Joe Louis : America's Hero... Betrayed

I had been looking forward to seeing this movie since getting cable again in late January, as HBO had already been advertising it heavily then. I can't call myself a 'fan' of Joe Louis, as of course I wasn't born when he began and ended his career; I have, however, always considered him to be my very favorite fighter. He was the first fighter about whom I actively read, and it was reading about him as a child and young teen that really awoke my interest in boxing. It was reading about Joe Louis that awoke my interest in Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe Walcott, and Rocky Marciano and it was reading about Joe Louis that led me to develop a greater knowledge of the era between himself and Gene Tunney in the heavyweight division than the average boxing fan of my age; I became interested in Jack Sharkey, Primo Carnera, Max Baer, and Jim Braddock because of their various connections to Louis and each other. So this movie was an event for me.

The movie had great strengths. It emphasized Joe Louis' importance outside sports very strongly, as a heroic figure to the African-American community of his era and increasingly to all young Americans regardless of color and ethnicity. There were interesting comments about the importance of his fights with Max Schmeling, personally, to some Jews in Europe in the era leading up to and during WWII. The attention given his tax problems after WWII and the way that he was very genuinely persecuted by the IRS was dealt with at length. All of this, and the discussion of his fights with Primo Carnera, Max Baer, and Max Schmeling were of great interest to me. I liked that they remembered to include Louis' work in increasing awareness of segregation and the need for improvement of civil rights in the army during WWII and that they didn't forget about his post-boxing work in integrating golf.

All the same, there were disappointing aspects of the movie as well. Perhaps Louis-Conn I has been given an abundance of attention in every book and documentary about Louis in the past, but the brevity with which it was treated disappointed me none the less. Like most documentaries have done, this one glossed over the Braddock fight in favor of the financial and political dealings that made it happen. I would have liked to have seen more on the fight itself. Louis-Lewis, Louis' defense against light heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis, was not mentioned at all. I think this was because the fight itself, a prime heavyweight knocking out an over the hill light heavy in the first round, was not spectacular. However, this was the first heavyweight championship fight between two black fighters in the history of the sport and failing to mention it in a movie which focused so heavily on Louis' importance to civil rights is a serious lack.

The biggest flaw I found, however, was highlighted by a scene that was one of my favorites. The film ran of the first Schmeling fight showed Schmeling, in the wake of his knockout win over Louis, gently helping his fallen foe back to his feet and embracing him like a brother. They also showed Schmeling's more than friendly reunion with Louis on 'This Is Your Life'. Yet, despite both of these scenes which showed the truly warm love that Schmeling felt for Louis, the movie appeared to depict Schmeling as a villain and a Nazi. In fact, historian Randy Roberts in one of his own segments explicitly said that Schmeling's good fortune as a Coca-Cola executive, in light of his German nationality and his supposed Nazi ties, was a horrible injustice when compared to Louis' troubles at the hands of his own government. I agree that Louis' treatment by the IRS was a horrendous injustice, but I feel that the attempt to make a villain out of Schmeling to amplify Louis' heroism was unnecessary. Louis' heroism in the ring and on behalf of the US Army during his career speaks for itself and doesn't require this kind of artificial assistance. I was likewise disappointed in the way Schmeling's victory over Louis in their first fight was depicted as entirely the result of Louis' failure to take Schmeling seriously. Schmeling fought a tactical fight and landed his great right hand with consistency, taking that away from him does not make Louis appear any greater. Louis' dominating rematch victory speaks for his greatness all by itself.

Overall I enjoyed the movie very much, but its flaws were clear.