We wanted to run the two Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier ads back in November when Smokin' Joe went down for the final count, but Po-Man closed on the new Temple that week and couldn't get it together in time. The ALI THE MAN w/ ALI THE FIGHTER double bill is actually William Greaves and Rick Baxter's nearly two-and-a-half-hour-long THE FIGHTERS (1972) split into two separate films. Co-produced by Shintaro Katsu, this documentary features the Ali-Frazier "Fight of the Century" in its entirety, along with appearances by Burt Lancaster and Richie Havens and plenty of colorful pre-bout interview footage. MUHAMMAD ALI: SKILL, BRAINS, AND GUTS (1975) is a documentary by Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton, with music by Teo Macero. Bryanston handled its distribution. The other ads are for the highlight films that filled out double and triple bills in urban theaters in the days before HBO and Pay-Per-View.
I've always been fascinated by these fight films/highlight reels. Besides Cinerama Releasing who was responsible for putting these films out to theaters? Were they 35mm prints? and what happened to them? Has any of these films ever been transfered to home video?
ReplyDeleteI think this played at the old Sherwood Twin Drive-In outside Dayton, OH.
ReplyDeleteSadly, IMDb has little info on BAD, BLACK & BEAUTIFUL.
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