![\"'Ali](\"https:\/\/decider.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/muhammad-ali-dick-cavett.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200\")
<\/p>\nThe various iterations of The Dick Cavett Show, especially the late-night ABC show which ran from 1969-1975, have been a deep resource for Cavett and director Robert Bader to look back on some of the serious issues that riled the country in the late \u201960s and early \u201970s. First they collaborated on how the show\u2019s often influential guests and intellectual discourse contributed to the discussion surrounding the Vietnam War, then they did another documentary about the show\u2019s extensive coverage of Watergate. Now, the two of them examine the unlikely friendship between Cavett and one of his most frequent guests: boxing legend Muhammad Ali.<\/p>\n
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The Gist: Ali was on Cavett\u2019s show over a dozen times between 1969 and his last fight in 1981. When he first appeared in \u201969, he was in the middle of a period where his heavyweight championship was stripped from him and he was threatened with prison over his refusal to enter the military draft. The first third of Ali & Cavett: The Tale Of The Tapes goes over the steps that led the former Cassius Clay to that point, from his association with the Nation of Islam, and how Elijah Mohammed and Malcolm X both tried to get Ali to align with each\u2019s faction within NOI. Through interviews with Al Sharpton, Juan Williams, Larry Merchant and others \u2014 and of course, Cavett \u2014 we go in-depth into Ali\u2019s state of mind then, who was influencing him, and how Cavett shockingly thought that the champ, who he had already established a strong rapport with, was using his nimble verbal skills to ramble on about someone else\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
But once Ali\u2019s boxing license was restored by the New York Supreme Court in 1970 (he was still appealing his federal conviction, which wouldn\u2019t be cleared until a year later), Ali\u2019s appearances on Cavett\u2019s show were more of a balance of boxing talk and talk about the always touchy racial issues on which Ali had strong opinions. We see clips of Ali talking about all sorts of stuff, not the least of which trash talking his biggest rival, Joe Frazier. We even see the infamous appearance before the first Ali-Frazier fight where the two of them almost come to blows, then gang up on Cavett and lift him out of his chair.<\/p>\n
From Ali\u2019s comeback, where he regained the heavyweight crown after defeating a young, stronger George Foreman, the show takes a turn. We see light moments, like Cavett at Ali\u2019s woodland training camp in Pennsylvania, to darker moments, like after Ali lost the title to Leon Spinks in 1978. Cavett and the other experts all wonder if his later fights, and the fact that he got hit harder during those than during his younger days, is what led to the Parkinson\u2019s syndrome that eventually led to his death in 2016.<\/p>\n