Max Baer
“The Tender Hearted Tiger” 1964
Television
Documentary, 25 minutes.
Restored
from video transfer
The Film
The 1964
documentary “The Tender Hearted Tiger” profiled the life of Heavyweight
Champion 1934-35 Max Baer. Fight footage,
still photographs and interviews with family and friends are shown. I previously posted a clip from this
production featuring Tony Galento, but this is the complete film. This is a great time capsule, though
inaccurately follows the path of Baer’s boxing career. For instance, Baer fought Schmeling in 1933,
which was three years before Schmeling fought Joe Louis. Also, Schmeling was not a Nazi, as the film suggests. Schmeling was used for Nazi propaganda
leading up to the Second World War, but was discarded after he lost to
Louis. Otherwise this is a great
introduction to Max Baer, with some very rare footage.
Restoration
The video
transfer I received was poor. Most
Sections were dark and the audio was low.
Video has much less latitude than film for restoration. Video can be tweaked only so far before the
image begins to fall apart. Still, I
cleaned up and boosted the audio portion, and adjusted the picture levels from
scene to scene to make the picture brighter and clearer. Otherwise, I made no edits to the film, and
it appears in its original cut.
