Race and Ring:
The Sweet Science on the Silver Screen

Efforts to repeat the success of the Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight began almost immediately. In June of 1899, for example, reigning heavyweight champion Bob Fitzsimmons faced off against James J. (Jim) Jeffries at the Coney Island Athletic Club in Brooklyn, New York, in what was his second title defense. As with the Corbett-Fitzsimmons bout, the title belt changed hands, with Jeffries overwhelming the heavily favored champion, knocking Fitzsimmons out in the 11^th round. With motion pictures on hand to capture the event, the resulting film (the Jeffries-Fitzsimmons Fight) turned up in the Northwest barely a month after the fight took place, playing the Seattle Theatre for a single night on July 13, 1899.^[1]

Then, when Jim Jeffries successfully defended his title just a few months later, in November 1899, defeating Thomas Sharkey in 25 rounds, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was on hand to capture the action. Unfortunately, they did so while experimenting with artificial lights, an innovation that was anything but pleasant for the fighters involved. “[T]he heat from Biograph’s intense lighting affected the fighters,” Dan Streible noted. “Scalded scalps, massive perspiration, and weight loss cause by the low-hanging lamps combined with the rib-crushing beating suffered by both gladiators to make the match memorable but brutal.”^[2]

Following the Jeffries-Sharkey Fight there was a brief lull in new prizefight films appearing in Seattle, which didn’t really pick up again until 1905. That year, in November, the Grand Opera House booked the Nelson-Britt Prize Fight, a lightweight championship bout that took place in Colma, California, in early September. The pictures were shown at the Grand Opera House for two days only, beginning on Sunday, November 26^th.^[3]

Despite the short run, the film proved popular enough that the venue brought it back twice – once in December 1905, then again the following April. In addition, the Grand Opera House also booked the Gans-Nelson Contest, a lightweight championship between fighters Joe Gans and Battling Nelson, in November 1906.

Part of this resurgence of fight pictures in Seattle was due to the fact that John Cort, manager of the Grand Opera House, and a man who typically specialized in stage entertainment, made a decided effort to bring fight films into the Northwest. But this proved a short dalliance, as his attention was eventually drawn away to other business concerns. After moving his bigger stage productions over to the newly-built Moore Theatre in 1907, Cort kept the Grand Opera House in his orbit but used it as a secondary house for lesser touring shows or, sometimes, leasing the space to other showmen. One of those was Eugene Levy, an up-and-coming nickelodeon manager in Seattle who recognized opportunity when he saw it. Although Levy’s shows were usually balanced programs – equally split between film and vaudeville attractions – he also knew that prizefight films were a type of niche programming that inspired loyalty amongst a certain type of moviegoer. With fight pictures being distributed on a state rights basis, men like Cort and Levy bid on the exclusive right to show a film within a certain territory, allowing them to showcase these films not only in Seattle, Washington’s largest film market, but in other parts of the region as well. With business matters taking John Cort out of the fight game, Levy jumped at the chance to secure the territorial rights for select boxing films, giving him a monopoly over first-run screenings across Washington and other parts of the Northwest.

Eugene Levy was a home-grown Seattle boy who got into the film business at the start of the nickelodeon boom, quickly becoming one of the city’s top picture men. Within a few years he was already managing houses in several cities, mostly in Seattle but also in other locations across Washington and Oregon. A firm believer in the value of combination shows, he remained wed to the balanced program approach for longer than many of his contemporaries, who eventually switched to all-picture bills. Levy, in fact, would stay true to the format through World War I, for many years running the old Orpheum Theatre on Third Avenue as a combination house.

Levy wasn’t the only Seattle showman interested in booking fight films, but he was ambitious and his success in the nickelodeon space allowed him to become a formidable player in the state rights arena. He was also entering the fight game at the right time, and not just because there was a new uptick in boxing films entering the market. The sport was also on the cusp of identifying its next big star – the boxer who would capture the public’s mind and raise interest in the sport. This champion, however, wouldn’t be in the mold of John L. Sullivan, Gentleman Jim Corbett or Jim Jeffries. He was an explosive heavyweight who was big, talented, controversial, and dominated the field like few before him. The new titleholder, as of 1908, was Jack Johnson. And he was African American.

Race had a long and complicated history in the sport of boxing. Peter Jackson, for example, was a native of West India and a legitimate heavyweight contender in the early 1890s. But the reigning champion at the time, John L. Sullivan, made it quite clear that he would never put his title on the line against a black fighter, so Jackson was denied his chance at the belt. When Jim Corbett took the title from Sullivan in 1892, he too chose to maintain the color line, despite having fought Jackson in a no-decision contest the year before. Corbett was defeated by Bob Fitzsimmons in 1897, but he also steadfastly refused to take on black challengers, as did James J. Jeffries, who took the title away from Fitzsimmons.^[4] While it was not uncommon for black and white fighters to square off in the ring (like Corbett, Jeffries fought several African American fighters on his way up), when it came to the actual heavyweight championship there were separate belts divided by color, denying talented fighters like Jackson, “Denver” Ed Martin or Sam Langford a shot at holding the true world championship.

Despite this politicking when it came to the heavyweight title, however, color was less of a factor in the sport’s lower weight classes. And when it came to fight films, it’s not as if white audiences were averse to watching black boxers. When John Cort booked the Gans-Nelson Contest for the Grand Opera House in November 1906, he did so knowing that reigning lightweight champion, Joe Gans, was African American. Accounts of that two-day engagement, which began on Sunday, November 11^th, don’t indicate whether race played a factor in how the film was received in Seattle. Contemporary articles seem to indicate that audiences were just as excited to see this championship defense as any other, despite the fact that the titleholder was a different race.

The fight had taken place in Goldfield, Nevada, some two months previous, in September, so it was still fresh on the public’s mind. Gans, the reigning lightweight champion, successfully defended his title when Battling Nelson was disqualified late in the fight after a controversial foul call. The touring company that arrived with the Gans-Nelson Contest was managed by Johnny Reid, who was part of Battling Nelson’s entourage and appeared in the film himself. At each screening Reid stood onstage, near the screen, providing fight commentary for the audience, in addition calling out the names of ringside celebrities as they flashed onscreen.

The picture was a long one, or at least the Grand claimed it was showing the long version. The fight itself lasted 42 rounds, making the Gans-Nelson Contest a good deal longer than previous fight pictures that had been shown in Seattle. But although the Grand claimed that they would show all 42 rounds in their entirety, that may not have been the case.^[5] Instead, the presentation appears to have followed the format used in other cities: audiences saw the first 21 rounds, after which the film skipped ahead and showed rounds 39-42. Regardless, this wasn’t a short film by any means. The version of the Gans-Nelson Contest being shown at the Grand was allegedly 11,000 feet in length, which would have resulted in a run time nearing 2½ hours, not including reel changes.

As would often be the case with prizefight films, the promoters used controversy to sell the picture. “Of course everybody remembers the talk about the foul blow which ended the fight,” the Post-Intelligencer remarked before the film debuted. “The pictures will show how this blow was struck and they will tell the story far more graphically than it is possible to do in words…Eastern experts who have seen the pictures state that it was impossible for Referee Siler to have seen the blow which he declared to be foul and which ended the fight. Seattle fans can settle that point for themselves tonight.”^[6] The Gans-Nelson Contest was shown at popular prices, with the Grand Opera House advertising the show as suitable for both women and children. (To underscore that point, the venue hosted a special matinee performance on Monday the 12^th for the newsboys of Seattle, who attended the show for free.)

