The Real Max Baer Is Missing From 'Cinderella Man'

The well-meaning if inert new film "Cinderella Man" stamps director Ron Howard's penchant for glossy imagery and simplistic morality on the life of the famous Depression-era boxer James J. Braddock. Fighting the demons of poverty, Braddock (Russell Crowe) became a hero to many Americans by climbing out of obscurity to become the heavyweight champion of the world in 1935. Howard's latest "Seabiscuit"-esque tale of the underdog's triumph requires a heavy, though--a man in black boxing trunks to offset the hero's chivalrous valor. And who could better serve as a contrast to the Irish Catholic family man from New Jersey than a tough, mouthy Jewish kid with a million-dollar strut named Max Baer?

As presented in the movie, Baer (played with winning flair by Craig Bierko) is part raconteur, part demon--a fizzy combination of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. With boxing far from the classiest sport in most Americans' minds, "Cinderella Man" clears the way for Braddock-Crowe's ascent to heroism via inoculation, taking all the boxing-related stereotypes and implanting them in Baer to save Braddock.

Thus, Baer is portrayed as a womanizer, never appearing anywhere without a showgirl on each arm; he is a brute, having (according to the film) killed two men in the ring; and, worst of all, he is unrepentant about the violence that is part and parcel of his profession. In one particularly ugly scene, Baer taunts Braddock's wife Mae (Renee Zellweger) in a pre-fight encounter, telling her, "You're far too pretty to be a widow" and offering to comfort her after her husband's impending death.

To secure Braddock's place as a man of the people, one of the movie's emotional high points is a scene in which Mae, panic-stricken at the thought of her husband entering the ring with the man-eating Baer, goes to church to pray for Jim's safety. Her priest, noting the surprise in her eyes, points to the crowd gathered, kneeling and praying, and says, "They all think Jim's fightin' for them." I couldn't help but wonder, watching yet another instance of well-scrubbed Catholic piety onscreen, were they the only ones praying for their fighter that night?

Howard perhaps had to give Braddock a foil, so that his essential good-heartedness could shine through all the better, but it is a shame that he chose to do so at the expense of the real Max Baer, a legend in his own right, and to twist the facts of Baer's career to suit his narrative needs.

Born in 1909 in Omaha, Nebraska, Baer went professional as a boxer in 1929. Just a year later, he left Frankie Campbell unconscious after a bout in San Francisco, and the fighter later died of his injuries. Charged with manslaughter, Baer was eventually cleared, but his California boxing license was suspended for one year, and the incident would haunt the rest of his career.

The movie's portrayal of Baer's attitude toward this incident and others is grossly distorted. "Cinderella Man" has Baer casually bragging about the two men he had killed in the ring, but this is untrue on a number of levels; the second man the movie's Baer killed in fact went on to fight four more bouts before dying. The real Max Baer was wracked with guilt for what had happened to Campbell and provided financial support to his children to ease his conscience.

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