The Hornbacker-Murphy Fight

This short boxing feature by the Edison Company catches a lot of action in a very brief running time, although the level of skill demonstrated by the two boxers is not particularly impressive. It's certainly true that much of this is probably attributable to the styles of the time, but it is also the case that these were two nondescript athletes who would long ago have been forgotten if the Edison Company had not made this movie of them.

Boxing films were one of the first genres of movies to attain widespread popularity, and this one followed the format used for a number of features of the era, with the two boxers fighting an exhibition match of five rounds of 20 seconds each. It looks as if only one round has survived.

Eugene Hornbacker was little known, and of Murphy not even his first name has been recorded. Neither boxer seems to know how to do much except to flail away as hard as possible, but it does make for a lot of whirlwind activity. The background is also interesting, with several spectators looking on in what was likely a staged arrangement. The referee also takes an active role in directing the match.

This feature was included in one of Kino's excellent collections of early movies, but it was unfortunately shown under an incorrect title, and was erroneously labeled as a Glenroy Brothers movie. With the apparent help of film historian Charles Musser, they repaired the mistake in their more recent DVD collection of Edison Company features, in which this is included as an extra, under its proper title. (This later Edison collection also includes a genuine Glenroy Brothers feature.)

By the time "The Hornbacker-Murphy Fight" had come out, the boxing genre for the Edison company appears to have gone into decline. In their earliest camera tests, boxing was a frequent subject they used for mock demonstrations performed by amateurs; the genre had given rise when some of the most famous boxers of the day got called to the Black Maria studio to be filmed (such as Mike Leonard, Jack Cushing and James Corbett); and now, having run out of popular boxers, the company was forced to shoot matches between little-remembered champions. Murphy (his last name hasn't been put in the record), appears to be in this case the underdog, with Hornbacker probably being the championship boxer since his full name is documented. Additionally, while only one round survives there was probably originally five or six; and once more, from the footage here, their isn't any way to know who won.

The Edison company would eventually drop the boxing genre by 1895, with their last known recorded match (at least to my knowledge) to have been "Billy Edwards and the Unknown". I've got no proof or anything, but I could at least say that the reason this was so was probably because more companies (like Lumière) had started shooting subjects on location and the black backgrounds of the Black Maria were getting a little tiresome. By 1896, this was finally the case with Edison too, some prime examples being "Shooting the Shoots" and "Mess Call", both of that year.