The controversy angle was a good selling point, for at least two of Seattle’s dailies were eager to determine whether the Gans-Nelson Contest proved that Battling Nelson lost on a bad call. But, after finally seeing the match onscreen, both agreed with the outcome. “That Gans out-pointed, out-generaled and out-fought Nelson all the way through the now famous fight at Goldfield is clearly shown by the moving pictures,” stated the Daily Times. They couldn’t say whether Battling Nelson’s foul in the 42^nd round was intentional (Nelson hit Gans below the belt), but they felt certain that Referee Siler was in a good position to make the correct call, awarding the fight to Joe Gans. But how the crowd at the Grand Opera House reacted to this – footage of a black man claiming the lightweight championship over a white man – was indeed interesting. The Daily Times attended the first performance and their writer clearly felt that the audience was a pro-Gans crowd. The writer for the Star, on the other hand, who seems to have attended the same screening, reported that patrons gave Battling Nelson an ovation at the end of the film, despite being overmatched and losing on a technicality.^[7] (Joe Gans himself would later allege that the picture had been specifically edited to obscure Battling Nelson’s foul and make the white fighter appear better than he had been in the ring.^[8])

Marring this opening show at the Grand Opera House, however, was the fact that the operator spent a good deal of time in hand-to-sprocket combat with the projector. The machine (apparently a newer model he was not familiar with) had an uptake problem, causing the screen image to “slip” on several occasions as the fight unfurled. If that wasn’t bad enough, the film also broke more than once, causing extended delays while it was mended on the fly. One would have expected Johnny Reid, as the touring manager and lecturer, to cover these gaps, but apparently his narration was less than advertised; aside from calling off each round and pointing out a few interesting facts, he generally stayed silent for most of the show. (Although he was, apparently, fuming with each new projector malfunction.) A different machine was secured for the remaining shows at the Grand so audiences would get a better experience at those screenings.^[9]

Not much was made of Joe Gans’ race during the 1906 Seattle engagement of the Gans-Nelson Contest, aside from accounts as to whether audiences may have had a preference for one fighter over the other. Three years later, in 1909, another prizefight film arrived that pitted white and black fighters against each other. This engagement of the Burns-Johnson Champion Contest was also uncontroversial, though it would mark the first time local fight fans had a chance to see Jack Johnson, the world’s newest heavyweight champion.^[10]

Jack Johnson, first African American to hold the undisputed world heavyweight title, won the belt in a fight that took place in Sydney, Australia, in December 1908. As was typical, promoters for the Burns-Johnson Champion Contest used a controversy to help sell the picture, but in this case it had nothing to do with Johnson’s race. Instead, the pre-engagement publicity focused on whether Canadian Tommy Burns, the reigning titleholder who agreed to finally break the heavyweight color line, may have turned his ankle in the 5^th round, leaving him at a disadvantage for the remainder of the match. Based on the show’s publicity, the fact that the world’s undisputed heavyweight champion was, for the first time, an African American, was notable, though not enough to exploit as part of selling the picture.

It took nearly six months after the bout for the Burns-Johnson Champion Contest pictures to turn up in Seattle, where they opened a three-night stand at the Moore on June 20, 1909. Like the Gans-Nelson Contest in 1906, the film’s promoter, Hugh D. McIntosh, had a direct connection to the bout itself, having served as referee for the fight. McIntosh himself didn’t appear with the film, but the Moore engagement did have an unnamed lecturer at each screening – a man who claimed to have been present at the fight and who could, therefore, provide first-hand details.^[11] In addition to this lecturer, a new feature for this engagement was the fact that reel changes were covered with additional entertainment, as would have been done in the city’s nickelodeon theatres. In this case, a series of glass slides were projected onto the Moore screen, each featuring portraits of the era’s top boxers. This feature likely might have gone unmentioned in the show’s reviews were it not for the fact that lightweight Jimmy Britt was misidentified as “Willie,” something that brought titters of laughter from the boxing afficionados in the audience.

The Burns-Johnson Champion Contest was on the short side, lasting a mere 14 rounds, but showed clearly that challenger Jack Johnson had dominated his opponent. Tommy Burns came out flying in the first few rounds, but Johnson easily fended him off, biding time until Burns wore himself out. In the 5^th round Burns unexpectedly fell and claimed to have twisted his ankle, which he attributed to his poor performance thereafter. The Post-Intelligencer was fully on board with that storyline. “This blow, and the position in which Burns fell, are plainly shown in the moving picture reproduction of the fight,” they claimed. “…So careful is the camera in catching every detail that Burns’ reception of the blow, his fall, the method in which he landed and turned his ankle, and his hurried recovery of his feet, have been carefully followed in the picture by experts, who agree with him that his ankle was undoubtedly badly wrenched.”^[12] Burns hobbled through the 14^th round before Jack Johnson finally sent him to the canvas. This should have been by knockout, but local police jumped into the ring and stopped the fight on the eight count. That awarded the title to Jack Johnson on points, and it’s possible that the ringside police invasion may have been an effort to salvage what remained of the white fighter’s pride.

The relatively short duration of the fight left a lot of room for padding, which was how films like the Burns-Johnson Champion Contest ballooned to feature length. Additional footage shown as part of this engagement included scenes of both fighters in their training camps, festivities in and around stadium on fight day, pictures of the gathered crowd and the fighter introductions. Most eyes, however, were focused on the new black champion. “The negro is a magnificent specimen of the athlete,” went a pre-engagement notice in the Daily Times, “and pictures show to the smallest detail the methods that he used in defeating Tommy Burns, a man six inches shorter and weighing thirty pounds less.”^[13]

The crowd for the opening show at the Moore was smaller than expected, but there’s no indication that this was due to the picture’s racial implications. The Post-Intelligencer, of course, felt that Burns’ fall in the 5^th round was a key factor in the outcome. Burns to that point had been the aggressor, and to them Jack Johnson only appeared dominant after the fall. “After the sixth round it is only too apparent who will be the victor, and in spite of Burns’ gameness the negro proves to be the better man.”^[14] Still, there was an air of inevitability that existed even in the early rounds. Although Tommy Burns was aggressive, the Post-Intelligencer had to admit that Johnson was usually just swatting away the punches, as if he was engaged in a sparring exercise. Throughout the 14^th round the camera remained fixed on Jack Johnson, capturing the moment he clubbed Burns with a right to the head, sending the Canadian to the mat as pandemonium broke out. “When the police stop the fight Burns does not seem to be in any worse shape than in several other rounds and he seems willing to continue,” the Daily Times observed in their own review, perhaps insinuating that end of the match was, in fact, a calculated retreat.^[15]

So despite the fact that Jack Johnson was the first black man to hold the world heavyweight title, that wasn’t much of a factor for audiences in Seattle. As with previous fight films, fans came to the Moore to get their first look at the new champion and judge the bout for themselves, and don’t seem to have been bothered with the broader implications of Jack Johnson’s win.

It wouldn’t stay that way for long.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] See “Amusements,” Seattle Star, 13 July 1899, Page 4; “A Fake at the Seattle Theater,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 July 1899, Page 12; and “At the Seattle Theatre,” Seattle Daily Times, 14 July 1899, Page 5. This bout was infamous because the pictures taken from the event didn’t turn out well, leaving the filmmakers with little to show for their outlay. Since they (and the fighters) had a stake in the resulting film, they made the controversial decision to re-stage the match a few days later, getting James J. Jeffries and Bob Fitsimmons to square off again in an attempt to mimic their original fight. This fact was an open secret, but in Seattle the Post-Intelligencer was incensed with what they considered to be a fake film, which played into their vicious review of the engagement at the Seattle Theatre.
[2] Dan Streible, Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema (Berkley: University of California Press – 2008), Page 106.
[3] See “Britt-Nelson Fight Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 24 November 1905, Page 5; “Famous Fight Pictures,” Seattle Star, 25 November 1905, Page 2; “Britt-Nelson Pictures,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 26 November 1905, Page 11; “Fight Pictures are Great,” Seattle Daily Times, 27 November 1905, Page 9; and “Britt and Nelson at Grand Theater,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 27 November 1905, Page 3.
[4] In December 1902, Bob Fitzsimmons and James J. Jeffries appeared together at the Seattle Theatre – part of a stage tour organized because their recent title rematch (won by Jeffries) hadn’t been filmed. Billed as an “exhibition,” this was really just a personal appearance tour allowing fans to see the gladiators in the flesh; they stepped into the ring to demonstrate boxing techniques, but steered clear of actual fighting to avoid any local laws. Mostly they laughed, told stories, answered questions and, upon their arrival in Seattle, told the press they were both “willing to meet any white man in the world” if the money was right. For the reigning heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries, that would become an interesting statement in roughly eight years. (See “Fitz and Jeff Could Not Bluff Constable, Seattle Star, 11 December 1902, Page 2.)
[5] “Gans-Nelson Fight Pictures to be Shown Here Tonight,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 11 November 1906, Sporting Section, Page 3.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Gans-Nelson Fight Pictures at Grand,” Seattle Daily Times, 12 November 1906, Page 12; and “Cheer Nelson at the Grand,” Seattle Star, 12 November 1906, Page 2.
[8] See “Gans and Nolan Talk of Pictures,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8 November 1906, Page 3.
[9] See “Gans-Nelson Fight Pictures at Grand,” Seattle Daily Times, 12 November 1906, Page 12; “Fight Pictures Shown at Grand,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 November 1906, Page 4; and “Cheer Nelson at the Grand,” Seattle Star, 12 November 1906, Page 2.
[10] It’s not entirely clear who was responsible for bringing the Burns-Johnson Champion Contest to the Moore in June 1909. The Moore was generally known as a John Cort house, but he left the prizefight film business several years earlier. It’s possible (maybe even probable) that Eugene Levy held the territorial rights, then used his business relationship with Cort to negotiate the dates at the Moore. But, as it turns out, the Burns-Johnson Champion Contest was one set of fight pictures that played Seattle without mention of who actually held the Washington rights to the film.
[11] See “Fight Pictures,” Seattle Star, 19 June 1909, Page 3; and “The Burns-Johnson Pictures,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 20 June 1909, Magazine Section, Page 8.
[12] “Burns-Johnson Pictures Here,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 20 June 1909, Sporting Section, Page 2.
[13] “Burns-Johnson Fight Pictures at the Moore,” Seattle Daily Times, 20 June 1909, Page 17.
[14] “Johnson-Burns Battle Shown,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 21 June 1909, Page 3.
[15] “Burns-Johnson Fight Pictures Worth Seeing,” Seattle Daily Times, 21 June 1909, Page 13.

