A Bloody Canvas - The Mike McTigue Story
*Starred Review* Gallimore, a filmmaker with an interest in boxing history, charts the peculiar rise and precipitous fall of journeyman Irish boxer Mike McTigue in the 1920s. In the months preceding St. Patrick’s Day 1923, a series of events unfolded that changed McTigue’s fortunes. First Louis Fall, a Senegalese fighter, defeated French light-heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier. Because Fall was black, he was unable to get a fight with the British champion, the next logical opponent. Improbably, a fight was arranged with McTigue in civil war–torn Dublin. Despite a bomb exploding outside the theater and the presence of British troops inside, the fight went on, and McTigue won the 20-round epic to become the first Irish fighter to win a championship on Irish soil. McTigue capitalized on his unexpected title to amass a small fortune over the next few years as he fought for purses large and small all over America. But he lost most of his winnings in the stock market crash of 1929 and eventually succumbed to dementia and alcoholism. McTigue’s journey is an amazing one, winding through the worst of the Irish civil war, the Jazz Age, the crash,  and the Great Depression. In Gallimore’s telling, it’s filled with colorful characters, wonderful period detail, and a brave, ultimately doomed hero. Excellent. --Wes Lukowsky