Halifax-born filmmaker Jim Morrison IV brings the story of Nova Scotia boxing legend Sam Langford to the big screen this week when his short film Bonecrusher debuts at the Boston Film Festival.
The dramatic short chronicles a night in the life of the Weymouth Falls-born fighter, during a 1923 match against the towering Jim (The Fireman) Flynn who stood six inches taller than the 5'6.5" Langford, considered the greatest boxer who never won a world title.
Morrison calls Bonecrusher a film he’s been wanting to make for nearly 20 years, since he first did a project on Langford in Grade 7 at the suggestion of Dr. Henry Bishop, chief curator at the Black Cultural Centre. Now based in Los Angeles, Morrison is working on making a feature film version of Langford’s story, after the short was named a Director’s Guild of Canada Short Fund Film winner in 2019.
“My father instilled the love of the unsung hero story in me.” says Morrison, son of well-known Halifax oral historian and retired Saint Marys University professor Dr. James H. Morrison.
“I have directed about 200 other projects and this is by far the most rewarding one. I have been pitching it for two decades, so it seems like the time is finally right for people to hear this story. It is an incredible honour.”
Morrison wrapped production on Bonecrusher just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in North America, and continued with editing and post-production while the world was in lockdown and quarantine. The film will continue its journey through the 2020-21 film festival circuit while he and his production team continue development work on the Sam Langford feature film.
Bonecrusher stars Marc John Jefferies (Treme, Get Rich or Die Tryin’) as Langford and actor/stunt performer Patrick Kerton as Flynn, in this film snapshot from the life of the boxer who left home as a youth and became known as the Boston Terror and the Boston Bonecrusher after settling in Massachusetts.
Langford became Boston’s amateur featherweight champion at the age of 15, and later defeated world lightweight champion Joe Gans in a fight in 1903, although it was not a title bout. Praised by boxing legend Jack Dempsey, Langford lost in 1906 to world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, who repeatedly refused to meet for a rematch.
Langford notably won the World Colored Heavyweight Championship a record five times between 1910 and 1918, a title previously held by Johnson.
Based in Los Angeles, Morrison has received acclaim and award nominations for his most recent film I’m Going to Break Your Heart with Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida.
“Everyone Jim or I have ever worked with came out of the woodwork to make this happen,” says Bonecrusher producer Alex Jordan (Private Eyes).
“From a producing standpoint, this film punches way outside its weight division, just like Sam did.”