Now that boxing had its first black heavyweight champion, the issue of race began creeping into the picture. It didn’t help that Jack Johnson, clearly without equal in the ring, was a hugely divisive figure – loud, brash, and eager to enjoy the spoils of his success. This meant a lot of things, including flashy clothes, fast cars, alcohol and a penchant for women, including white women. He was champion and he didn’t care, and because of that, Johnson’s race and recklessness behavior became a primary driver behind his public image.

That process, however, began slowly. After claiming the heavyweight title, in the summer and fall of 1909 Jack Johnson fought three successive bouts against so-called “White Hope” challengers – boxers promoted as the men who would regain the title for their race. All three of these fights, however – against Jack O’Brien (May), Tony Ross (June) and Al Kaufman (September) – were basically exhibitions. Each challenger was horribly overmatched, and even the champion didn’t take these fights seriously. Jack Johnson retained his title in each case, receiving what was known at the time as a “newspaper decision.” This was essentially a no-decision fight, with both fighters going the distance. However, the sportswriters in attendance would determine which boxer had been the better man that day. In each case Jack Johnson basically toyed with his opponent and allowed the fight to continue for the benefit of paying fans. In his September match, for example, Al Kaufman barely laid a glove on Johnson through 10 rounds.

None of these newspaper decisions were filmed for movie audiences, but Jack Johnson’s fourth title defense was. That occurred on October 16, 1909, when the champion met his first halfway serious challenger, reigning middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel, “the Michigan Assassin,” in Colma, California.

Despite being more experienced than Johnson’s previous opponents, it was still unlikely that Stanley Ketchel would take away the heavyweight title. Still, this time a motion picture crew wanted to film the match, a factor that may have changed part of the equation. Ketchel and Johnson allegedly had an understanding that the bout would go the full 20 rounds, thereby increasing the value of the resulting film, in which both had a share of the profits.^[1] The most likely outcome, then, given his considerable size advantage, would be yet another decision in favor of Jack Johnson, with a film that could be marketed on whether that was justified. Or that was the understanding, at least, since the fight didn’t turn out as planned. In the 12^th round Stanley Ketchel decided to take advantage of the fact that Jack Johnson had been lowering his guard, coming in hard with an unexpected right, knocking Johnson to the canvas. This was the first time fight fans had ever seen Jack Johnson go down, and that alone made the film notable. But that was also not part of whatever agreement the fighters may have had, and Johnson was furious. He returned to his feet and immediately went on the offensive. It was over in seconds: Jack Johnson took a moment to regain himself, then went straight after Ketchel, quickly landing two blows to the Michigan Assassin’s head and knocking him out. Then, as the referee began the count, and in full view of the moving picture cameras, Jack Johnson stood back and leaned against the ropes, taking in the scene as if a spectator. But before he did that, Johnson paused to brush something off his glove – which, according to boxing lore, was the teeth that Stanley Ketchel lost in the final set of blows.

Unlike Jack Johnson’s championship bout in Sydney, when the picture took six months to get to Seattle, film of the Ketchel fight arrived just six weeks after the match, beginning an eight-day engagement at the Lyceum Theatre on November 28, 1909. Johnson vs. Stanley Ketchell [sic] was being presented under the auspices of J.W. Coffroth, promoter for the fight. The Washington and Oregon film rights for the picture had been sold to the Amalgamated Film Exchange of Portland, who paid $1,650, with Amalgamated turning around and immediately selling those rights to three men, one of whom was Eugene Levy, for the sum of $3,000.^[2] Territorial rights for Alaska, which Amalgamated also purchased, were bought up by the Lyric Amusement Co. in Tacoma for $525.

Johnson vs. Stanley Ketchell was only about 2,500 feet long, but Eugene Levy stretched the show to an hour by adding some unspecified “novelties” to the bill, which appear to have been additional films. The main attraction showed all 12 rounds of the Johnson-Ketchel fight, in addition to scenes taken in each training camp and some glimpses of fight preparations.

The Lyceum Theatre on Second Avenue was an unusual venue to book a first-run prizefight film, given its modest size and, on the surface at least, lack of prestige. Nonetheless, crowds flocked there anyway – so much so that management hired four policemen to assist with crowd management. Eugene Levy estimated that Johnson vs. Stanley Ketchell generated over 40,000 paid admissions over the course of its eight-day run, which was nothing short of a blockbuster for a house that size. The Lyceum show ran continuously, starting at noon and extending past 11pm, and did so at the mere cost of 10 cents per seat, a bargain price for a prizefight film.^[3] This was the first opportunity for Seattleites see Jack Johnson since his original title bout in Australia, and though the fight wasn’t a great one by any means, the champion’s controversial reputation was a key factor in drawing crowds. “…[E]very one of [the Lyceum patrons] has been delighted with the opportunity to see the big black man, Jack Johnson, in action. The fact that the next world’s championship fight is to be between his representative of the black race and James J. Jeffries, the white man’s representative, adds great interest to the pictures now on view.”^[4] That sentiment was echoed in the Star as the pictures began their run at the Lyceum. “Within the coming year the question of the fistic championship is going to be settled by the best representatives of the white and black races. The black man, Jack Johnson, has won the title fairly by his defeats of Burns and Ketchel. The latter battle was one of the biggest events in the sporting world. Johnson returned from Australia with sporting men skeptical over his beating of Burns. When the Ketchel match came off the eyes of every sporting man were turned to Colma, Cal., for confirmation of the black man’s prowess.”^[5]

Even before Johnson vs. Stanley Ketchell arrived at Seattle’s Lyceum Theatre, Jack Johnson’s next fight opponent had already been announced. Since the victory over Tommy Burns, four white men had tried to take Jack Johnson’s title away, and all four had been beaten badly. Some were touted, half-heartedly, as the White Hope fighter who would reclaim the championship belt, and each time they came up woefully short. There just weren’t many fighters of any race that matched up well against Jack Johnson. He was a giant of a man, and a formidable opponent at the top of his game. It would take someone special to bring him down – someone, perhaps, who had been champion before.

With public now clamoring for their white fistic savior, former heavyweight titleholder James J. Jeffries came back into the picture. Jeffries originally claimed the heavyweight title in 1899 when he defeated Bob Fitzsimmons at the Coney Island Athletic Club, then successfully defended his title eight times. But then Jeffries did what few champions do – he decided to walk away. Like James J. Corbett had done earlier, Jeffries’ decision to retire was, for many fans, an unsatisfactory way to crown a new champion. Marvin Hart eventually claimed the title, but no one thought he could have defeated Jim Jeffries. And Hart lost his first defense to Canadian Tommy Burns, yet another champion who was compared unfavorably to Jeffries. Burns, of course, chose to break the color line and lost to Jack Johnson in 1908, and all four of Johnson’s title defenses had been lackluster affairs. To many, Jim Jeffries was the last true heavyweight champion, and since he walked away in 1905, the sport had been somewhat adrift.

Even though he strictly observed the color line as champion, James J. Jeffries was technically the challenger in this case, so he agreed to fight Jack Johnson on July 4, 1910, in a match that would take place in Reno, Nevada. It would be a title fight that the match’s promoters decided to hype like never before. If interest in heavyweight boxing had declined since Jim Jeffries stepped away from the ring, promoters were determined to get it back, and all at once.

