DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

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MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT
December 4, 2017  | By David Bianculli

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

 

A night of boxing films begins with a classic movie that actually began as a live Golden Age TV drama. The 1962 film version of Requiem shown tonight on TCM stars Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, and Mickey Rooney, and features a small role by a young fighter called Cassius Clay – but six years before that, a brand-new CBS anthology series in its second week on the air, Playhouse 90, presented the premiere of Requiem for a Heavyweight on live TV. It starred Jack Palance, Keenan Wynn, and Ed Wynn, and was written, in one of his early triumphs, by Rod Serling. The TV version, which still exists in a kinescope recording, is vastly superior – but this movie is a knockout, too.

 
 
 
 
 
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