The movie, Gentleman Jim, is extremely inaccurate. For one thing, women were not allowed watch boxing bouts in the United States during the late 19th Century. - Chuck Johnston
I saw the movie fight. Did Corbett really enter the ring second and have his cornerman fix his hair? The ending conversation between the two men in the hotel for me was the best part of the movie.
Yes Freddie Steele did the footwork, whilst the lothario Errol Flynn did the rest...Ward Bond played John L Sullivan...
Kinda hazy, but I seem to recall Mike Tyson having said he really liked Ward Bond as Sullivan. There's a great scene where Bonds strutting down the street and all these little kids are following him like he's some sort of god. Agree with mendoza, the scene where Sullivan/Bond humbly congradulates Flynn/Corbett is very effective. Lot's of historical liberties which, I think, should be understood as artistic license. I don't think anyone in their proper senses is going to mistake this film for a docu. Errol Flynn, who eventually died of a heart attack at age 50, suffered a minor heart attack while filming 'Gentleman Jim'.
It got a lot wrong, but the stuff that it got right made it an interesting piece of film. The people who made it were about as close in time to Corbett as we are to Ali, and it shows. This is still their past. You can sense a feeling of ownership of that era -- "This is what made our world what it is; here's what it meant to us" -- from filmmakers who still would've had relatives from Corbett's time. It's hard to put into words exactly how you can sense it, but you can. A modern movie would be more meticulous about getting little details right. This one plays a bit freely; it fills in historical gaps with its own sensibilities because it sees its own society as part of the same continuum as Corbett's. And it channels Corbett's mythos almost perfectly. Corbett is a clever, newfangled boxer. First of a new era. Sullivan is a primitive but also heroic past. In with the new. Out with the old. Corbett even reads Shakespeare, as Tunney was reputed to do. Exactly as Corbett himself wanted to tell the story. Except perhaps not quite. It's a bit subtler than I remember it. Look at the hero objectively, and Corbett comes off as a con artist, egomaniac, and bully who also happens to be an excellent boxer. Which...well, it's more accurate than Corbett himself might have wanted. It also catches some of the subtexts of Corbett's marketing popularity -- like a comment or two about how the women are admiring his physique in the ring. All those women in nickelodeons probably weren't buying Corbett's be-thonged battle with Fitzsimmons for the boxing... All in all, I liked it a lot more than I did years ago. It's far better as a product of its time than as a boxing documentary.
Used to be on Channel 4 regularly, have a vhs copy from then. Excellent sets and fight re - enactments and captures the flavour of the era. Evidently Flynn’s personal favourite. Never new Steele did the footwork, a real twinkle toes! Steele often showed up as a heavy in film noirs, as did LaStarza to a lesser extent.
