Liston-Clay Weigh In (1964)
A history-making heavyweight boxing match stood hours away from the opening bell when the two combatants weighed-in for the bout on February 25, 1964 in Miami Beach.
Sonny Liston had emerged as one of the most-feared fighters in the ring. Muhammad Ali, known then as Cassius Clay, was a young challenger known less for his boxing than for his non-stop verbal barrage. Liston’s legend included time served in prison for armed robbery, and a return to the pen for beating up a police officer. Simply getting a dirty look from Liston was enough to freeze most competitors in their tracks.
Into this intimidating scene strode Ali, a recent Olympic gold medalist who had simply survived against a left-hander in his last professional bout. Handicappers wrote Ali off as just another hopeful destined to be decimated by Liston’s sledgehammer attack. Forty-three of the 46 sportswriters polled at ringside picked Liston to win by a knockout.
Ali began a taunting campaign against Liston in the news media, predicting his own knockout victory. His rhetoric reached its peak at an hysterical encounter at an otherwise routine pre-fight weigh-in. Either through reaction or by design, Ali’s entourage was forced to restrain the fighter when Liston walked into the room. It was a chaotic scene that left even battle-hardened reporters amazed at its tension and barely-controlled hostility.
No one paid attention to the weight measurement for the two fighters (Liston 218 pounds, Ali 210). Doctors revealed Ali’s heart rate racing at 120 beats per minute, leading reporters to conclude that he was the one psyched-out by Liston’s simmering rage. One reporter promoted the rumor that Ali was looking for an air ticket to escape Miami before the fight started.
But by the start of the third round, it was clear that Liston was the fighter searching for a way out. Ali punched quicker and more decisively than Liston, and the challenger turned to reporters at ringside at the end of the sixth round to proclaim himself the winner and new heavyweight champion. Liston failed to answer the bell for the seventh round. The stunning result created a scene almost as unhinged as the weigh in earlier, leading Ali to famously boast in his post-fight interview that he “shook up the world.”
A. E. Perkins
7 December 2023
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THE BIRDS (1963)
The movie which some critics called director Alfred Hitchcock’s “last great film” debuted on March 28, 1963. Starring Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor, “The Birds” was a success in theaters, but likely reached its best audience through repeated showings on television.
Hitchcock’s story depicted birds assaulting a seaside village, a one-room schoolhouse, and finally, a rural residence. He kept a constantly-narrowing focus on a small group of people victimized by the unexplained attacks, and the concept served to particularly unnerve viewers watching in the perceived safety of their own homes. Hot on the heels of 1960’s “Psycho,” “The Birds” turned Hitchcock’s storytelling reputation from intrigue and shadowy characters to outright terror and fear of the unknown.
“The Birds” was written for the screen by Evan Hunter, from Daphne duMaurier’s tale of birds attacking a small British town. The film lacks a conventional soundtrack or score, with the exception of a scene in which Hedren listens to schoolchildren singing “Risseldy Rosseldy,” while an increasing number of crows land on playground equipment behind her. Hitchcock creates a suspenseful counterpoint between the innocent music inside the schoolhouse and the menacing birds waiting en masse to attack the children.
Which, shockingly enough, they do.
The lasting impact of “The Birds” probably lies in its disconcerting ambiguity. The film ends without giving any reason for the bird attacks. In fact, the final scene manages to present a harrowing image of humans hopelessly outnumbered by creatures once considered feathered friends.
A. E. Perkins
6 December 2023 _____
DOGS IN SPACE
(1960)
There is hardly a more bizarre footnote in the early years of space exploration than the need to put animals on top of chemical-fueled rockets and send them into earth orbit. It’s a fact that both the United States and the Soviet Union dared not risk sending a human being to test the still-unknown effect of space flight. So, while engineers considered a variety of creatures, great and small, to become man’s trailblazer to the stars, they settled mostly on monkeys, and dogs.
Belka and Strelka emerged as the most celebrated canines to ride into outer space. They flew aboard the USSR’s Sputnik 5 on August 19,1960. Although the craft also carried 42 mice and a grey rabbit among other animals and plants, Belka’s and Strelka’s story was the only one to fire the imagination of the earth-bound public. They were hailed as the first creatures to come back from earth orbit alive, several months before a man would manage the feat.
Russian filmmakers dramatized the pair’s tale with a popular animated feature in 2010. The real Strelka is immortalized in a completely different fashion, appearing in an exhibit of early orbital feats.
Soviet space scientists said they chose dogs as test animals because canines could stay in an enclosed space for a longer time. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, were too restless. French engineers took a different, smaller-scale approach. Rats were their orbital creatures of choice. It must gall guinea pigs that they were entirely overlooked in the annals of animal space pioneers.
A. E. Perkins
12 December 2023
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