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Azzizzi
Since: Oct, 2009
26th Feb, 2013 05:32:17 AM
I don't know what movie that is, but here's a list that may help: http://www.imdb.com/list/Eerke67JWRI/
. I thought number 69 was kind of funny: "This title no longer available."
Either a film or a Made-for-TV Movie, I saw it on TV in the seventies or possibly very early eighties. Based on (if not specifically about) Muhammad Ali. Not The Greatest where Ali plays himself, it was a shaved-headed man who played the Ali-type character. (And of course, the actor was black.) I believe it ends with "Ali" losing the heavyweight championship, although there's a crawl at the end saying he regained his championship. Also, in the part of the film dealing with "Ali's" refusal to serve in the military during The Viet Nam War, there's a scene where friends and relations come to visit him just before he's shipped off to prison and, during the going-away party, a friend/relative/Nation of Islam member who looks similar to him takes his place (they switch clothes) while he gets bundled off by the rest.
EDIT on 3/10/13 - answering myself, I think it was The Great White Hope. To a sheltered under-10 with little knowledge of early 20th century history, it looked like it was based on Ali. But it was based on Jack Johnson, with a shave-headed James Earl Jones playing "Jack Jefferson." There's a scene where he's going to get sent up the river for having sex with a white woman & he escapes by getting someone else to pretend to be him - not for his whole stretch, just long enough to confuse the cops tailing him so he can leave the country. At the end he loses the fight, and I now sort-of remember that I wondered why they didn't put in a crawl about his regaining the championship (which Ali did), rather than there actually being one.
Edited by randomsurfer