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FIGHT FICTION: KID TINSEL ~ OCTAVUS ROY COHEN!
Possibly the scarcest of Cohen's many books, a hardboiled novel of the boxing underworld. It is one of Cohen's few ventures outside of Black dialect fiction and his only foray into fistiana. The book was the source of the 1941 B-movie The Pittsburgh Kid, starring light heavyweight champion Billy Conn.
New York: D. Appleton-Century Co. , 1941
FIGHT FICTION: REDISCOVERING JIM TULLY!
KNOWN FOR HIS HARD-BOILED, REALISTIC BOOKS ABOUT THE OUTCASTS AND VAGABONDS OF AMERICA – THE HOBOS AND BOXERS, IRISH DITCH DIGGERS AND PROSTITUTES, CIRCUS CARNIES AND PRISONERS – EARNED JIM TULLY RAVE REVIEWS IN NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS AND CELEBRATED COMMENTS FROM THE LIKES OF H.L. MENCKEN AND GEORGE JEAN NATHAN . . . THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER HAS A COOL ARTICLE TODAY REDISCOVERING JIM TULLY, ONE OF OHIO’S FORGOTTEN SONS . . .
Jim Tully hardly fit the portrait of the poet as a young man, at least the one of popular imagination. He came out of St. Marys, Ohio, the son of poor, alcohol-bedeviled Irish immigrants -- "shanty Irish," he called his family.
After his mother died young, he spent six brutal years in a Cincinnati orphanage and another year in virtual bondage to a cruel farmer. At 14, he ran away to spend six years riding the rails as a "road kid," a sort of junior hobo.
He then went on the small-town boxing circuit as a featherweight, survived the hot furnaces of chain-making factories in Columbus and Kent, and worked as a traveling tree surgeon, even tending the trees of future U.S. senator and president, Warren G. Harding . . .
FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE
KEVIN I. SLAUGHTER MAINTAINS JIM TULLY’S LADIES IN THE PARLOR BLOG. TO CHECK IT OUT CLICK HERE
HAT TIP TO JOHN STICKNEY
FIGHT FILMS: RISEN!
THANKS TO GARY DOBBS AND HIS TAINTED ARCHIVE BLOG FOR THE REVIEW OF THIS BRILLIANT NEW BOXING FILM . . .
The remarkable story of Welsh boxing legend, Howard Winston is served up in this award winning movie from Burn Hand Films. The story follows Howard from the time he lost three fingers in an industrial accident to him being crowned Featherweight champion of the world after beating Mitsunori Seki in the 1968 fight at the Royal Albert Hall. It truly is a life affirming story of grit and determination as the man who couldn't even make a fist with his right hand went onto rule the boxing world.
The part of Howard Winstone is taken by Stuart Brannan who also co-wrote the screenplay with director, Neil Jones and between them they have produced a grim, gritty but ultimately joyous film that fails to fall into the sentimental trap which is always a danger with sporting based movies. The film pulls no punches in telling it as it was and the grim surroundings of 1960's industrial Wales are brought to vivid life. There are some great character sketches and being a Welshman myself and a Valley boy too, it was pleasing to see characters that rang true on the screen. Boyd Clack, as Howard Winstone Snr gave a great turn as a man suffering from black lung disease, the curse of the coal miner, whose only desire is to help his son overcome all odds in his quest for greatness.
"A Valley's boy. The champion of the world. It's tremendous."
Howard Winstone is portrayed honestly, warts and all, and we see that his highly focused determination is both the making of him as well as the ruin of his marriage. Grainne Joughin plays Mrs Winstone and the actress has some powerful material to get her teeth into. She starts out positively joyous, almost girlish but hardens as her marriage becomes a soulless shell.
"What about what I want?", she pleads to her mother-in-law only to receive a stony look and words spat back with venom.
Though the bottom line is that this is a boxing movie and it is in the fight scenes that it will ultimately be judged - Neil Jones obviously recognised the fact and he presents Winstone's various fights in several styles -from painfully slow to blurringly fast. The second fight against Vicente Saldivar is particularly effective - played out in grinding slow motion and set to Moonlight Sonata, it becomes a hypnotic ballet as the camera pulls back time after time to the rhythm of the boxer's feet. This is then contrasted by the third and final fight against the Mexican champion flashing across the screen with the speed of strobe lighting.
