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When America was on its knees, he brought us to our feet!
[img]http://www.murphsplace.com/crowe/braddock/images6/cmmontage.jpg[/img]
n June 13, 1935, the boxer James J. Braddock fought the fight of a lifetime. Born in Hell's Kitchen when that New York neighborhood still warranted that rough-and-tumble epithet, the 30-year-old heavyweight was the son of immigrants whose bloodlines and hardscrabble woes traced back to Ireland. Said to have weighed more than 17 pounds at birth, the adult Braddock tipped the scales around 190, stood nearly 6-foot-3 and was in the possession of a 75-inch reach. His most famous opponent, the Livermore Larruper, Max Baer, had an 81-inch reach, bringing him dauntingly close to Braddock's lopsided grin.
In "Cinderella Man," his movie about Braddock and the fight of his life, the director Ron Howard brings you viscerally close to understanding how that sideways smile was almost erased. Played by Russell Crowe with moist eyes and restless animal vigor, the pugilist known as the Cinderella Man entered the ring against Baer (an excellent Craig Bierko) with the odds 10-to-1 against him. The story of how this well-regarded boxer down on his luck faced those odds is one of the most celebrated in American sport, so it's a wonder it has never before been told on-screen. Filled with ups and heartbreaking downs, it is a story that can put a lump in your throat, though given Mr. Howard's inclination toward hokum, a lump on which you might easily gag.
[img]http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/03/arts/03cind.1.390.jpg[/img]
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