Anthony Quinn

Requiem for a Heavyweight

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Mountain Rivera next to a poster advertising his fight

There are two versions of Requiem for a Heavyweight. The original was a 1956 TV movie starring Jack Palance as the ageing, punch-drunk boxer finally hitting the existential canvas. This movie version from six years later swaps out Palance for Anthony Quinn. Ralph Nelson directed both and preferred Palance – “truer to the role” was his verdict in a letter he wrote to the press. That’s remarkable in itself, writing to the press to diss an actor. I have not seen Palance’s version but it must be pretty good to come in ahead of Quinn, who overdoes it a bit, for sure – Marlon Brando in “contender” mode crossed with Quasimodo – but … Read more

La Strada

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Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina

The simple Italian led astray by an egotistical monster. Who could Federico Fellini have had in mind when he was making La Strada in 1954? This, according to all the books, is where Fellini the neorealist ends and Fellini the fantastical begins, in a movie about a strong man “buying” a halfwit daughter off a poor woman and then touring Italy with her as part of his act. It was Pope Francis’s favourite movie and directors as diverse as Peckinpah, Kurosawa, Konchalovsky and David Cronenberg have all sung its praises. Fascinatingly, both Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson have claimed it as an influence on key songs – on Hey, Mr Tambourine Man and … Read more

Across 110th Street

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Yaphet Kotto and Anthony Quinn

The Arriflex 35BL camera is the most important ingredient in Across 110th Street. It drives the look, the location, the acting style, the intimate mood, in fact almost every aspect of this strange hybrid of blaxploitation and noirish crime thriller. Silent, lightweight and released in time for the Munich Olympics, the new 35BL (the BL stands for blimped) was much easier to use than standard movie cameras. It could get into tight spaces and meant almost all of this film, also from 1972, could be shot out on the streets and inside the clubs and bars of New York – if you’ve seen the TV series The Deuce, Across 110th Street looks very much … Read more