James Stafford features in a new book from boxing author and podcaster Steve Hunt.
In late 2024, Stafford appeared on Hunt’s excellent Boxing Movie Podcast to discuss Ron Howard’s boxing epic ‘Cinderella Man’ (listen here). He was invited on the pod due to his love of cinema and his fascination with boxer James J. Braddock who was the inspiration for Stafford’s book ‘Unbelievable Underdogs & Rebellious Role Models: Sporting Heroes Who Defied the Odds and Shocked the World’.
Hunt drew on his podcast to write ‘Knockout Movies! A History of Boxing Cinema’ and the book features Stafford’s discussion about Cinderella Man.
The book offers a fascinating insight to some of the greatest and most significant boxing films ever made. Filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Curtiz, Stanley Kubrick, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, and Sylvester Stallone have used boxing as a backdrop for telling stories on celluloid.
All these giants of cinema are discussed in the pages of this book. The book contains interviews with film scholars and experts about boxing movies from every decade from the 1920s through to the 2000s. Alongside popular classics such as Rocky, Raging Bull, The Harder They Fall and Million Dollar Baby, Knockout Movies! examines lesser known gems including Hitchcock’s silent movie The Ring, film noirs The Set-Up and Body and Soul, Stanley Kubrick’s second feature Killer’s Kiss, and an example of the Blaxploitation cinematic genre, Hammer.
All conversations in the book originated from the Boxing Movie Podcast and every guest was chosen for their specialist knowledge for the movie up for discussion, ensuring a variety of voices and perspectives to enhance your knowledge and enjoyment of the films.
Get your copy here.