More Raging Bull than Rocky Balboa, Risen is a gritty story, the mood often as black as the coal fields but it is also a testament to the determination and sheer guts of one man who rises about adversity and handicap to punch his way to the top.
Following a triumphant journey around the festival circuit, Risen will begin a cinema release this April. It will be available on Region 2 DVD this May with other regions to follow shortly.
FIGHT NOVELS: FIGHT CARD ~ THE CUTMAN!
JACK TUNNEY
COMING IN MAY 2011 FOR YOUR KINDLE . . .
1953: Ex-Korean War vet Mickey Flynn has been through some harsh battles in his life, and his latest is in Havana, Cuba. While on a layover from his job as a merchant mariner, Mickey runs afoul of a local crime boss over a women - one of Mickey's greatest weaknesses.
When the woman ends up murdered and Mickey is framed for the killing, he ends up in an illegal fight to the death in an off-the-books arena manged by the Mafia and guarded by the Havana police. Even if he defeats the hulking monster in the ring, there's no guarantee he can get out of the city alive.
FIGHT FICTION: SMOKER ~ A BOXING FABLE!
MEL ODOM
I’M NOT LISTING THIS TITLE UNDER ONE OF MY TAKE A CHANCE POSTS ON MY OTHER BLOG, BISH'S BEAT, BECAUSE THERE IS NO CHANCE INVOLVED IN DOWNLOADING A COPY OF THIS HARD-HITTING PULP–STYLE BOXING TALE TO YOUR KINDLE – THIS ONE IS A WINNER . . . AND AT $.99 IT’S A STEAL . . .
SMOKER ~ A BOXING FABLE
1952:
Merchant seaman Terry Farrell's dad has been murdered in an illegal boxing ring in LA. Returning home, Terry straps on his old man's gloves and demands a shot at the title. But he doesn't know that he's stepping into the ring with a true monster.
Count 10 and DIE!
TO GET YOUR KINDLE COPY CLICK HERE
FIGHT TV SERIES: 'LIGHTS OUT' ON FX!
Lights Out is new dramatic boxing series set to premier on FX the coming Tuesday. The storyline focuses on Patrick ‘Lights Out’ Leary (Holt McCallany), a down and out fighter who retired from the ring at his wife’s behest after a disastrous fight against ‘Death Row’ Reynolds. Now, several years later, Leary is trying to support his wife and daughters with his failing boxing gym – all the while struggling with his desire to return to the ring for one last shot.
I'll certainly be there for the premier episode as I’m a sucker for this type of stuff no matter how clichéd it all might be . . .
TO VISIT THE LIGHTS OUT WEBSITE CLICK HERE
FIGHT NOVELS: BLESS ME FATHER
MARK KREIGEL
Reminiscent of the work of Pete Dexter, this stunning novel of crime, vengeance, and redemption, set on New York City's meanest streets, revolves around one desperate man who will do anything to regain his honor--and another who will do anything to save his soul. Frank Battaglia is a swaggering soldier of the Mafia, greedy for the power generations of thugs have taken as their right and compelled by an inner demon to rip away the shame that surrounds him like a shroud.
As a young fighter, Frank fell apart in the ring at Madison Square Garden, a humiliation witnessed by the most powerful gangster in the city. In Frank's eyes, only one person can salvage his reputation: his son Nicky. Life, however, is not as Frank envisions it. The Village, once the unquestioned fiefdom of the Mob, has gone sour on him, turned into a haven for yuppies. And Nicky, devastated by the suicide of his older brother, wants only to play basketball, lose his virginity, and listen to sweet soul music, his brother's legacy to him.
His father's plan to make him a champion in the boxing ring and on the streets repels and horrifies him. But when the gangland-style murder of the city's last great Mafia don puts Frank on the front pages of the tabloids, Nicky discovers a terrible truth about his father--and the truth about what it means to be a tough guy in the nightmare universe of New York's underground.
Resounding with the authentic voices of New York City and pounding to the beat of the streets, Bless Me, Father is a gritty, chilling portrait of what life is really like in the Mafia, where men are sacrificed, destroyed, and, sometimes, made whole in the name of honor.
FIGHT FILMS: THE FIGHTER
Life story of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward and his trainer brother Dick Eklund, chronicling the brothers' early days on the rough streets of Lowell, Massachusetts through Eklund's battle with drugs and Ward's eventual world championship in London.
