I believe that all boxing films, whether comedies or not, are great. If one accepts this premise, then the first part of The Battle of the Century cannot fail. Stan is sent into the ring to face the inevitable Goliath and makes an excellent punching bag, albeit in his own unique way, retreating from the beating into a dream world. The second part features a different kind of ring (a busy urban street) and extends the combat as an ever-expanding group of people are drawn to the chaos. And the choice of weapon? A pie in the face. This was already a trite motif at the time, but the idea was to push it as far is it could go in order to create the “pie picture to end all pie pictures”. It is unclear who was counting, but apparently about 4,000 pies were thrown. Henry Miller had no doubts about the result, calling it “a masterpiece”. Trivia lovers, take note: the boxing match was inspired by the fight between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey on 22 September 1927, which history remembers as “The Battle of the Long Count”. Tunney ended up on the mat, but Dempsey continued to loiter around instead of retiring to his corner; consequently, there was a delay before the referee began his count, Tunney got up again, and ultimately took home the Champion’s Belt.

Andrea Meneghelli