Requiem for a Heavyweight
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Movie Reviews of Requiem for a Heavyweight
Movie Review: "Requiem, Inc."
Summary: 3 Stars
The film, Requiem for a Heavyweight, has many brilliant scenes, especially the ending, which is better than the televised version, where Mountain takes off to take a counseling job at a children's camp. In the film version, without giving too much away, Mountain's shallows his pride, but keeps his integrity by saving his manager's life; therefore, giving away what little he had left for a manager who sold him out - a true sign of character!
Earlier in the film, after Mountain is told that he cannot fight anymore due to an eye injury, he's back in the gym training to be a wrestler. Mountain sees something familiar to him, a speed bag, walks to it and begins working out; never missing a beat of the small bag, demonstrating that being a fighter is what he knows and essentially what he is. For boxing movie fans, the scene is part of the heart of the movie. Without this scene, the movie cannot be an authentic portrayal of the sweet science since it is heart that keeps a fighter in the fight, in the ring and in life after the ring.
Movie Review: Missing scenes
Summary: 3 Stars
Kudos to Amazon for their fast service. Customers should be aware that there are several scenes from the original movie that are missing on this DVD. This is one of my favorite movies that I've seen at least half a dozen times before. An example is the one where they are trying to teach Mountain how to wrestle and he keeps losing his cool and punching the other wrestler. Another is where Maish confronts Ma Greeny and tell her he wishes she wasn't a woman and she retorts that's the nicest thing anyone ever said to her. There is no reason for leaving them out and there is no notice that the film was edited for content. The movie rates 5 stars but the DVD only 3 for cutting corners.Movie Review: An excellent film that should be COMPLETE!
Summary: 1 Stars
C'mon, guys!!! This is the age of DVD "extra-mania" with every sort of outtake, alternate scene, missing scene, lost scene, director's cut,, etc etc being an ESSENTIAL part of a film's legacy as preserved in the DVD format.In the case of the moving and powerful "Requiem" (and I agree with the customer who feels that the Jackie Gleason/Julie Harris staircase scene belongs at the top of the all-time list of great movie scenes), the film was obviously released in several different versions.
The confusion begins,in fact, immediately after the staircase scene. There are AT LEAST THREE SCENES from the latter part of the film that are NOT INCLUDED on the DVD:
1.) Gleason's encounter with the vile Ma Greeny in the hallway when he tells her he'd "like to run into her when you're not grafted to that torpedo..." (referring to her big thug/bodyguard).
2.) A lengthy (and painful) scene where Quinn is training to be a wrestler, and the moronic Pirelli (Stan Adams, the only actor to reprise his role from the 1956 TV original version) signals Quinn's wrestling partner to intentionally gouge his bad eye, whereupon Quinn beats the crap out of the guy.....
3.) Gleason's final speech on the rotten world of Prize Fighting which he delivers to the young wanna-be.....
If Serling ultimately wanted these scenes cut, WHY IN THE WORLD were they ot included as EXTRAS??? I have old video copies of late-night, local TV airings of this film that are FAR MORE COMPLETE than this state-of-the-art DVD release.
What a pity---to see such a cool film treated so poorly (the audio is also very low on this disc; I had to jack the TV volume all the way up to get a decent signal).
Movie Review: requirem for a heavyweight and a neighborhood
Summary: 1 Stars
This is a remarkable film. Remarkable because it is the death of a man's life style. It teaches that many people's lives are cut short without being killed. A person's life is more than their physical life. It is their way of life that attributes to their life. Cut a man's reason for living and you might as well kill him physically. Ironically, the film was filmed on location in the Washington Market Area of lower manhattan. Any area that was in it's own dying days which can be seen from the decay of the neighbor hood. And area that would be totally destroyed to make way for the World Trade Center some 5 years later, another tragitic story in it's own right.My father actually watched some of the filming of this fim on Murray Street. The film crew actually brought the old Susquehanna Hotel back to life for most of this film. The dreary sceens are real, filmed in the dead Susquehanna Hotel. Sadly, the most depressing thing about this film is the fact that the Jerks who put the movie on DVD used an edited version. Why? I will never know. Rod Serling must be spinning in his grave!!! The producers of this DVD owe each of us that purchased this film and updated UNEDITED VERSION!!!!!!!!!