Ron Howard and Cinderella Man

I don't like Ron Howard, the movie director. I've never really liked anything he's ever done, including "Happy Days." His movies are always devoid of anything interesting, dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, mostly by painting all characters and conflicts into archetypical roles of good guys vs bad guys. There's never any shades of gray, and that is where humanity resides.



His latest movie, "Cinderella Man," is the Ron Howard movie that bothers me the most. In the movie, heavyweight champion Max Baer is portrayed as a pompous bastard, who claimed he was going to kill Braddock, the titular character played by Russell Crowe, with a single blow to the head and committed several other taunting, "dastardly" maneuvers to psych out Braddock during the run up to their heavyweight championship fight in 1934/cinematic climax.

However, while true that Max Baer once killed a man in the ring, the movie did not do Baer justice. For instance, the movie didn't show that in real life Baer lived with so much constant guilt over the 1929 death of boxer Frankie Campbell that he paid for Campbell's children's college educations. According to Wikipedia, the real Max Baer once said, "I never had a fight out of the ring. I never harmed anyone outside the ring. I loved people."

In Baer's defense, many people, including Baer's own son, Max Baer, Jr. (better known as Jethro from "The Beverly Hillbillies"), have come out against Ron Howard's portrayal of Baer as the bad guy/monster. Max Baer deserves to be respected and revered as one of the few World Heavyweight Champions who won more than 50 fights by knockout. In 1933, Baer defeated German boxer Max Schmeling, who was sponsored and favored by one Adolf Hitler, in the 10th round when the referee stopped the fight. Baer became an instant hero in the Jewish community and a champion of his heritage. (*note the Star of David in the top left corner of his commemorative stamp in the above picture, issued by the United States Postal Service.)

Finally, there is a more personal reason for my acrimony towards this Ron Howard movie in particular. Max Baer is my father and I's namesake. When Max Baer fought Lou Nova in the first televised prize fight in 1939, my father was still in the womb. Since my grandmother had pretty much run out of names after giving birth to 8 children before him, including 5 boys, she decided that she would name him after the winner. Even though Lou Nova won that fight, my grandfather pleaded with her to go with Max instead. Thank god for grandfathers, I say. I mean, Lou?

This is one of my favorite stories to tell, mainly because I love thinking about my grandmother, a tough broad in her own right, hanging the name of her 9th child on a heavyweight prize fight. That sounds like something I'd do. It also gave my dad a great childhood nickname, "Little Lou," making me "Lil'er Lou" when I was growing up, and fostered his love for the sport that he eventually passed on to me, father-son bonding at its best, over a bell and 2 pairs of glove (the family dog referreed the "fights.")

Even so, after this terrible attempt at a boxing flick from Ron Howard, people who've already seen "Cinderella Man" look at me sideways when I tell my favorite story. "Wasn't he a pompous bastard who bragged about manslaughter?" It kills the narrative and makes a mockery of someone who I feel proud to call my namesake. The story feels almost ruined at the hands of someone who writes worse dialog than George Lucas. Nooooooooo!!!