Requiem for a Heavyweight

Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) is an American drama directed by Ralph Nelson that you can watch online on iFILM. Louis "Mountain" Rivera has spent seventeen years fighting for money. A loss to a young Cassius Clay ends it: doctors ground him, his face is a ruin, and his manager Maish already has other plans that don't include Mountain's welfare. At 37, he has no trade, no savings, and no idea who he is outside the ring.

Anthony Quinn carries the film on his back — the performance works because Rivera is not broken by some clean dramatic blow but by the slow accumulation of small humiliations. Jackie Gleason plays Maish without casting him as a villain, which makes the character more uncomfortable to watch. Mickey Rooney and Julie Harris round out the cast. A young Cassius Clay appears as himself in one of his earliest screen appearances.

The screenplay came from Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, originally written for live television in 1956. That urgency carried over. This is a film about what happens to a man when the only thing he ever knew how to do is taken away. Stream Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) online on iFILM.