Erik Estrada is pretty much going to get a whole week of movies on this site before too long but until then, let's look at this movie, in which he plays Rico "Honeyboy'"Ramirez, the son of a boxer (Hector Elizondo) who never made it and walked out on his family.
This was an NBC TV movie of the week and came out while Estrada was fighting with his bosses on CHiPs over his salary. He was replaced on that show by Bruce Jenner, but came back for the last season.
To get to the top, Honeyboy gets a PR agent named Judy Wellman, played by Morgan Fairchild, so this movie had some incredible wattage when it came to early 80s TV starpower. He's on a quest to win the title from Tiger Maddox (Jem Echollas), who claims that the fight promoter that got Honeyboy this far worked all his fights like pro wrestling matches. Or, you know, pro boxing for the most part.
Of course the third act is all Honeyboy chasing away everyone who got him this far, but if you know boxing movies, you know he's going to win. I kind of loved the scene between Sugar Ray Robinson - that's really him - and Honeyboy's father. Their title match was as far as he got and Sugar Ray is pretty much giving him a little bit of recognition and you can see that Emilio doesn't want it but really does want it and it's some masterful acting for such a small moment in such a tiny TV movie and man, I've been thinking about it for several days and it still makes me choke up a little.
This was directed by John Berry, who co-wrote the script with Lee Gold. Berry was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater and ended up blacklisted in 1950. He had agreed to direct a short documentary on the Hollywood 10, the group that had refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee as they tried to find Communists in Hollywood. After directing He Ran All the Way, Hollywood 10 member Edward Dmytryk - who had been jailed for contempt of Congress - named Berry as a Communist when he was released from prison as part of his hope to get work in Hollywood again.
Settling in Paris, he co-directed Atoll K, the last comedy film of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and spent the rest of his career there, even after being permitted to make movies in Hollywood again, like The Bad News Bears Go to Japan.
This was an NBC TV movie of the week and came out while Estrada was fighting with his bosses on CHiPs over his salary. He was replaced on that show by Bruce Jenner, but came back for the last season.
To get to the top, Honeyboy gets a PR agent named Judy Wellman, played by Morgan Fairchild, so this movie had some incredible wattage when it came to early 80s TV starpower. He's on a quest to win the title from Tiger Maddox (Jem Echollas), who claims that the fight promoter that got Honeyboy this far worked all his fights like pro wrestling matches. Or, you know, pro boxing for the most part.
Of course the third act is all Honeyboy chasing away everyone who got him this far, but if you know boxing movies, you know he's going to win. I kind of loved the scene between Sugar Ray Robinson - that's really him - and Honeyboy's father. Their title match was as far as he got and Sugar Ray is pretty much giving him a little bit of recognition and you can see that Emilio doesn't want it but really does want it and it's some masterful acting for such a small moment in such a tiny TV movie and man, I've been thinking about it for several days and it still makes me choke up a little.
This was directed by John Berry, who co-wrote the script with Lee Gold. Berry was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater and ended up blacklisted in 1950. He had agreed to direct a short documentary on the Hollywood 10, the group that had refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee as they tried to find Communists in Hollywood. After directing He Ran All the Way, Hollywood 10 member Edward Dmytryk - who had been jailed for contempt of Congress - named Berry as a Communist when he was released from prison as part of his hope to get work in Hollywood again.
Settling in Paris, he co-directed Atoll K, the last comedy film of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and spent the rest of his career there, even after being permitted to make movies in Hollywood again, like The Bad News Bears Go to Japan.