Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about movies and television shows centering around martial arts, boxing or wrestling.
I recently discovered a three minute clip on YouTube, which included two of Jim Londos’ matches from the 1930s. In the first match, Londos wrestles Abe Coleman. In the second match, Londos wrestles a mixed styles match with Oki Shikina, who was trained by Taro Miyake, the Judo black belt and professional wrestler. Londos was the biggest box office star
On November 18, 1938, former world wrestling champion Jim Londos wrestled current world champion Bronko Nagurski, the great former football player for the Chicago Bears. The men wrestled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for Nagurski’s version of the world wrestling championship. You can view the 14-minute match in its entirety on YouTube. When I viewed the match for the first time, several
At nearly 70 years of age, Stanislaus Zbyszko made his film debut in Night and the City (1950). Billed as Gregorious, a retired wrestler and the father of London’s wrestling promoter, Zbyszko displayed his wrestling skills, even at his advanced age, in the film’s signature scene. The movie begins with a man chasing Harry Fabian, a London hustler always looking
Joe Stecher capturing the world wrestling championship from Earl Caddock is the oldest professional wrestling film in existence. Tragically, promoters filmed the biggest matches of the 1910s and 1920s including the second Frank Gotch-Georg Hackenshmidt match, but they rotted in storage areas. Camera operators filmed Ed “Strangler” Lewis vs. Wayne “Big” Munn, Stecher vs. Stanislaus Zbyszko, and the reunification match
Broadcast companies were looking for content during the early days of television. Besides older movies and some broadcast company productions, sports were a source of programming for many television stations. The Dumont Television Network was one of the powerhouse networks in the beginning of the Golden Age of Television. One of their most popular programs was wrestling and the star
Monogram Pictures released So’s Your Aunt Emma! (1942) on April 17, 1942. Zasu Pitts stars as Aunt Emma Bates. In her youth, Aunt Emma was engaged to up-and-coming professional fighter Jim O’Banion. Her sister didn’t approve of the match, so they sent her on a trip to break up the couple. Aunt Emma regretted it and starts following the career
On July 7, 1939, Twentieth Century-Fox Films released the final Mr. Moto “B” film starring Peter Lorre as Inspector Kentaro Moto. Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation finds Mr. Moto accompanying the Queen of Sheba’s Crown from its discovery in an Egyptian archaeological site to a San Francisco museum. Mr. Moto suspects the arch criminal Metaxess, who authorities believed was dead, intends
Marvel Studios released the series Iron Fist on Netflix on March 17, 2017. The series based on the Marvel comic about Danny Rand, a young man presumed to have died in a plane crash. Rand is rescued as a child by monks, who teach him martial arts in the Himalayas. The series contains a number of great martial arts fight scenes.
On April 7, 1939, Twentieth Century-Fox released the seventh of eight Mr. Moto “B” movies. Mr. Moto in Danger Island begins with Mr. Moto on a ship headed to Puerto Rico. Mr. Moto, played by Peter Lorre, and several passengers are watching a wrestling match. Twister McGurk, played by Warren Hymer, is wrestling Sailor Sam, played by Ward Bond. Mr. Moto
In the sixth of eight Mr. Moto films released between 1937 and 1939, Interpol police officer Kentaro Moto pursues a group of international saboteurs. Twentieth Century – Fox Film Corporation released Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1939) (affiliate link) on January 20, 1939. Peter Lorre returns as the cerebral but deadly Mr. Moto. Ricardo Cortez plays Fabian the Great, a ventriloquist,