‘This is the only sport in the
world where two guys get paid for doing something they’d be arrested for if
they got drunk and did it for nothing.’
The small town youth Midge Kelly
and his lame brother Connie came in search of employment to LA. With his
masculine built and bully temperament Midge knows only one thing- to fight. An opportunity
leads him to boxing and soon from small town hitch hiker prizefighter he
becomes the unbeatable champ of boxing ring. He grows on making his name and fame and
carried away by wrong priorities. Under company of beautiful dames and money
spinning success he cut off his old loyalty. The title of championship persists
with a heavy personal price tag.
By all means the film is definitely
worthy enough to watch for the knock out performance by Kirk Douglas as Kelly.
Must say this one of the most terrific and passionate performance of his early
career. Along with fine acting talent, the man has amazing natural gift of muscular
profile compared to most of Hollywood stars of
the era and the film like this brought that to the public notice. The film was
spectacularly successful and established him as the man to watch forward in
coming time. Apart of him, all rest of the cast performed so well, especially Arthur
Kennedy who played his lame brother Connie.
The film is fine mixture of
sports drama and moderate noir. There’s no doubt that the film would surely remain
an inspirational one for Scorsese while making ‘Raging Bull’, as he shot the
film in B&W with those brilliant slow motion and close up shots of bloody ring action. Though nominated for best
actor and best supporting actor category, the film won sole Oscar for Best
editing category.
Ratings-8/10
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