From late 1909 to mid-1910, the promotion of the Johnson/Jeffries championship bout was not only relentless but undertaken with explicitly racial overtones. This “showdown” between white and black raised interest in the bout and helped give the pre-fight publicity an unprecedented reach. For weeks before it took place, for example, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a daily syndicated column with details and gossip from both fighter’s camps. This was but one feature of an extensive publicity campaign that reached Americans in ways that no other sporting event in history had before. The bout was being billed as a match of the century, and the public was inundated with all kinds of fight commentary – so much so that it became part of the national lexicon. Not only did fight references crop up in public and private conversations, but all kinds of businesses co-opted the fight for advertising purposes. So numerous were the references, particularly in newspapers and popular magazines, that it would have been impossible for anyone, anywhere, not know about the July 4^th championship in Reno.

This was part of the plan. To boost interest in the match both fighters agreed to play up the racial overtones, helping promote the bout but also, by extension, the film that would be made of the event. Countless words were spilled analyzing the championship, much of it pushing the notion that this was the ultimate battle for racial superiority. At least some of this came in the form of pseudo-intellectual analysis that attempted to pinpoint the qualities that made one fighter better than the other. This “scientific racism,” of course, nearly always favored Jim Jeffries – whatever he gave away to Jack Johnson in age, size or speed was more than compensated for by his ability to strategize and outsmart his opponent. Physically Jeffries (in his prime, at least) was a massive figure, and more closely matched to Johnson than previous challengers. But for many it was the intangibles that put him over the top – intangibles that Jack Johnson (and most African Americans, writers seemed to feel) did not possess. Visitors to Jeffries’ camp said he looked good – any rust on the old frame would be gone by the opening bell. Johnson also looked good, but he had never really been tested in the ring and appeared overconfident. Surely, Jim Jeffries was going to teach him a lesson.

There were thousands of similar takes, to the point where the so-called “evidence” became absurd. For many writers, a publicity photo or motion picture of Jeffries smiling was a sign of strength and confidence. Johnson smiling, however, was a sign of arrogance. Johnson’s playboy reputation played into much of this – he was a drinker, a carouser, and a man who openly flaunted his wealth and success. The all-American Jim Jeffries, in contrast, gave up his heavyweight title to become a farmer. For many whites, Jack Johnson was due his comeuppance. How would he react when he had an actual fight on his hands, and couldn’t simply coast on natural talents? Science had an answer for that. Whatever so-called advantages Jack Johnson may have had in earlier matches would evaporate when confronted by Jim Jeffries, a seasoned fighter with superior mental and physical stamina.

As weeks and months passed this publicity machine ground on, day after day, delivering story upon story that almost always predicted a Jeffries win. This went up right to the day of the fight, when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed a syndicated article in which each fighter expressed confidence in their fight preparations. “‘When the gloves are knotted on my hands tomorrow afternoon and I stand ready to defend what really is my title, it will be at the request of the public, which forced me out of retirement,’” said James J. Jeffries. “…That portion of the white race which has been looking to me to defend its athletic supremacy may feel assured that I am fit to do my best.’” Jack Johnson, on the other hand, wasn’t about to back down. “‘When I go into the ring on the Fourth of July to fight Mr. Jeffries I will do so with full confidence that I am able to defeat him at the game of give and take. I honestly believe that in pugilism I am Jeffries’ master, and it is my purpose to demonstrate this in the most decisive way possible.’”^[6] It’s unlikely that either fighter spoke those words – the article is clearly the work of a seasoned publicity agent. But Jeffries claiming that he was duty-bound to defend white superiority, with Jack Johnson stating that he was “Jeffries’ master…” is an example of how racial elements were played up in the interest of promoting the fight.

Throughout North America, the public had lapped this up for months. Few doubted that Jim Jeffries would reclaim the heavyweight title; after all, science was on his side. Reality, on the other hand, was not.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] Such conversations between fighters and managers would be an anathema today, but weren’t uncommon for the time. Fighters didn’t necessarily make money from fighting, but from their notoriety, as when James J. Corbett and John L. Sullivan mounted theatrical tours when not in the ring. Once motion pictures came were introduced to the sport, the setup naturally incentivized both fighters to maximize the value of the resulting film. Short fights had less value, so it was better for everyone if the contest went into the later rounds. This became painfully obvious at times, with boxers like Jack Johnson toying with outmatched opponents or employing dramatic flourishes that could eventually be used in the marketing of the pictures. Boxing had long suffered from the perception that some fights were fixed. The growing importance of motion pictures didn’t necessarily dispel this notion – it just changed the idea of what constituted a fix. (Dan Streible, Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema (Berkley: University of California Press – 2008), Pages 124-125.)
[2] Dan Streible listed the sale of Northwest territorial rights to the Amalgamated Film Exchange based on an account statement contained in the George Kleine Collection at the Library of Congress, showing amounts earned through July 31, 1910. The same statement shows that the percentage of Northwest film sales earned by the parent company was $750 through that date. (See Streible, Page 213.) The $3,000 figure came from an article in the Seattle Daily Times. (See “Johnson-Ketchel Fight Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 26 November 1909, Page 4.)
[3] See “Johnson-Ketchel Fight Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 26 November 1909, Page 4; “At the Lyceum Theatre…,” Seattle Daily Times, 5 December 1909, Page 39; and Lyceum advertisement, Seattle Star, 27 November 1909, Page 3.
[4] At the Lyceum Theatre…,” Seattle Daily Times, 5 December 1909, Page 39.
[5] “Fight Pictures to Show Here,” Seattle Star, 27 November 1909, Page 2.
[6] “Jeff Enters Ring 10 to 6 Favorite,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 July 1910, Page 1.

On July 4, 1910, the day Jeffries-Johnson fight was held in Reno, Nevada, Eugene Levy was looking forward to showing the fight pictures on his screens. That day he was debuting a new bill at his Lyceum Theatre, anchored by films showing Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson in their respective training camps, in addition to some patriotic-themed films secured for the holiday. But on an Independence Day that had been billed as the day white America would reclaim its superiority in the boxing ring, the entire fight turned into yet another lopsided victory for Jack Johnson. Fight enthusiasts, celebrities, and newsmen from around the country had converged on Reno, and nearly everyone was stunned by the ease with which the current champion dispatched the former one. “From the opening round to closing round [Johnson] never ceased from his witty sallies, his exchanges of repartee with his opponent’s [corner] and with the audience, and for that matter Johnson had a funny thing or two to say to Jeffries every round,” said writer Jack London. “The golden smile was as much in evidence as ever, and never did it freeze on his face nor did it vanish. It came and went throughout the fight, naturally.”^[1] Even London’s colleague, writer Rex Beach, who had spilled quite a bit of ink prior to the fight touting Jim Jeffries’ natural superiority, had to admit the outcome was never in doubt. Jack Johnson had been fighting weak opponents, in his opinion, but he proved more than capable of rising to the challenge. “…[T]he African…showed a marvelous speed and aggressiveness that only occasional moments in his previous fights had hinted at. He demonstrated further that his race has acquired full stature as men,” Beach observed. “Whether they will ever breed brains to match his muscles is yet to be proven.”^[2]

Public reaction to the fight results were generally one of shock and disbelief given the inevitability of a Jeffries victory, as predicted in nearly all the pre-fight run-ups. This occurred in cities all around the country. In Seattle, large crowds congregated on the street outside the offices of the Daily Times for most of July 4^th, where the paper announced round-by-round updates via wire. This was also the case over at Seattle’s Orpheum Theatre on Third Avenue, where vaudeville patrons were getting their first look at “the Diving Venus,” Annette Kellerman. There, manager Carl Reiter took to the stage between acts and gave upbeat fight reports to the decidedly pro-Jeffries crowd, though his updates grew fewer and farther between as the news started becoming grim. “Manager Carl Reiter hung crepe on the biggest audience ever gathered at the Seattle Orpheum, when he announced yesterday afternoon that Jack Johnson had beaten down James J. Jeffries in the fifteenth round and that the black man was still champion heavyweight of the world,” observed the Post-Intelligencer. “The Orpheum manager mercifully held the result of the Reno argument until Miss Kellerman’s act was finished, and then he came on and, with outspread hands, as though invoking a blessing, told the fateful words, spreading the pall.”^[3] Edgar H. Thomas of the Daily Times was in the same audience. “The rest we will leave for the historians, how the sad, sad news was brought and announced, and how the audience froze as stiff as they had at the acts on the bill before the grief-laden tidings had been received.”^[4]

The real damage of the Jeffries/Johnson championship and its race-baiting promotional efforts was felt in the aftermath of the bout. Some papers, like the Daily Times and Post-Intelligencer, devoted special sections to covering the match, mostly recounting fight details and various stories from the day. This was also the case in Wenatchee, where the July 5^th edition of the Wenatchee Daily World offered detailed fight coverage on its front page, despite a headline that was given over to a separate news item. It was only at the end of their article, continued on page five, where there was any mention of trouble, with short news items on racial incidents occurring in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.^[5]

Contrast those relatively sober takes, however, with the breathless hysteria trumpeted in other Washington papers. Whereas the Daily Times went with a simple “JOHNSON WINS” headline, the Seattle Star blared “COUNTRY IN GRIP OF RACE WAR AFTER JOHNSON’S VICTORY – CAPITAL MENACED,” while The Spokane Press announced “RIOT AND MURDER FOLLOW THE FIGHT.” The Star, Press and the Tacoma Times also ran short dispatches on their front pages from around the country – there were race riots in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, white lynch mobs in Wilmington, Delaware, blacks dragged from their homes and beaten in Cincinnati, as well as the story of a black police officer in Mounds, Illinois, who was killed trying to quell the chaotic celebrations of his own people.^[6] To read some dailies, the outcome of a sporting event had been decided; to read others, the United States was coming apart at the seams.

