MUHAMMAD ALI: MADE IN MIAMI

PRODUCERS and WRITERS:
Alan Tomlinson and Gaspar Gonzalez
 
RELEASING COMPANY:
PBS Home Video and Paramount

SUGGESTED PRICE:
$19.99
 
REVIEWED BY:
Isabella Lucero
 
MUHAMMED ALI:  MADE IN MIAMI illustrates the flamboyant boxer’s formative years, in the early 1960s, when he trained at the famous Fifth Street Gym in Miami beach and lived in the Overton neighborhood, which was considered to be the Harlem of the South.  Sadly, even though Cassius Clay had just won a gold medal in Rome, he was still not allowed to purchase clothes in a ‘whites only’ department store.  The shopkeeper said to him, “We don’t allow blacks to try on clothes in my store.”  The local police would also regularly harass Clay, during his training, when he would jog to South Beach.
 
This retro documentary is a combination of archival footage intercut with contemporary interviews with the now mostly old men who were lucky enough to see firsthand the blossoming of Cassius Clay into Muhammed Ali.  The contemporary interviews are with his feisty trainer Angelo Dundee, the fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco, and some writers who were obsessed with Ali back in the day, and appear to be still quite enamored with him. It is thrilling to see how brash, over-the-top, and fun he was during these glory years.  His boasting and bragging makes contemporary self-promoters seem pretty lame. The build up to the legendary and tragic Sonny Liston battle is worth seeing for its crazy splendor. And Ali was just as beautiful as he claimed to be.
 
This was an exciting and vibrant time and Ali’s training to become the heavyweight champion of the world coincided with the national civil rights movement.  It examines, in a fresh way, the relationship Ali had with Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam.  It is remarkable what Ali had to give up in order to not go to Vietnam.  He said he did not want to be a black man, sent by the white man, to go and kill the brown man in Vietnam.
 
If you are interested in our segregated and unequal history and witnessing the evolution of a fiercely brave trailblazer, buy it from Shop PBS shop@pbs.org.  Your purchase will support PBS and make PBS programming possible.
 
The DVD extra features has the trailer and a conversation with the producers, Alan Tomlinson and Gaspar Gonzalez.
 
7 out of 10 binkies
 
Isabella Lucero is a writer, mother, cook, and gardener living in Tucson, Arizona.