It wasn't long after the remarkable career of boxing legend Joe Louis (1914-1981) reached its end that the low-budget biopic The Joe Louis Story (1953) was rushed into theatres. Understandably, the film isn't long on production values or major Hollywood talent, but it provides a compelling time-capsule glimpse at an African-American athlete who answered the prevalent prejudices of his era by dominating his sector of the sports landscape and seeing his achievements universally embraced.

Using Louis' final bout, the failed 1951 comeback fight against Rocky Marciano, as its starting point, the screenplay flashes back to his teen years in Detroit, where young Joe (Coley Wallace) is cajoled to spend his violin lesson money on boxing lessons. His mother (Evelyn Ellis) is unhappy when she finds out, but she accepts and encourages him to give it his best effort. The young natural soon attracts notice, becoming the state's Golden Gloves champ, and turns pro by 1934 under the tutelage of trainer Chappie Blackburn (James Edwards).

The film then turns to Joe's blistering rise through the rankings, as he racked up 27 victories before his first pro defeat in 1936 at the hands of former heavyweight champ Max Schmeling (William Thourlby). The humbled and refocused Louis rebounded to take the belt from James Braddock the following year, and he would keep it from all comers, including Schmeling, for the next twelve. Chronicling his entire career, the film incorporates copious footage from Louis's contests with Schmeling, Braddock, Marciano, Max Baer and Primo Carnera, and it also doesn't shy away from depicting the champ's turbulent marriage to Marva Trotter (Hilda Simms).

In casting 26-year-old boxer Coley Wallace in the lead, the filmmakers might have foregone performing polis, but they did get an actor with a striking physical resemblance to the real article, and whose rough-edged labors worked to his advantage when depicting Louis in his relatively naïve youth. Wallace went 20-7-0 in a six-year professional career, and had in fact scored a win over Marciano when both were amateurs. Wallace would actually wind up depicting Joe on-screen once again, as a walk-on in the modern era's best boxing biopic, Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980).

The Joe Louis Story would be the very first production credit for Stirling Silliphant, kicking off a prolific career behind the camera in TV and film that would be marked by the screenplays for In the Heat of the Night (1967), Charly (1968) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). The workmanlike direction came courtesy of Robert Gordon, a one-time child actor notably cast as the young Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927), who predominantly turned to TV work over the balance of his career.

Producer: Stirling Silliphant
Director: Robert Gordon
Screenplay: Robert Sylvester
Cinematography: Joseph C. Brun
Film Editing: Dave Kummins
Art Direction: Robert Gundlach
Music: George Bassman
Cast: Coley Wallace (Joe Louis), Hilda Simms (Marva Trotter Louis), Paul Stewart (Tad McGeehan), James Edwards (Jack Blackburn), John Marley (Mannie Seamon), Dots Johnson (Julian Black).
BW-88m.

by Jay S. Steinberg