Who can grasp how boxing was once, back in the 1950s, stitched into the national consciousness, live at 10 three nights a week on the three major networks? Occasionally the placid Eisenhower nation even got to witness in-progress murders in prime time — e.g., the savage pummelings of Benny “Kid” Paret and Davey Moore.

The many millions who dug boxing overlooked the homicidal excesses. It was the glory era of Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd Patterson, and, in the ’60s, a good-looking coltish Olympic gold medalist named Cassius Clay. Decades later? Muhammad Ali is a middle-aged tragedy, his occupation-caused Parkinson’s disease a persuasive message why real men shouldn’t spar. Professional fisticuffs are discredited as caveman-like and mob-contaminated, and nobody with an ounce of class cares which misled chumps are squaring off to be a 2001 champ.

Translation: the Pearl Harbor crew needn’t fear any box-office drain when Split Decision opens next Thursday at the Coolidge Corner. The protagonist of Marcy Garriott’s worth-your-while documentary is a pugilist, and portions of the movie show him doing what he does best: pounding a hapless opponent. Split Decision even dares to be unfashionably pro-boxing. The climactic match for the championship of Mexico is shot the way only a fan would see it: with attentive respect for the art of jabbing and punching and trying for a KO.

What’s more, the film isn’t exactly geared to attract a Boston crowd. It features a disenfranchised Hispanic cast, and many scenes are set in rural Mexico. And however talented he might be, Gabriel Jesus “El Matador” Chavez is not a famous boxer. What does it mean to Beantown (or even America) that he’s the #1 WBC-ranked super-featherweight?

What makes Split Decision essential viewing is the political context of Chavez’s story, how he came afoul of America’s draconian immigration laws. As a young Mexican growing up in Chicago, he ran with the wrong crowd. At 17, he took part in an armed robbery; caught, he served three and a half years in prison. Afterward, he moved to Austin to start boxing seriously. He kept his nose clean and by the mid ’90s had pushed to the top of the rankings. A championship match seemed imminent.

Enter the US Congress, which in 1996 enacted stringent laws for the deportation of non-citizens with criminal convictions. These laws were made retroactive; as a result, in 1997, the American-raised Chavez was sent packing to Chihuahua. There, his chances for a title fight slipping away, he remains in restless exile. He’s appealed for a pardon from the governor of Illinois so he can box in the US before he’s too old. He’s hoping that the Bush Supreme Court, when it hears arguments, will find cruel and unjust the retroactive application of those 1996 laws. Dream on!

ROSCOE “FATTY” ARBUCKLE, the butterball silent comedian who rivaled Charlie Chaplin in popularity, may have done terrible sexual things to actress Virginia Rappe the night of September 5, 1921, that resulted in her death. There were no first-hand witnesses, and he, denying all, escaped prosecution through two hung juries and a mistrial. Although never found guilty, Arbuckle saw his films banned and his lucrative Hollywood contract canceled. His career never recovered, and in 1933, at age 46, he died out of the limelight. Today the only thing film buffs are likely to recall is that night of infamy, which was immortalized by gruesome pages in Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon and by the 1975 Merchant Ivory film The Wild Party, where he was played by rotund James Coco.

But what of his movies? Kino Video has remastered two volumes of Arbuckle’s 1917-’20 two-reel shorts, which he directed and starred in for Paramount Pictures and which co-star his pal Buster Keaton. Arbuckle is a nimble talent, comfortable with his 266-pound rhino frame, whether chasing a young sweet thing, doing somersaults, or prancing about in drag. His rubbery baby face and barndoor rear both figure in the action.

A special treat: there’s commissioned original music by Boston’s own Alloy Orchestra that stretches beyond percussion and electric piano to include banjo, accordion, and even theremin. Maybe someday the Alloys will have a chance to play live to the one lost masterpiece on the DVDs, Arbuckle’s surrealist, madhouse caper “Good Night Nurse!”

Gerald Peary can be reached at gpeary@world.std.com

Issue Date: June 7-14, 2001