The racial elements used the promote the fight not only impacted how newsmen reported the results, but also the prizefight film made that day, well before it could actually be shown. On one hand, pictures of the Jeffries/Johnson fight were now one of the hottest properties on film market – a sure box office winner, and potentially the biggest fight film since the Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight in 1897. But, on the other, the wrong fighter won. Had the Jeffries-Johnson Fight, as it came to be known, depicted a Jeffries victory, it undoubtedly would have played theatres in North America with few issues, with only opponents of boxing to question its propriety. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Jack Johnson won, so while it was still a major film, it was now a controversial one with the potential to spark racial unrest. “The film of the fight showed that [Jack] Johnson clearly was the better man,” Meg Frisbee noted, “and this visual proof that could be played again and again was more of a horror to white viewers than the first fight films that spread images of brutality to men, women and children across the nation.”^[7] Even die-hard boxing fans could see that the Jeffries-Johnson Fight was going to cause trouble. Former President Theodore Roosevelt, writing in Outlook magazine, observed that the sport had fallen to a point where intervention was needed. Not only was it his hope that the Jeffries/Johnson bout be the last prizefight in the country’s history, “…it would be an admirable thing if some method could be devised to stop the exhibition of the moving pictures taken thereof.”^[8]

Almost immediately many cities and states, particularly in the South, banned the Jeffries-Johnson Fight on public safety grounds. Other locations allowed the film to be shown, but under tight restrictions – only to adult men, for example, with women and children barred from entry. Prizefight film expert Dan Streible found no significant incidents occurring in conjunction with screenings of the film, but that was in large part because it was quickly banned in jurisdictions where trouble was likely to occur. And where it was shown, many of those places put enough restrictions and safeguards in place that it prevented the type of violence many feared.^[9] Black audiences, Streible determined, were able to see the film, though not likely in great numbers. During its initial run in the United States, African Americans typically saw the Jeffries-Johnson Fight only in locations where the motion picture wasn’t already prohibited and where they themselves faced few repercussions for doing so.

There were a lot of challenges around exhibiting the Jeffries-Johnson Fight, but Eugene Levy wasn’t about to let the day’s hottest film property slip through his fingers. He began negotiating for the Northwest picture rights before the fighters stepped into the ring, knowing that audiences would chomp at the bit to see film for themselves. “Undoubtedly Seattle will turn out for the pictures of the century and possibly new records for a moving picture show attendance will be established,” said the Daily Times in the aftermath of the bout. “…The Seattle public is anxiously awaiting the coming of the pictures, as those who were unable to see the scrap want the opportunity to judge for themselves just what chance ‘the hope of the white race’ really had.”^[10] But Levy’s negotiations stretched on for weeks, much longer than previous ones, before he could finally make an announcement some three weeks after the ring decision. “Through his Eastern representatives, Eugene Levy, proprietor of twenty moving picture houses on the Pacific Coast and the youngest film exhibitor in Seattle, [consummated] a deal yesterday, whereby he becomes possessor of the Johnson-Jeffries fight and secures sole rights for their exhibition in the State of Washington. The consideration named was $20,000 – that sum being the highest price ever paid for a film of any description…Manager Levy says the initial exhibition of the Jeffries-Johnson pictures will be held at the Grand Opera House of this city on Saturday, August 6^th. After their run in this city the pictures will be shown in Spokane.”^[11]

The contract Eugene Levy signed for the Jeffries-Johnson Fight carried some stipulations as to how it would be exhibited. The obvious one was that the picture could not be shown outside his contracted territory. But there were others that would nullify the contract if the terms were violated. One required Levy to show the film at advance prices during its initial run in any city – no less than 50 cents per seat. The second was that he could not show the film in a regular motion picture venue. In other words, booking the film into his Lyceum Theatre on Second Avenue, as he had done with Johnson vs. Stanley Ketchell, was out of the question. Levy, and anyone else who landed first-run territorial rights, had to treat the film like a big event, booking it into larger, more formal venues at advanced ticket prices. There may have been other requirements as well, but these two factors alone telegraphed the importance of the film – during its first run, at least, it was going to presented as a high-class feature attraction, just like the Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight had been in 1897.

A print of the Jeffries-Johnson Fight arrived in Seattle on August 2^nd, four days before it was scheduled to open at the Grand Opera House. But Levy arranged for a free private screening at 10 p.m. on August 3^rd, which he held at the Circuit Theatre on Second Avenue, another of his holdings. The screening had a dual purpose. Levy wanted to see the Jeffries-Johnson Fight play before a test audience, helping him gauge, perhaps, how the general public would react to the show. He also wanted to treat reporters and city officials to a promotional sneak peek – a shrewd maneuver that might prove useful in heading off any controversy. The fact that Eugene Levy set this up as a free, invitation-only advance screening was apparently within the scope of his contract, so he was in no danger of violating its terms.

The preview was a special event indeed. This private screening was, Levy claimed, the first time the picture had been shown west of the Rockies and served as a dry run for his screenings throughout the Northwest. Interestingly, former champion Bob Fitzsimmons just happened to be in town on a theatrical tour, was invited to the preview but apparently did not attend. Seattle businessman James Morrison, however, did. Morrison had earlier organized a special railcar to take local boxing afficionados directly to Reno. Many of the preview attendees, in fact, had seen the fight in person, so they could attest as to whether the picture accurately captured the event. In addition “Kid” Herman, a local boxer who once squared off against Joe Gans, was hired as the show’s narrator, appearing onstage to describe the action as the film unfurled and, between reels, demonstrating some common fight techniques. Levy also used the event to announce that he had hired the Sam B. Cohn Publicity Agency to help him promote the show in Seattle and other Washington cities. In this capacity, Cohn representatives would travel at least a week in advance of the film itself, coordinating publicity and making venue preparations for screenings in other locations.^[12] One showmanship angle that Levy didn’t pursue, however, was suggested to the manager on the night of the Circuit’s private screening. One invitee came up to Eugene Levy after the show with the suggestion that the house musicians play a funeral march as Jim Jeffries was seen entering the ring.

With such a widely-anticipated picture, the preview went exceedingly well as Levy played host to a variety of local dignitaries – business leaders, politicians, news reporters and the dramatic critics from Seattle’s daily papers. The show began with a female singer, who warmed up the crowd with the song “Garden of Roses,” with accompaniment from the house organ. That was a brief diversion, however, as everyone in attendance was keen to see the fight itself. In terms of the film, the reporter for the Daily Times thought the Jeffries-Johnson Fight made Jim Jeffries look much better than he was in person, since the camera was far enough away that you couldn’t see the distress on his face or hear the thud of Johnson’s blows when they landed. “The pictures are well worth seeing,” he concluded. “They show that Jeff met defeat at the hands of a man who had him outclassed in every department of the fighting game.”^[13] This was a generous acknowledgement of Jack Johnson’s pugilistic skills, but there were those who still wanted to see Jeffries make a strong show, even in defeat. One of those people, apparently, was the operator at the Grand Opera House, where the film would eventually be shown. Shortly before the Jeffries-Johnson Fight concluded its initial Seattle engagement, the same Times writer went to see the fight a second time and noticed that the house projectionist was using his technical know-how to make Jim Jeffries look better. “The man behind the machine that shows the moving pictures of the Johnson-Jeffries fight…is speeding up Jim Jeffries until he looks something like a fighter. By running the films through fast the men look to be moving much faster than they really did at Reno,” the journalist wrote, adding “[the operator] shows good judgment in doing it.”^[14]