FIGHT NOVELS: EVERY TIME I TALK TO LISTON
BRIAN DE VIDO
A rousing page-turner about a boxer on the downside of his career who helps a troubled but talented contender make his way to the top.
Aging and not as quick as he used to be, Amos "Scrap Iron" Fletcher has finally arrived in Las Vegas, capital city of boxing. His years of slugging it out as a sparring partner for heavyweight contenders are about to pay off. But after his first big-league fight ends in defeat-and when he's falsely accused of offering to sell secrets to his sparring partner's opponent-he heads back home to Trenton to figure out his next move.
It's there, at his uncle's boxing gym that he's reunited with TNT, another boxer down on his luck. TNT is a reckless but kindhearted kid who just happens to throw some of the toughest punches Amos has ever seen. TNT's hunger for vindication rekindles Amos's passion for the sport, and he agrees to take the neglected young fighter under his wing.
With a little help from boxing idol Sonny Liston, who's always in the back of his mind, Amos forms a training strategy for TNT and launches a daring gambit to reclaim his own reputation. So begins Amos and TNT's thrilling ascent-guided by Liston's defiant spirit-to the title fight that every boxer dreams about: the Heavyweight Championship of the World.
FIGHT NOVELS: DOWN FOR THE COUNT
STUART KAMINSKY
Was heavyweight champion Joe Louis framed? He's innocent, yet he has something to hide. Private eye Toby Peters agrees to help the champ, but he gets embroiled in a sensational fight scam and a bloody trail of deception.
FIGHT NOVELS: BRING YOUR LEGS WITH YOU
DARRELL SPENCER
Winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, this set of interconnected stories center around a retired prize fighter living in Las Vegas. The characters are as unforgettable and intriguing as the dialogue.
A boxer who brings his legs with him comes to the ring with the strength and stamina to make it through every round of a tough fight. In this new collection, winner of the prestigious Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Darrell Spencer delivers fiction with just that kind of power.
Bring Your Legs with You contains nine interconnected stories set in Las Vegas. Featuring various perspectives and narrators, they are filled with unforgettable characters, including Carl T. Plugg, a sharp-dressed, smooth-talking, non-hustling pool shark; Spinoza, the philosophical day laborer with "Department of Big Thoughts" lettered on the door of his pickup; Jacob, an arrogant lawyer who learns too late the dangers of swimming with the sharks; Gus, a man who has never seen his son fight despite his insatiable fascination with the sweet science; and Jane, a woman wary of her ex-husband, but still in love enough to share her bed with him.
Above them all looms Tommy Rooke, retired prizefighter and self-employed roofer. Undefeated in the ring, Rooke walked away from boxing at the top of his game, to the confusion and consternation of his friends and family. As his father, former manager, and various other hangers-on encourage him to stage a comeback, Tommy moves through the gated communities and sun-blasted strip malls of Las Vegas, wrestling with personal choice, the caprices of fate, and the price the gods demand for our sins.
More than a book about boxing, gambling, luck, and broken dreams, Bring Your Legs with You delves deeply into the life of its flawed but intelligent hero, a man deeply devoted to his friends but lost in a violent world. A writer unafraid to show the connections between people, Spencer delivers a hard-hitting collection filled with rich dialogue and spare prose.
FIGHT NOVELS: THE CANVAS COFFIN
WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT
Luke Pilgrim, a middleweight champion, was punch-drunk after a bout with Charley Retzer, and he couldn't remember whether that night he had killed Brenda Vane, the girl he had taken home after the party, whose body had been found badly beaten up. Filled with horror he turned sleuth, and started on an unending search, running the terrified gauntlet between what he remembered, and what he might find out.
His girl friend, Sally, flew on from Chicago to help him unravel the hideous mystery. He vaguely remembered a windmill sign, and a bakery trademark, too remote it seemed to ring a bell. But doggedly he followed every hunch, every tip in a winding, heartbreaking probe. The few days amnesia held the secret fate of his life in a vice-like grip.
Staged against the racketeering, merciless background of the prize-ring this is a frightening and menacing tale of a fighter's struggle to prove his own innocence. With barely a clue to tell him how and where to begin, Luke Pilgrim has to find an answer which will lead him to his freedom or brand him as a murderer.
