MovieChat Forums > Night and the City (1950) Discussion > Night and the City vs. Requiem for a Hea...

Night and the City vs. Requiem for a Heayweight


I enjoyed this movie so much..I am a big Richard Widmark fan..and I love the genre of movies that involve fighting/wrestling as a backdrop..There is something about a fight that brings out a raw passion that is hard to achieve in another setting..Movies like Hard Times, Raging Bull, Fat City, The Harder They Fall, etc., which may or may not have been interesting movies on their own are elevated with fighting in the mix in my opinion..
This movie in many ways reminds me of Requiem of a Heavyweight..another favorite of mine with the great Jackie Gleason along with Anthony Quinn and Mickey Rooney..In both films..true practioners of a real sport are involved by their promoter/manager to enter bogus wrestling..the Managers are desperate to fend of bad guys who are after them..and see their trusting fighters as the only solution..Both films ends sadly..with many people broken in the aftermath..and both films have intense ring action..In Requiem, the beginning of the film is about as realistic as knockout could be experienced on film in my opinion..and in this movie, the wrestling match is as intense as could be portrayed..Both are rated almost equally on this site..and I can't pick 1 over the other either..other than I really liked both..

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I agree with the appreciation for the ring as a backdrop, especially in the old films. I prefer Requiem For A Heavyweight though, as the three main characters blew me away after my first viewing. Both are great films.

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I thought of that comparison, too.

Remember, though, TV wrestling isn't bogus or fake, it's scripted. They are real, trained athletes. The story line and list of moves is called "Kayfabe."

Interesting rivalry in this film between scripted and Greco-Roman wrestling. Many famous TV wrestlers started out as Olympic or Greco-Roman wrestlers before turning Pro. I believe, in fact, Mazurki and Zybyszko were both pro wrestlers in the US.

To me it was interesting to see what strong men look like without steroids and other "dope."

In "Requiem" I especially liked the androgynous villain, "Ma," and a pre-Star Trek Stanley Adams (later to become famous as the Tribbles' importer, Cyrano Jones).

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