When the Jeffries-Johnson Fight opened at the Grand Opera House on August 6, 1910, it showed four times a day, at 2, 3:30, 7 and 8:30 p.m. General admission was 50 cents per seat for the balcony, which Eugene Levy explained (truthfully, it turns out) was the very lowest cost he could offer to the Seattle public. Seating on the main floor went for 75 cents per seat. Even these advanced prices, however, weren’t a deterrent to the curious. A full two hours before the initial screening, a long line of patrons snaked down Cherry Street, something that convinced both the Daily Times and Post-Intelligencer that attendance records were surely to be broken.^[15]

The Post-Intelligencer didn’t comment on Eugene Levy’s preview at the Circuit, but when the picture finally opened at the Grand, they sent a sportswriter to cover it instead of their dramatic critic. But his account was in line with the city’s other news outlets – as a spectacle the Jeffries-Johnson Fight was impressive, and the action would be well-received by audiences. He had remarkably little to say about the fighters themselves, as one might have expected. What he did observe, however, was an aspect of the screenings that had thusfar gone unmentioned. “So far from the pictures arousing any racial feeling,” he wrote, “the crowd [at the Grand] was entirely good-natured.” Yet, he also offered an explanation as to why that may have been. “Several dozen burly policemen were on hand, but there was no semblance of disorder.”^[16]

Every show at the Grand was packed for the entire week, attracting a diverse set of moviegoers (compositionally, not racially), many of whom had been caught up in the hoopla surrounding the Reno fight. This interest wasn’t just limited to men; at the two Wednesday evening shows, Eugene Levy organized special “Ladies’ Night” screenings. Although women were welcome (and had been attending) the Grand for regular shows, these two screenings were specially arranged at the behest of a few ladies’ social clubs. Men weren’t barred from either show, but that night the Grand altered the regular program to make the film more appealing for women patrons. It wasn’t clear what Levy did to accomplish this, though he did order special floral arrangements to decorate the house for these shows.^[17]

The Jeffries-Johnson Fight was to have closed at the Grand Opera House on the afternoon of August 13^th, after which it was going to Tacoma for an engagement there. But demand for seats was still so high that Eugene Levy held the picture for an extra pair of evening shows, then chartered a special boat to transport the film, operators and other equipment down to Tacoma in the middle of the night. There, the Jeffries-Johnson Fight opened the following day at the Tacoma Theatre, where it played twice a day.

As many expected, the Jeffries-Johnson Fight was on its way to becoming the most successful fight film of all time. Yet it was also the picture that marked the beginning of the end for boxing films, at least for the time being. That wouldn’t happen immediately, but there was enough negative attention being heaped upon the Jeffries-Johnson Fight that it not only stained the production, but also the reception of fight pictures moving forward.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] Jack London, “Play for Johnson Says Jack London,” Seattle Daily Times (Extra Supplement), 5 July 1910, Page 3.
[2] Rex Beach, “Great Spectacle in its Way, But Awful,” Seattle Daily Times (Extra Supplement), 5 July 1910, Page 2.
[3] “Kellerman Dive a Thing of Grace,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 5 July 1910, Page 14.
[4] Edgar H. Thomas, “Clifford & Burke and Annette Kellerman Head Splendid New Orpheum Bill,” Seattle Daily Times, 4 July 1910, Page 14.
[5] See Seattle Daily Times, 4 July 1910; Seattle Daily Times, 5 July 1910 (Extra Supplement); and Wenatchee Daily World, 5 July 1910.
[6] See Seattle Daily Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Star, The Spokane Press and The Tacoma Times, 5 July 1910.
[7] Meg Frisbee, Counterpunch: The Cultural Battles Over Heavyweight Prizefighting in the American West (Seattle: University of Washington Press – 2016), Page 150.
[8] Theodore Roosevelt, “The Recent Prize Fight,” Outlook, 16 July 1910, Page 551; see also Dan Streible, Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema (Berkley: University of California Press – 2008), Page 223.
[9] Dan Streible, Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema (Berkley: University of California Press – 2008), Page 235.
[10] “Through the Moving Picture Lens,” Seattle Daily Times, 23 July 1910, Page 6.
[11] “Eugene Levy Gets Big Fight Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 28 July 1910, Page 14; see also “Fight Pictures Open Here Soon,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 28 July 1910, Page 10.
[12] See “Fight Pictures Arrive in Seattle,” Seattle Daily Times, 3 August 1910, Page 4; “Circuit Theatre,” Seattle Daily Times, 3 August 1910, Page 4; and “The Sam B. Cohn Publicity Agency…,” Seattle Daily Times, 3 August 1910, Page 4.
[13] “Fight Pictures are Shown for the First Time,” Seattle Daily Times, 4 August 1910, Page 12.
[14] “The man behind the machine…,” Seattle Daily Times, 9 August 1910, page 10. The notation here is interesting, given that speeding pictures was a common nickelodeon trick used to squeeze in an extra show or two throughout the day. The practice was widespread and became a common compliant of patrons and members of the moving picture press, who felt it often cheapened movies as a form of entertainment.
[15] “Jeffries-Johnson Fight Pictures,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 6 August 1910, Page 9; and “Fight Pictures Now on at Grand,” Seattle Daily Times, 6 August 1910, Page 6.
[16] “Moving Pictures are Well Received,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7 August 1910, Sports Section, Page 1.
[17] See “Ladies’ Night at Fight Pictures,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8 August 1910, Page 7; and “Ladies to Have Night at Fight Picture Show,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 August 1910, Page 10. In Policing Cinema, Lee Grieveson notes that the Jeffries-Johnson Fight was frequently shown as a “stag film” so that no women or children would be allowed to attend. Obviously, this was not the case in Seattle. See Lee Grieveson, Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early Twentieth Century America (Berkley: University of California Press – 2004), Page 126.

Eugene Levy’s planning and execution was paying off with successful engagements of the Jeffries-Johnson Fight in both Seattle and Tacoma, two of Washington’s largest cities, where he needed to rack up big profits to make his state rights contract pay out. But that doesn’t mean the film showed without controversy. Almost immediately after the fight in Reno ended, a new one began – the fight to prevent the pictures from being shown anywhere in America. In 1910 there wasn’t a single city in Washington state with a formal censorship body for motion pictures, so it usually fell to the police or local government to take any required action. Levy’s Seattle shows ran without problems because the issue was settled quickly, with Mayor Hiram Gill declaring on July 6^th, two days after the fight, that he had no intention of stopping the moving pictures from being shown. “‘Whenever I am convinced that the city is unable to handle any riot that may result from the exhibition of fight pictures in Seattle, I will immediately tender my resignation’” Mayor Gill exclaimed. “‘The fight pictures will not be interfered with.’”^[1] He was joined in that sentiment by Washington Governor Marion E. Hay, who was also inclined to let the picture play. “‘We are living in a peaceful state,’” said Governor Hay. “‘The Gans-Nelson fight pictures were exhibited generally in this state and there were no race riots and there was no agitation to stop their exhibition.’”^[2]

But while Gill and Hay were stating unequivocally that the Jeffries-Johnson Fight was welcome, other groups were moving against it. At a Disciples of Christ convention in Bellingham, regional Christian leaders passed a motion calling on member churches to protest the Jeffries-Johnson Fight wherever it was shown.^[3] And up in British Columbia, provincial authorities took preemptive action to stop the film from playing even before the fight took place. Or at least that was their original aim, until they discovered that British Columbia didn’t have a law on the books that allowed them to ban a motion picture, forcing them to walk back of their original announcement. But that wasn’t good enough for the mayor of Victoria, who nonetheless declared his intention to block the Jeffries-Johnson Fight even if he lacked the legal standing to do so.^[4] (And he did not: aldermen in Victoria took up the issue and determined the mayor couldn’t single-handedly determine what could and could not be shown on movie screens in their city.)

