REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT (1962)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Ralph Nelson

SCREENWRITER: Rod Serling

FILM STARS: Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, Julie Harris, Julie Harris, Jack Dempsey, Rory Calhoun, Muhammad Ali

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Rod Serling

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Corgi

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1962

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1957

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sports Drama

WORDS: This novel, is perhaps, a novelization by the author himself. Rod Serling’s cynical boxing drama was originally filled as a teleplay (an early Made for TV film) in 1957 with Jack Palance in the title roll and directed by Ralph Nelson. That was enormously successful (it was then filmed for TV in Great Britain with Sean Connery in the title role and with Alvin Rakoff directing). The story was redone six years later (here) with the same director, Nelson, but with Anthony Quinn (a favourite of mine) in the title role. This is one the great boxing films along with “The Set Up”, “Champion”, “Body and Soul”, “99 River Street”, “Hard Times”, “Fat City”, and “Rocky”. I would throw “Kid Galahad'” from 1962 in as well (no one else would), as well as “The Quiet Man” (a loose definition of a boxing film).

LINK

TRAILER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3h4EHZSj6k