The Fight That Started the Movies

The World Heavyweight Championship, the Birth of Cinema and the First Feature Film

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Pub Date Oct 03 2016 | Archive Date Oct 03 2016

Description

On March 17, 1897, in an open-air arena in Carson City, Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons fought for the heavyweight championship of the world. The contest was recorded by film pioneer Enoch Rector from inside an immense, human-powered camera called the “Veriscope,” the forgotten Neanderthal at the dawn of cinema history. Rector’s movie of the contest premiered two months later. Known today as The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight, it was the world’s first feature-length film.

The Fight That Started the Movies is the untold story of Corbett’s and Fitzsimmons’ journey to that ring in Nevada and how the landmark film of their battle came to be made. It reveals how boxing played a key role in the birth of the movies, spurring the development of motion picture technology and pushing the concept of “film” from a twenty-second peephole show to a full-length attraction, “a complete evening’s entertainment,” projected on a screen.

The cast of characters in the tale is rich and varied. There are inventors Eadweard Muybridge, Thomas Edison, William Dickson and Eugene Lauste, figuring out how to photographically capture and reproduce motion. There are the playboy brothers Otway and Gray Latham, who first saw the commercial potential of fight films, and their friend and partner Enoch Rector, who pushed that potential to its fruition. There are fighters Jim Corbett with his “scientific” methods of boxing; Bob Fitzsimmons with his thin legs and turnip-on-a-chain punch; hard-drinking John L. Sullivan and the original Jack Dempsey and the gifted but ultimately doomed Young Griffo. There are loud-mouthed fight managers and big-talking promoters, and Wild West legends like Bat Masterson and Judge Roy Bean when the story heads to the Rio Grande river. And finally, there is the audience, our collective ancestors, discovering that movies were more than just a curiosity to gape at, but a new and enduring form of entertainment to rival the theater.

Samuel Hawley is a graduate of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, with an MA in history. His books include Speed Duel, about the 1960s land speed rivalry between Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons; The Imjin War, the most comprehensive account in English of Japan’s 16th-century invasion of Korea and attempted conquest of China; I Just Ran, the biography of sprint legend Percy Williams, the “World’s Fastest Human” in the late 1920s; and the novels Homeowner With a Gun and Bad Elephant Far Stream.

On March 17, 1897, in an open-air arena in Carson City, Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons fought for the heavyweight championship of the world. The contest was recorded by film pioneer Enoch Rector...


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Featured Reviews

When you think of the history of the movies you may think of Thomas Edison. You may even remember that the first commercially shown film was by Edison, called "The Kiss" in 1898. And as far as that goes, you'd be right. Except none of that really made the movies what they are today. Edison didn't really believe in the technology or the profit-making future of it. "The Kiss" was a novelty, all of a minute long. No what made the movies was the Corbet-Fitzsimmons heavyweight boxing match of 1897. Because was largely banned in the U.S. at the time promoters thought they saw a way around the ban through the movies. In order to make that happen, new technologies and equipment had to be invented and then built. What resulted was the first truly feature length movie of all time. And the movies would never be the same again.

Hawley has two completely distinct stories that he needs to tell in this book. First, there is the slow development of the technology to make movies. Thomas Edison did several pivotal things to create the movies, but he didn't see them as a money maker. And in the end, if it wasn't going to make Edison money, he wasn't interested. So the Edison connection moved in random spurts. But he wasn't the only person interested in the movies. There were the playboy Latham brothers, innovative photographer Eadweard Muybridge, Eugene Lauste, a man forgotten by history but creator of what might be the single most important change in projection technology of all time, and William Dickson, who Edison believed betrayed him and never forgave the betrayal.

On the fight side, you have the two contesting heavyweights "Gentleman" Jim Corbett with his "scientific" approach to boxing, the gangly Australian Bob Fitzsimmons, the "Great" John L. Sullivan, and boxing promoter Dan Stuart. Add in the characters that seem to flock to the boxing world then add in western icons like Bat Masterson and the "hanging judge" Roy Bean.

What he creates is a fascinating look at the amazing history of the earliest days of the movies. The incredible hurdles that had to be overcome. Once those challenges were defeated, the movie makers had to seal themselves into a lightproof box for the duration of the shooting and pray everything worked. Finally, literally at the end of the biggest fight of the day, the action disappears from view. From the distance of over a century, the incredible frustration of all the primary characters makes you shake your head and chuckle in disbelief. If they made a movie of it, as the old saying goes, nobody would believe it.

For the student of movie history, this book is a must read.

Why I Liked It - I'm fascinated by the history of the movies. And this is history I had never heard of before.
Why You Will Like It - A fabulous cast of characters and an edge of your seat "What can possibly go wrong next?" story.

Rating - **** Recommended

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Wow! Great social history intertwining the stories of the stars of late nineteenth century boxing, the west of the late 1800's and the development of the motion picture business. I didn't realize how interrelated these facets of American life were and the book fascinates in this regard. Very well written, fast pace and never boring , this book entertains as much as informs. A real surprise and highly recommended.

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