Similar resistance was cropping up in communities around the country, but so were the creative methods used to get around it. Unable to show the picture in either Arkansas or Tennessee, for example, one exhibitor anchored a barge in the middle of the Mississippi River, then shuttled patrons to and from his makeshift venue; clever, but he still got shut down.^[5] In the Northwest that kind of subterfuge wasn’t necessary. “‘All this talk about prohibiting the exhibition of the films throughout the Northern states is silly,’” remarked one local observer. “‘There may be reasonable justification for prohibiting the exhibition in the Southern states, but the conditions there do not apply to the North.’”^[6]

Eugene Levy’s screenings in Seattle, Tacoma and three other Washington cities went off without incident. He then set about preparing for shows in Spokane, using the same approach he employed earlier. In this case, he arranged for a private screening at the Auditorium, where the film was eventually scheduled to play. About 60 people attended this invitation-only event, held on the evening of August 22^nd. Again, his audience was a hand-picked group of journalists, business and political elites, including Police Commissioner George Mudgett. Mudgett himself didn’t have any issues with the film, but Levy knew going in that he had a problem with Spokane Mayor Nelson Pratt, who was invited to the preview but declined.^[7] Mayor Pratt didn’t need to see the film before making up his mind. “‘I will stop the exhibition with 150 policemen, if that number should be necessary,’” Pratt announced. He also wrote a letter to Police Commissioner Mudgett, a copy of which was also sent to local newspapers. “‘Owing to the low moral tone of the [film], it is evident that it contains elements which, owing to race prejudice, might produce something more than a simple breach of the peace. I believe that the public interest demands that this exhibit be not permitted in our city…You are directed to employ such means as may be necessary to prevent this exhibition taking place within the corporate limits of Spokane.’”^[8] This was a first for Eugene Levy, who hadn’t encountered this kind of opposition, but he rose to the challenge. “‘We intend to enjoin the mayor from interference through the Spokane County court,’” the exhibitor announced, vowing to screen film despite Pratt’s resistance.^[9]

True to his word, Eugene Levy brought the issue before a local judge. But on August 25^th, when the parties met before Judge Keenan in Spokane, Levy discovered that Keenan wasn’t going to offer much in the way of help. The exhibitor’s legal team, in fact, could barely make an argument – they intended to present witness testimony from the preview screening, but Judge Kennan refused to hear any of it. This was an open and shut case, in his opinion, and matters of race played no issue in his decision. Prizefighting was prohibited by law in the state of Washington, and it was his opinion that the same law should be construed to include prizefight films as well. For Judge Keenan the question centered on the appropriateness of boxing as a a form of public entertainment, as opposed to Levy’s property rights or any free speech considerations. It was an approach that allowed Keenan to avoid racial issues altogether and instead focus on more concrete legal questions.^[10]

Defeated in court, Eugene Levy was down but not out. He could no longer show the film at the Auditorium, so he organized a backup plan. With the entire city of Spokane off limits, Levy instead rented a hall in nearby Hillyard – he couldn’t bring the film to the audience, but perhaps he could bring the audience to the film. The Hillyard location was in no way comparable to the Auditorium in terms of size or luxury, but since he was renting a space that wasn’t typically used for moving pictures, he was able to sneak around the stipulation in his state rights contract. But Levy was definitely toeing the line.

It was a victory, of sorts, but a small one. Eugene Levy wasn’t showing the Jeffries-Johnson Fight the way he intended to show it, and the smaller venue outside city limits no doubt cost him at the box office. But he played his scheduled dates, licked his wounds and moved on.^[11]

A month after his exhibition troubles in Spokane Eugene Levy brought the Jeffries-Johnson Fight back to Seattle, and because the picture was now on its second run he was free to book it into his Exhibit Theatre at Second Avenue and Marion. In addition to the new venue, he dropped ticket prices for the weeklong engagement to 25 cents at seat. Perhaps this was an attempt to earn back the money he lost in Spokane, and if so, he wasn’t disappointed. Crowds jammed the Exhibit all week to see a slimmed down, hour-long show, after which Levy took the picture up to Alaska, where he also owned the first-run rights.^[12]

Despite a growing controversy over the appropriateness of prizefight films following the Jeffries-Johnson contest in 1910, Eugene Levy remained committed to them as an audience draw, at least for the time being. Heavyweight title fights always had the biggest box office potential, but between those bouts Levy showed other, less publicized boxing matches. For an outlay of $1,000, for example, he scored the Washington state rights for the Moran-Nelson Fight Pictures, a lightweight match won by Owen Moran, which opened at the Exhibit Theatre on January 1, 1911.^[13] Levy then took the picture to other Washington cities, culminating in a special engagement at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton on the evening of August 19^th, when the film was exhibited to some 2,000 sailors at an outdoor amphitheater near the water. This entire show would not have come off without significant help from the U.S.S. Colorado, which happened to be docked in Bremerton at the time. The projector used for the show was the Colorado‘s, and the ship’s band provided musical accompaniment.^[14]

There were other, smaller fight films that Eugene Levy picked up even while he was showing the Moran-Nelson Fight Pictures around Washington state. One was the Wolgast-Moran Fight, the rights to which Levy picked up for an outlay of $10,000, and which opened at his Ideal Theatre in Seattle a mere 12 days after the fight occurred. He also scooped up the Washington, Idaho and British Columbia rights to the Kilbane-Attell Fight, a featherweight match, for a mere $5,100. This picture was then set up an exhibition schedule that reportedly had the film out on the road (and booked nightly) for six months.^[15]

Eugene Levy finally jumped back into the heavyweight class with the Johnson-Flynn Pictures, Jack Johnson’s first heavyweight title defense since the Jim Jeffries fight in 1910. In yet another disappointing championship, Jack Johnson easily defeated “Fireman” Jim Flynn in nine-round bout that took place in Las Vegas, New Mexico, on July 4, 1912; Flynn beaten so badly that officials had to step in and stop the fight. Once again, Jack Johnson demonstrated that he was at the height of his success; as author Meg Frisbee noted, “[m]embers of the black press compared Flynn to the recently sunk Titanic: the best the white race had to offer was sure to go down.”^[16]

Eugene Levy negotiated for the Washington, Oregon and Idaho rights to the Johnson-Flynn Pictures, which he secured for an undisclosed amount, and spent much of July 1912 getting his touring schedule and exhibition plans in order. By this point, however, he was being pulled in too many directions, what with the daily management of his growing theatre chain and the organizational details around this Northwest roadshow. To that end, Levy needed help. That’s probably why the July 21^st edition of the Daily Times carried an advertisement from Levy in which he sought a partner, admitting that he could no longer manage things on his own. He wanted someone with experience, impeccable references and a spare $1,500 with which to buy in. “Fortune to the right man,” Levy claimed. “Pikers, dreamers, meddlers and curiosity seekers need not answer.”^[17] It worked; within days he announced that R.C. Montgomery and the Woody brothers were coming aboard to assist with the roadshow productions.

Around Puget Sound, however, Eugene Levy got into his familiar routine. At 9 p.m. on Friday, July 26^th, at his Circuit Theatre, he hosted a preview of the Johnson-Flynn Pictures, where they were scheduled to open two days later. Unlike the Jeffries-Johnson Fight, where he was obliged to book the film into certain venues at advanced prices, the Johnson-Flynn Pictures carried no such stipulations, so he booked into his own small venue at 20 cents per person. Women were welcome, but children were barred from attending.

By this time, however, fight films were no longer the strong attractions they once were, or at least they weren’t when they didn’t have a built-in publicity hook. The Johnson-Flynn Pictures garnered only a fraction of the attention lavished upon the Jeffries/Johnson bout in 1910, and Seattle-area newspapers didn’t cover the engagement like they had previous prizefight films. The Daily Times and the Post-Intelligencer had little to say about Eugene Levy’s latest attraction, and even the Star could only muster that the film was “causing much favorable comment.”^[18] But the Circuit was a much smaller venue than the Grand Opera House; on top of this, Levy made the curious decision to pull the film out of the Circuit for its final three days and move it over to his Exhibit Theatre, located immediately next door. It’s not clear whether he was somehow disappointed with Johnson-Flynn Pictures or it he just felt he had a better show to play at the Circuit, but the picture finished its Seattle run rather quietly before heading down to Tacoma for a three-day engagement at the Dream Theatre.

There, as was typical for fight films, the pictures were lauded for their clarity and the more controversial aspects were played up in accounts of the show. But the process was getting old; after the “sensation” of the Jeffries-Johnson Fight, other boxing pictures just didn’t have the same appeal, even when they featured Jack Johnson. Selling prizefight films had gotten formulaic, and with continued growth of the broader film industry (which now included feature productions with their own box-office value), boxing films were no longer as attractive as they had once been. That could be seen in the venues where these pictures were booked. Whereas men like John Cort and Eugene Levy once placed fight films into Seattle’s largest and most prestigious venues, playing them at advance prices, that was no longer a formula that worked – fight films were still been popular in some quarters, but the audience for them (and the venues in which the played) was becoming smaller. Story films were proving equally big at the box office, and exhibitors typically didn’t need to make a large financial outlay for territorial rights, let alone fuss with lingering threats of censorship or prohibition.

