'In the Ring with Jack Johnson Part I: the Rise'

You make some great points. What troubles me is the fact that when you have A missing round or missing fight I can understand that. However when you have part of a round up to a knockdown and part of a round after but you don't have the knockdown itself you have to wonder how that happened. Anything can happen years later too. Every era has its own motivations and incentives. How a film gets to be in the state that it is 30 or 40 or even 50 or 60 years later is like musical chairs - there can be many different things happening to get you to that point.

 

I took a glance at this list. One fight does exist and I could get it:
Freddie Welsh vs Jack Daniels

 

Yeah I just caught that. I actually have this fight and didnt realize it. Only a few minutes exist though.

A couple others on this list that I believe exist in some form but Im not 100% sure are: Palmer-Burge, Didier-Gans, Moir-Smith, and of course the Willie Lewis-Jack Costello bout which Im fairly certain is a bout I have with Willie Lewis against an unidentified opponent where Joe Jeanette fights an exhibition bout on the undercard and then works Lewis' corner with Dan McKetrick.

 

I see what your saying and understand the confusion because its not a mere coincidence that films are edited like this but its also not a conspiracy. Its merely that those old films got replayed at exactly that point: knockdowns, knockouts, etc, and that is where the film suffered the most damage, and hence where they had to be cut when breaks occured. Just by coincidence this morning I was watching a documentary on early British boxing and of the clips shown several went right up to the knockdown or knockout and then cut straight to the guy on the floor. I could literally list dozens of those old films that do that or are simply missing knockdowns and knockouts. Im as frustrated by it as anyone but thats just the way it works out. The Jimmy Clabby-Gus Devitt fight from 1910 in Australia that I restored was exactly the same way. That fight, at the time, was the fastest KO in a "welterweight championship" (45 seconds) unfortunately the first knockdown (which was the most devastating) is entirely absent. They come out from their corners, fiddle around for a few moments, and then Devitt is rolling around on the canvas. There was no reason to edit this out either for time or political reasons. The final knockdown is shown so it wasnt an issue of censorship. It just got damaged and ended up in the garbage somewhere. We wouldnt even have this film at all if Clabby hadnt brought it back to the states personally as the no Australian copy is known to survive. Another factor isnt just breaks. Those old projector bulbs were very hot and it wasnt unusual for a film to get burned. That old nitrate is flammable and once it starts to burn the only way to salvage the entire reel is to cut away whats burning, otherwise that stuff can go up like a can of gas and then you could lose not only the film but the building you are showing it in as well (this wasnt uncommon). When you take all of that into account with the general deterioration of these old films and you can see its actually a lot more common to see instances of what we see in the Burns-Johnson film than to actually have a complete fight. I mean if you think about it how many complete fights do we even have from 1897 to 1935 and beyond. Even of the films we have most are incomplete in some way shape or form and most of those are incomplete in just the manner we are discussing: missing knockdowns, knockouts, etc.

 

Palmer-Burge is on the BFI site but isn't listed anywhere so I'm guessing it's an exhibition?

 

I believe so yes. Some of these fighters from this era appeared in staged bouts for the cameras that were not real bouts. A few that come to mind are Dixon-Leon, Corbett-McCoy, Young Griffo against a few guys, etc. I may be mixing up a couple of different fights but I think Palmer-Burge was filmed by the famous Lumiere brothers in Hyde Park.

 

Checking Bartley Madden recently and the same thing happened, the knockout punch missing! I think v Christian?

 

Klompton, you make some great points. The knockdown Fitz scored over Corbett is today barely watchable. Clearly these films are disintegrating. And yet, so much of Burns-Johnson does exist in decent shape, and you would think those parts would be shown and therefore suffer as much wear and tear as the knocdowns. When you go to see a fight film, you watch the entire fight film, so I'm not sure why one part would be worn down more than another. Each frame should receive as much wear and tear as another. They project the film and you see the film, and each frame passes through the projector one time. But I could be missing something.

 

I got a screenshot of Freddie Welsh vs Jack Daniels. You can compare it to your version :
http://s29.postimg.org/3ono85l6v/Freddie_Welsh_vs_Jack_Daniels_Screenshot.jpg

 

A few points: 1. In the old days those movie theatres were a lot more informal than they are now, particularly in smaller venues. You could literally ask the projectionist to "run that back" and they would replay something for you. 2. After these films ended their initial run they would periodically be brought back out on tour as special interest pieces, grouped with other fight films of the past. For instance in Australia the Johnson-Burns fight was shown in 1908 alongside the Jeffries-Sharkey fight. Years later Johnson-Burns was shown in conjunction with other fights as well. In these instances it was very typical for only the most interesting parts to be shown (since there were several fight films being shown) to save time for the other films. So there is more wear and tear. Finally, prior to ending up in archives etc. these films by and large resided in private collections. Just like you and I would watch a fight film today, and often times skip ahead to areas of interest, so would the individuals who owned the films and either watched them or exhibited them to guests. All of this, over a period decades creates a lot of wear and tear on a medium that is extremely fragile. Johnson-Burns is simply one example of this. There are literally dozens of examples. Even from Johnson's own reign. It could be one of these factors or a combination of them but the examples of films that are either missing large chunks (often in places of great interest) or are missing entirely, outnumber those films that exist complete by far.

 

LOL classic! I bet THAT Jack Daniels won though.

 

Once again, great points.

 

If you ask the right people, you might be able to see one of the above fights in green.

 

Adam was nice enough to post 4 sources, and they contradicted each other.

Johnson said he learned the uppercut from the Griffin fights. Hank was the better in the series for sure. Is the 3rd match enough for a " news decision " for Griffin ?