Requiem for a Heavyweight is a great ensemble piece revolving around four characters. It's a tribute to the skill of Rod Serling's screenplay and the direction of Ralph Nelson that no one of them dominates the story.
Anthony Quinn as Mountain Rivera has been given the final knockout by the New York State Athletic Commission after a fight with up and coming heavyweight, Cassius Clay. His eyes won't take too many more blows, so his license is being pulled. He's got to look for another line of work, but ring skills and a sixth grade education is all he has for the job market.
If that wasn't enough, his manager Jackie Gleason made some bets and got some other gamblers to bet that Quinn wouldn't stand up more than three rounds under Clay's fists. The gamblers want their money.
What to do, Gleason thinks he can get him a gig as a wrestler, but the idea of putting on an Indian suit offends his sensibilities. The whole thing offends Mickey Rooney who is Quinn's corner man and Julie Harris, an employment counselor, has different ideas all together for Quinn.
It's a bitter thing for Quinn to not only learn he's through at the only thing he knows, but that his manager and friend doesn't even believe in him any more. The rest of the film is devoted to how all of the four of them will deal with a very bleak future.
Julie Harris does not get too many comments, but she has an interesting role as a prim and sexually frustrated middle aged civil servant who sees in Quinn some kind of personal reclamation project. Her life however has not given her any perspective in dealing with the boxing game and the people in it.
Gleason might have the bleakest future of all whether his gambling debts are paid or not. This is probably Jackie Gleason's best dramatic role and he's brilliant. For one thing he won't even have Mickey Rooney around who acts as everybody's conscience. Rooney is another ex-fighter who survives by tending to the cuts of competing pugilists and it's not something he likes, but something he does well and it keeps him in the only game he knows.
It all gets resolved, but not to everyone's liking in the end. Requiem for a Heavyweight is a brilliant piece of acting about the underside of the fight game and the bleak future that a lot who survive it have.
Anthony Quinn as Mountain Rivera has been given the final knockout by the New York State Athletic Commission after a fight with up and coming heavyweight, Cassius Clay. His eyes won't take too many more blows, so his license is being pulled. He's got to look for another line of work, but ring skills and a sixth grade education is all he has for the job market.
If that wasn't enough, his manager Jackie Gleason made some bets and got some other gamblers to bet that Quinn wouldn't stand up more than three rounds under Clay's fists. The gamblers want their money.
What to do, Gleason thinks he can get him a gig as a wrestler, but the idea of putting on an Indian suit offends his sensibilities. The whole thing offends Mickey Rooney who is Quinn's corner man and Julie Harris, an employment counselor, has different ideas all together for Quinn.
It's a bitter thing for Quinn to not only learn he's through at the only thing he knows, but that his manager and friend doesn't even believe in him any more. The rest of the film is devoted to how all of the four of them will deal with a very bleak future.
Julie Harris does not get too many comments, but she has an interesting role as a prim and sexually frustrated middle aged civil servant who sees in Quinn some kind of personal reclamation project. Her life however has not given her any perspective in dealing with the boxing game and the people in it.
Gleason might have the bleakest future of all whether his gambling debts are paid or not. This is probably Jackie Gleason's best dramatic role and he's brilliant. For one thing he won't even have Mickey Rooney around who acts as everybody's conscience. Rooney is another ex-fighter who survives by tending to the cuts of competing pugilists and it's not something he likes, but something he does well and it keeps him in the only game he knows.
It all gets resolved, but not to everyone's liking in the end. Requiem for a Heavyweight is a brilliant piece of acting about the underside of the fight game and the bleak future that a lot who survive it have.