Random Connery Question
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I just found out that he starred in a British TV production of Requiem For A Heavyweight, one year after it premiered in America. Has anyone seen it, or know where one might be able to view it?
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DG
"People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." Richard Grenier after George Orwell, Washington Times 1993.
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the review you mentioned is probably the one in thr Times which is referred to in the wikipedia note on the play;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Heavyweight
"This production was reviewed in The Times newspaper the following day, which gave it a generally positive assessment, with some reservations. "It is unfortunate that Mr. Serling has allowed a saccharine romance to intrude into this self-sufficient and wholly masculine situation. Otherwise his touch is sure. Although physically miscast as the fighter, Mr. Sean Connery played with a shambling and inarticulate charm that almost made the love affair credible."
It had a bit part for Micheal Caine, also up and coming, and Warren Mitchell of Alf Garnett fame
But this seems to be the best bit...SC was suggested to Rakoff/Serling by Jacqueline Hill, who also starred in the play, and became Rakoff's wife;
http://www.rodserling.com/2HWeights.htm
"Jacqueline (who became the wife of Alvin a year after the production), suggested that he consider casting bit-player Sean Connery in the leading role stating that, "The ladies would like it." Considering Connery's pretty looks and physique that wasn't quite that of a heavyweight boxer, Alvin was not convinced. But with little time left, he tried Connery out.
ALVIN RAKOFF "His ability was limited. But his presence, stature and self-belief were evident."
Alvin bit the bullet and gave the role to Connery, who was paid 35 English Pounds."
I don't think I saw the play (when I was a kid we used to watch the BBC plays religiously, but even I'm not this old! and I don't remember a re-run) but I do remember the film version, released in 1962 which had Jack Palance as the SC-lead character, for which he won an emmy.
It also had Jack Dempsey and a very young Cassius Clay (soon to become Ali) as themselves...
Also speculates that SC only got the part in the play because Palance pulled out at the last minute..
I have a friend at the BBC; maybe they are planning to release these from the archive...you got me interested, thanks...
You are obviously/sadly right, but the archive has enormous amounts;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/
it may have been kept...:#
Actually, the film version had Anthony Quinn playing the boxer -- re-christened Mountain Rivera from Mountain McClintock to reflect Quinn's Mexican roots, with Jackie Gleason and Mickey Rooney playing the manager and trainer, respectively. And very well, I might add. But the original, live TV version was indeed with Palance as the fighter. And it was (is?) available in a kinescope version as are a number of live American TV broadcasts that were later turned into successful films. The Days of Wine and Roses with Cliff Roberston in the role Jack Lemmon played in the film, and Marty, with Rod Steiger as the butcher (Ernest Borgnine in the film), are a couple examples. These were on VHS in a Golden Age of Television series issued several years ago. Don't know if they made it to DVD, though.
What I've always found interesting about Connery in Requiem for a Heavyweight, is that live TV shows actually crossed the pond in a manner of speaking, even though they had to be re-performed all over again.
you're right, the film was Quinn, but I definiteky saw the Palance version on UK TV..he was perfect to play anything "washed up"....
and all I remember about the film was Dempsey and Clay....I grew up with the trio of heavyweights, Ali Foreman and Frazier, and I scooped up anything with a young Clay in it...
regarding live shows crossing the pond, recall this was 1957, the very beginnings of TV and most things got copied pretty quickly. The BBC was desperate to get any material onto the screens to get "up and running", and "hits" from the US were the obvious choice...
And as I mentioned, Palance (the Playhouse lead) was down to reprise his role according to that article. Connery only got the part cos Palance pulled out.
I guess what amazes me is to think that there was once a time when TV production was more like theater than, well, TV. You couldn't just go flip a switch and run a tape. You actually had to reproduce the program.
I'm always a little suspicious of "Golden Ages" with regard to anything, but I really think those were wonderful years for network television, before it found itself -- and unfortunately concluded it was little more than medium by which to sell detergent. I'm a little young to remember that era firsthand -- my earliest TV memory is the Davy Crockett coonskin cap craze that swept the United States in the late '50s -- but I have seen a number of the old kinescopes of live anthology series and they really are remarkable in their reliance on adult human drama -- treachery and loyalty in Requiem; middle-class alcoholism in Wine and Roses; male pride in Marty -- rather than action or fantasy, or production design, or simply adding adult language "grit" to run-of-the-mill cops and robbers shows. Judgement at Nuremberg , which is probably where most people know the trials from, was originally a segment of an anthology series, although I have never seen it and I'm not sure it's available anywhere. I think those anthology shows were brilliant and have never really been surpassed.
This is where I think cable has been a boon in that audiences no longer have to take network TV pablum anymore and I think we're seeing some interesting productions on a number of interesting subjects that harken back to those old programs like Playhouse 90.
But I still think there was something very vibrant and creative about how, in the old days, they did it live (I'm chuckling now thinking of a panicky Peter O'Toole in My Favorite Year asking "you mean ... it all goes into the camera lens ... and SPILLS OUT INTO PEOPLE'S HOUSES???"), without a net. A lot of great directors like John Frankenheimer and Sydney Lumet and actors (James Dean, Paul Newman, etc ...) cut their teeth in that medium, which had to be the pressure cooker of all time.
I read in one of those entries you posted about Requiem that additional material was added with Serling's approval for the BBC version to compensate for the lack of commercials on British TV. I'm wondering if that might not account for the critic's comment about the love story. As I recall, from the film anyway and I'm pretty sure the original U.S. kinescope, there was no love story. There was a scene in which the boxer -- who is not exactly James-Bond smooth with the ladies -- mistakes the social worker's concern for him as something else and drunkenly tries to force himself on her, but she successfully holds him off until he comes to his senses. I wonder if the rewrite tweaked their relationship into the love story the critic bemoans. If so, that would be a big mistake, I think. Then again, maybe the critic just misunderstood the relationship.
Anyway, if there is any chance of seeing the BBC program, I'd love to take a gander at it. I'm wondering if they transferred the setting from the seedy club fighting world of New York to the seedy club fighting world of London or elsewhere in the U.K.? It really could play just about anywhere. I noted in those Web entries that there was apparently a Swedish production of the program as well.
Wow. That's definitely not in the Palance TV version, which I watched yesterday. It was the wikipedia entry that had me curious to know more about the Connery version.
And clumsy or naive as the medium might have been, the 50s had some of the most interesting television experiments, and the live drama is something I would love to see come back.
{:)