The Johnson-Jeffries Fight

The Johnson-Jeffries Fight
Produced by John Stuart Blackton [1]
Release dates
  • 1910 (1910)
Country United States

The Johnson-Jeffries Fight is a 1910 American film report on the heavyweight championship boxing fight between Jack Johnson and James J. Jeffries in Reno, Nevada.

Film

The footage depicts the heavy-weight championship that took place on July 4, 1910, when Johnson knocked out Jeffries. The fight was already a media sensation weeks before it happened and was dubbed "The Fight of the Century". This sparked motivation to film the event. The fight's promotor, George "Tex" Richard sold exclusive film rights. The film was recorded by nine cameramen and two hours long.[2] Novelist Jack London was also present in the crowd, reporting the event.

Since Johnson was African-American and Jeffries was white the competition took on racial undertones. The press dubbed Jeffries "The Great White Hope" and was astounded when Johnson eventually beat Jeffries.[3] This caused race riots [3] in many places across the USA and provided the film with more public attention in the United States than any other film to date and for the next five years, until the release of The Birth of a Nation (1915).[4] On July 7, 1910, only three days after the fight various states and cities in the USA declared they would not allow the screening of the footage.[3] The picture was banned virtually everywhere in the South,[5] as well as in South Africa.[6]

Two weeks after the match former President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid boxer and fan, wrote an article for The Outlook in which he supported banning not just moving pictures of boxing matches, but a complete ban on all prize fights in America. He cited the "crookedness" and gambling that surrounded such contests and that moving pictures have "introduced a new method of money getting and of demoralization."The controversy surrounding the film directly[4] motivated Congress to ban distribution of all prizefight films across state lines in 1912; the ban was lifted in 1940.

Legacy

In 2005, the film of the Jeffries-Johnson "Fight of the Century" was entered into the United States National Film Registry as being worthy of preservation.[7]

Sources

  1. ↑ "Jeffries-Johnson World's Championship Boxing Contest, Held at Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910 (1910) : Full Cast & Crew". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2016-01-09.
  2. ↑ "History in the Media". Books.google.be. p. 192. Retrieved 2016-01-09.
  3. 1 2 3 Barak Y. Orbach. "THE JOHNSON-JEFFRIES FIGHT : 100 YEARS THENCE: THE JOHNSON-JEFFRIES FIGHT AND CENSORSHIP OF BLACK SUPREMACY" (PDF). Law.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2016-01-09.
  4. 1 2 Abel, Richard (502). Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. Books.google.com. p. 502. ISBN 9780415234405. Retrieved 2016-01-09.
  5. ↑ "Controversial Cinema". Books.google.be. p. 98. Retrieved 2016-01-09.
  6. ↑ "Censorship". Books.google.be. p. 807. Retrieved 2016-01-09.
  7. ↑ "National Film Registry 2005: Films Selected to the National Film Registry (National Film Preservation Board, Library of Congress)". Loc.gov. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
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