was a womanizer but he wasn’t nice to opponents. He got into plenty of trouble as a kid and adult. I read his biography years ago. Seemed like a funny guy and not a bad guy but he wasn’t an angel. If from Braddock pov and the press that may have been how he was viewed. In private he was a lovable guy who loved to have fun. But he also pissed off a lot of people, got into fights, had gambling debts, frequently womanized. Not unlike many HW champs.

 

According to the new bio on Frankie Campbell which was meticulously researched relying mainly on period news articles Baer was exactly like the character portrayed in Cinderella Man and Ron Howard has no clue that he had it right all along. Baer and his image were apparently not one and the same.

 

Actually as an historian and a genealogist meticulous in my work, I used a variety of original source materials going back a century to write the book. Newspapers were among them, but I also used court transcripts, medical records, genealogical, archival, federal, state, and local records, along with psychological analysis and brain trauma study, as well as interviews with Campbell's family members, former pro fighters, and boxing historians. I regularly use Baer's own words as he lies and embellishes and contradicts himself incessantly. And to silence the doubters, I included over 1400 cited sources.

I have a Forword by Ray Mancini, which includes the following:
"Boxers are also part of a fraternity. There is usually a certain level of mutual respect and admiration for your opponent as a fighter and as a man, an appreciation for his substance and skills, a basic code of honor and sportsmanship.

There were none of these things on the part of Max Baer when he fought Frankie Campbell. He possessed no honor. No sportsmanship. No respect. This was the wholesale slaughter of an opponent that was obviously out cold and defenseless."

I was asked to write an article which addresses the validity of the movie "Cinderella Man" for a magazine run by former Editors-in-Chief of The Ring magazine. I've discussed my findings in detail in podcasts.

It's amazing to me that people cast doubt on my book and my discoveries without ever having read it. Rather than speculation, maybe people should just read the book!

 

LMAO, womanising makes you a bad guy? Come off it

 

I've always thought Carnera was a sterling guy. I've never heard a bad thing said or written about his personal life. He always cooperated and was congenial with reporters, photographers, film crews, and promoters whether the sport was boxing or wrestling. Janitor's post gives me the window I need to post this thought which has long been on my mind.

 

Yeah...the biggest inaccuracy with Cinderella Man's portrayal of Baer is that the actor lacked Max's charm.

Use the same script, play Baer more like Ali, and suddenly the audience doesn't notice that Max is a jerk.

 

It was disgusting the way they treated Baer’s character, especially considering how much psychological harm the deaths caused Maxie.