Critics are taking Cinderella Man director Ron Howard to task for downplaying the significance of Jewish boxer Max Baer in the film. Craig Bierko portrays Baer as a clownish wrecking ball with fists who shows no remorse for killing a man in the ring, but Hollywood has it all wrong. Shocking, we know.
Baer’s son, Max Jr., (who played hunky hick Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies) says they “distorted his [father’s] character” and discredit Baer’s entire career by dismissing how in 1933, he lead a Jewish pride revolution by sporting a huge mogen david on his trunks and pounding Nazi darling Max Schmeling into the floor for ten rounds.
Granted, Cinderella Man focuses on the life of Jimmy Braddock, and a director has only so many minutes to tell a story before sugar-addled American audiences get distracted. But when does Baer get his own movie? Weinstein brothers, where art thou?
photo c/o Slate.
I looked up to MAx Bear growing up. This is a vilant sport and that comes with the nature of boxing. To bad the film did not have a Jewish director?
this week’s theme is Nazi bashing, i love it! Lets keep exposing those dirty scoundrels and recouting how we struck back. I would love to see a movie of Max Baer pounding a nazi to a bloody pulp of fascist waste. I think Steven Speilburg would be a better fit.
*Spielberg (i’m having a bad spelling week)
“The Best Moovie of the Year” He was a great fighter and he was not portred in the right manor. He was not the Mean “Max Baer” the made him out to be. He was the Jewish Fighter.