To anyone who admires the truth, Hollywood isn’t the most reliable conveyer of history. Any movie that claims to be “based on a true story” is exactly that: It has some basis in fact – maybe a person, maybe an event – but not much more.

Ron Howard’s movie “Cinderella Man” is a good case in point. In looking up some information on the forthcoming film “Resurrecting the Champ,” which opens in Spokane on Friday, I came across a story that the writer J.H. Moehringer wrote about Max Baer Jr.

The story makes the point that Baer's father, Max Baer Sr. - the man whom James “Cinderella Man” Braddock beat in their June 13, 1935, heavyweight championship bout - was not the portrait of evil that Ron Howard made him out to be in his 2005 movie.

What’s interesting is that Moehringer himself is the subject of the same kind of movie rewriting of history. Moehringer is the real-life writer on whom Josh Hartnett’s “Resurrecting the Champ” character is based.

So what’s truth? Howard’s camp claimed that “Cinderella Man” was based on the Braddock family’s perception of Baer as a genuine threat. Baer’s son, the actor/producer Max Baer Jr., remembers his father as a caring, loving and courageous man.

As always, the truth’s somewhere in between.

Below: The family of heavyweight boxer James Braddock, portrayed here by Russell Crowe (L) in Ron Howard's 2005 film “Cinderella Man,” saw Max Baer Sr. as a threat. Baer's son and others, though, recall Baer Sr. as a caring and courageous man.

Universal Pictures

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