Will we ever be able to access footage of Harry Greb in the future? Surely there has to be some old tape of him somewhere. Seems criminal to not have the chance to see a fighter who many regard to be the greatest middleweight of all time on tape.
I think there's rumors that Greb vs Tunney was recorded, just missing I dunno who's responsible for not having Greb recorded and publicly accessible, but I hope they knew what a **** up it was
He is one of my fav fighter cz he keep fighting when he have problem with 1 eye.. & he still winning.. Only 1 who beat tunney..
By all accounts he wasn't aesthetically pleasing style wise. When you look at his resume though, and how frequently he fought, it's mind boggling.
I would dispute this. Im not convinced it was filmed. The story that this was filmed seems to originate with two sources: 1. Jim Jacobs and 2. the AFI. Jim Jacobs told many different stories related to this film and they are often contradictory. The most famous is that he found a copyright of the film with frames from the film stapled to it in the Library of Congress. While this was a common practice the Library of Congress never had any record of a Greb-Tunney film having been copyrighted. Ive spoken to them at length about this and they assured me the that the record wasnt missing, destroyed, etc. If it had existed as Jacobs said then a record of it would be there. The AFI has an entry for the Greb-Tunney film in their catalog but Ive spoken to them as well and they have no idea where the entry originates from. The AFI catalog merely documents films that were made. It doesnt house the actual films. In a way, historically, it was kind of like boxrec in that a member could add notations etc but if the data was bad then so was the entry. The director of the AFI researched this particular entry for me and told me he could find no corroborating evidence that the film ever existed and couldnt understand why the entry was in their catalog or who had added it. He considered it suspect. In addition to this I have never found any evidence whatsoever that it was filmed. No advertisements, no mentions of a film at the time, no mention of it in any trade publications, nothing. While I would like to believe that this fight was filmed my instinct tells me it wasnt.
No the Greb-Walker was indeed filmed along with Wills-Weinert and Shade-Slattery on the undercard. The Greb-Ted Moore fight was filmed as well along with Tunney-Spalla, Estridge-Gans, and Stribling-Loughran on the undercard. Greb-Tommy Gibbons 4 was filmed, and so was Greb-Oscar Anderson (an exhibition) in Cleveland in 1918. All of these I have confirmed to have been filmed as well as Greb's funeral. I also suspect a couple of other Greb exhibition bouts in 1918 were filmed but I have no proof of this. There were others where it was mentioned ahead of time that films would be made but Ive never been able to confirm any of these films actually made it past the planning phase of the fight. Some have speculated that Greb-Flowers was filmed because there is a mention of it in the synopsis for "The Fighting Deacon" which was Tiger Flowers' life story committed to film. I dont believe this is though. Or rather I dont believe this is evidence that it was filmed. "The Fighting Deacon" was a docudrama, not a documentary. Meaning that the segments were staged and acted to recreate Flowers life with Flowers and Walk Miller playing their roles. Furthermore this film was actually shot in 1924. It was shelved when Flowers got knocked out by Jack Delaney and his reputation took a major hit. It was retooled and released after he won the title but Im not convinced actual fight footage was used in the film. Its not impossible but the mere fact that Greb-Flowers gets mentioned in the advertising material doesnt convince me the actual fight appears in the film.
Klompton, I know you probably can’t answer this, so forgive me, but do you think it’s likely that any Greb fight film will ever surface?
