The boxing film is one of the quintessential Hollywood genres and the inspiration for classic films from the earliest chapters of American cinema through the present day. The Harvard Film Archive’s latest annual movie marathon will last a full seven rounds, with an equal number of feature films set in and around the perilous ring where fighters’ stamina, courage and honesty are given the ultimate test. The series begins on a lighter note, with Charlie Chaplin hilariously donning gloves as a lightweight who just might, improbably, become The Champion declared by the title of this brisk Essanay short. A shift in mood is marked by King Vidor’s classic bruising ode to pugilism and fatherhood, The Champ, where Wallace Beery immortalized and gave lasting emotional depth to the figure of the washed-up palooka through the tender bond that ties him to his precocious and fiercely protective little boy, played by a young and equally impressive Jackie Coogan. Two dark visions of boxing from the same year are offered by Robert Wise’s brutal and brilliant noir The Set-Up and Mark Robson’s Champion, the latter an important early Kirk Douglas vehicle that packs an unexpectedly powerful punch with its portrait of an increasingly ruthless fighter determined to win at any cost. In his debut film, Walter Hill found Hard Times in Depression-era New Orleans where Charles Bronson is an aging boxer who earns his daily bread with his bare fists, street fighting across the Big Easy with James Coburn as his unscrupulous agent. Famed screenwriter Rod Sterling was a boxer while in the military, an experience that he channeled into one of his personal scripts and the penultimate film of our program, Requiem for a Heavyweight. Ralph Nelson directed both the 1956 “teleplay” version and, six years later, the remarkable feature film with an impressive cast featuring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney and a bold appearance by a young Cassius Clay—later Muhammed Ali—punching directly into the camera. Our marathon closes with one of the greatest American boxing films of all times, Scorsese’s beautiful, tragic and brutal portrait of Jake LaMotta, the legendary fighter also known as Raging Bull. - Haden Guest