Jess Willard

Monica Wright and Quincy McCall grew up in the same neighborhood and have known each other since childhood. As they grow into adulthood, they fall in love, but they also share another all-consuming passion: basketball. As Quincy and Monica struggle to make their relationship work, they follow separate career paths though high school and college basketball and, they hope, into stardom in big-league professional ball.

In this “GI Movie Weekly” from Fistic Film (likely from 1939), viewers are treated to the historic fight on 4 July 1919 in Toledo, OH, where young boxer Jack Dempsey faced off against the World Heavyweight Champion Jess Willard. The film opens with a few highlights from 1919, including a young Prince of Wales observing the surrender of the German Fleet, Theodore Roosevelt speaking to an audience shortly before his death, and Babe Ruth posing in his New York Yankees jersey.