As it turns out the Johnson-Flynn Pictures was the last fight film Eugene Levy would be involved with, at least for some time. But if he was somehow reconsidering his decision exhibit fight pictures in the Northwest, he gave no indication. He didn’t have to.

For reasons that now seem lost, the Seattle Board of Censors stepped in to make Eugene Levy’s decision for him. As the exhibitor was preparing to roadshow the Johnson-Flynn Pictures, the newly-formed Board announced that prizefight films would be banned in Seattle effective August 18, 1912. The Board of Censors didn’t exist when the Jeffries-Johnson Fight was originally released; could this have been the action they would have taken in 1910, had they been operating? Records are no longer extant, so it’s impossible to tell what prompted the action or what their deliberations may have been.

Regardless of the motives, the ban on fight films in Seattle was a fatal blow to these shows across Washington, as took the state’s largest film market out of the equation. The public’s filmgoing taste was changing anyway, so perhaps Eugene Levy was ready to let prizefight films go. He was changing business focus – not only had his circuit of venues grown, but Levy recently purchased a controlling interest in the Consolidated Film Company in New York, a move designed to give him better access to newly-released films.^[19]

Regardless, the action by the Seattle Board of Censors marked the end to Eugene Levy’s involvement with fight films, both in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. But he still had a financial stake in the Johnson-Flynn Pictures and needed to make that pay. The Board of Censors’ announcement prompted Levy to call the film back from the road so he could quickly arrange a second run of the picture at the Exhibit Theatre – a weeklong affair timed to end when the ban took effect. No doubt Levy intended to bring the film back to Seattle all along; the ban just changed his timeline.

So, on August 10, 1912, Eugene Levy announced that the Johnson-Flynn Pictures would return to his Exhibit Theatre. In doing so, however, he offered a subtle dig at the Seattle censors and their desire to protect the public. “In Tacoma many well-known people came in autos to see the picture,” it was noted, “including 3,000 women during the week.”^[20] This engagement started on August 11^th, with ads using the impending ban to sell the picture, urging moviegoers to come see it before time ran out. Showing at a reduced cost of 10 cents per seat, the Johnson-Flynn Pictures played a week at the Exhibit Theatre, then left to resume its Northwest road tour.

As the Johnson-Flynn Pictures wrapped at the Exhibit, it was the end of a long journey that began with J.P. Howe, manager of the Seattle Theatre back in 1897, then moved to John Cort in the early 1900s and finally to Eugene Levy. Just three weeks after Seattle formally banned prizefight pictures, out in Washington, D.C., the Sims Act was signed into law, which formally banned the interstate transport of fight films. It took Congress two years after the Jeffries/Johnson fight, but they finally enacted a measure that managed killed the exhibition of boxing pictures in the United States for the time being. That didn’t shut down the market for prizefight films completely – foreign markets were still open – but these pictures now had significantly less value, both to filmmakers and exhibitors. When Jack Johnson defended his title once again in 1914, this time against Frank Moran, cameras ground away throughout the proceedings, but the resulting films could only be shown to audiences overseas. This was also the case when Johnson fought (and lost to) Jess Willard on April 15, 1915, in Havana. A Jack Johnson loss gave the subsequent film additional value but fight fans in the United States never saw the bout, at least not legally. There was no longer a black champion holding the world’s heavyweight title, but the movies had moved on.

Boxing and motion pictures enjoyed a cozy relationship for almost two decades over the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Both saw significant benefits – the movie industry found a popular, action-filled subject that came with a built-in audience, while boxing was able to reach new and more widespread audiences, helping bring the sport into the mainstream. Today these films are viewed as more documentary than cinematic in nature, but are nonetheless recognized for the important role they played in the development of early film. The genre’s two biggest releases, in fact, have had that recognition formalized. The Jeffries-Johnson Fight, the film that polarized sections of the country and played a significant role in ending the distribution of prizefight films, was added to the National Film Registry in 2005, while the genre’s original blockbuster, 1897’s Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight, was added to the Registry seven years later, in 2012.

By Eric L. Flom – January 2025

Notes:
[1] Seattle Mayor Hiram Gill, as quoted in “Mayor Gill Not to Stop Fight Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 6 July 1910, Page 19.
[2] Washington Governor Marion E. Hay, as quoted in “Fight Pictures Will be Barred in England,” Seattle Daily Times, 13 July 1910, Page 12.
[3] “Church Building Era Prophesied,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9 July 1910, Page 5.
[4] See “British Columbia to Bar Fight Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 11 July 1910, Page 2; and “Fight Pictures Will be Barred in England,” Seattle Daily Times, 13 July 1910, Page 12.
[5] See Lee Grieveson, Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early Twentieth Century America (Berkley: University of California Press – 2004), Page 121; and Dan Streible, Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and Early Cinema (Berkley: University of California Press – 2008), Page 237.
[6] James W. Morrison, as quoted in “Morrison Welcomes Fight Pictures Here,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2 August 1910, Page 7.
[7] See “Spokane Gets Peep at Fight Pictures,” The Spokane Press, 23 August 1910, Page 3; and Holly George, “Municipal Film Censorship in Spokane, Washington, 1910-1916,” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Volume 103, Number 4 (Fall 2012), Pages 181-182.
[8] Letter from Spokane Mayor Nelson S. Pratt to Police Commissioner George Mudgett, reprinted in “Will Use Force to Stop Fight Pictures Here,” The Spokane Press, 25 August 1910, Page 6.
[9] “Trouble Over Fight Pictures in Spokane,” Seattle Daily Times, 24 August 1910, Page 14.
[10] Holly George, “Municipal Film Censorship in Spokane, Washington, 1910-1916,” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Volume 103, Number 4 (Fall 2012), Pages 181-182; see also “Judge Decides Against Pictures,” The Spokane Press, 26 August 1910, Page 2.
[11] The city of Spokane wasn’t through with the Jeffries-Johnson Fight after Eugene Levy left town. The issue resurrected itself in February 1911, after Levy played out his original contract and a new exhibitor brought the film to Spokane. Once again city officials stepped in, but the exhibitor in question came up with a novel (though not necessarily convincing) explanation. Yes, he admitted, he had a print of the Jeffries-Johnson Fight and brought it into the city, but no, he never intended to exhibit it. That bought this exhibitor some time, but foolishly he tried to screen it while under the watchful eye of city officials, was arrested and forced to negotiate a compromise. In this case, the exhibitor was allowed to play the first part of the film showing the training camp scenes, but was prohibited from showing any of the contest itself. In addition, he couldn’t show any of it to African Americans; if there were blacks in attendance, they had to leave the theatre. (George, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Page 182.)
[12] See “Fight Pictures at Exhibit,” Seattle Daily Times, 24 September 1910, Page 7; and “Fight Pictures Last Week,” Seattle Daily Times, 28 September 1910, Page 6.
[13] Dan Streible listed the $1,000 price tag for the Washington state rights based on documentation contained in the George Kleine Collection at the Library of Congress. In his book Fight Pictures, he recreated a company statement for the Moran-Nelson Fight Pictures through May 20, 1911. See Streible, Page 185.
[14] Louis L. Goldsmith, “Seattle, Wash.,” Moving Picture World, 16 September 1911, Page 808.
[15] See “Levy Gets Big Fight Pictures,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 12 July 1911, Page 4; “Fight Pictures at Ideal Theater,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 15 July 1911, Page 9; “Kilbane-Attell Fight Pictures to be Shown,” Seattle Daily Times, 19 April 1912, Page 25; “Levy Outbids Rivals for Fight Pictures,” Seattle Daily Times, 21 April 1912, Page 17; and “Pictures Show Rise of Champ,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 20 April 1912, Page 14.
[16] Meg Frisbee, Counterpunch: The Cultural Battles Over Heavyweight Prizefighting in the American West (Seattle: University of Washington Press – 2016), Page 151.
[17] “Have secured exclusive exhibition rights…,” Seattle Daily Times, 21 July 1912, Page 35.
[18] See “Johnson-Flynn Films Attract Large Crowds,” Seattle Star, 2 August 1912, Page 2.
[19] Eugene Clinton Elliott, A History of Variety-Vaudeville in Seattle: From the Beginning to 1914 (Seattle: University of Washington Press – 1944), Pages 62-63.
[20] “Fight Pictures Coming Back,” Seattle Daily Times, 10 August 1912, Page 14.