The Great White Hope (1970)

Directors

Martin Ritt

Cast

James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, Chester Morris, Hal Holbrook, Beah Richards, Moses Gunn

The story

Set between 1910 and 1915, the story follows Jack Jefferson, patterned after real-life boxer Jack Johnson, going on a hot streak of victories in the boxing ring as he defeats every white boxer around. Soon the press and others who want to see white people win at sports, announce the search for a "great white hope", a white boxer who will defeat Jefferson for the heavyweight title. Jefferson, meanwhile, prepares for a few more matches, but he lets his guard down by courting the beautiful, and white, Eleanor Bachman, and when everyone, including Jack's black "wife", discover this, the tensions grow to fever pitch.

Genres

Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.

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