CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Madison Square Garden (film)

1932 film by Harry Joe Brown

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ19363677 ↗
Source-derived summary

Madison Square Garden is a 1932 American Pre-Code drama film directed by Harry Joe Brown and written by Thomson Burtis, Allen Rivkin and P.J. Wolfson.

The film stars Jack Oakie, Thomas Meighan, Marian Nixon, William Collier, Sr., ZaSu Pitts, Lew Cody and William "Stage" Boyd. The film was released on November 4, 1932, by Paramount Pictures.

Actual boxers like Jack Johnson, Billy Papke and Tom Sharkey and actual sports journalists like Paul Gallico, Grantland Rice and Damon Runyon appear in the story as themselves.

Plot

Middleweight contender Eddie Burke needs to change managers after his, Doc Williams, sets up a big fight at Madison Square Garden for him. Eddie becomes distracted by too much partying and girlfriend Bee, who is understandably worried about him.

Eddie falls into the hands of a crooked trainer, "Honest John" Miller, who works for a racketeer, Sloane. He is made to lose the fight, Miller wrapping his opponent's hands in plaster, and takes a terrible beating. But when the truth comes to light, some of Eddie's fellow boxers go after the crooks with their fists.

Cast

Jack Oakie as Eddie Burke

Thomas Meighan as Bill Carley

Marian Nixon as Bee

William Collier, Sr.

Editorial summary

“Madison Square Garden (film)” enters the record as 1932 film by Harry Joe Brown. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Madison, Square and Garden can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1932. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Madison, Square and Garden.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Madison Square Garden (film)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Madison, Square and Garden provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19363677. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Madison Square Garden (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Madison Square Garden (film) primary sources, Madison Square Garden (film) archive and Madison research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Madison Square Garden (film)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Madison Square Garden (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.