Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

This standout movie captures in just seventy-two minutes the milieu of the 'club' fighter, the kind of boxer whose entire career takes place on a 'circuit' of small, anonymous cities light years away from the Chicagos and New Yorks and 'name' venues like Madison Square Garden, and who never gets within a right cross of the Golden Gloves or a 'title' fight. This world is evoked brilliantly in Robert Wises' direction of Art Cohn's screenplay in which everyone surrounding the actual fighters is seedy in need only of names like the characters in Volpone to drive home their right to inhabit the urban jungle in which they flourish. The entire cast are beyond superb with Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter on a different level. Outstanding.

Robert Wise's taut, film noir boxing drama "The Set-Up" qualifies as one of those memorable B-movies that delivers sturdy performances from a first rate cast and conjures up lots of atmosphere. The action unfolds in an urban environment with a down-on-his-luck prizefighter, Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan of "Golden Gloves"), desperate for one last taste of victory. The boxer's wife, Julie (Audrey Totter of "The Lady in the Lake") has gotten to where she cannot stand by and watch Stoker get slaughtered in the ring. The last time that Julie saw him take a beating, poor Stoker couldn't remember her name for a while. Meantime, our hero's shady fight manager, Tiny (George Tobias of "Sergeant York") has connived to throw Stoker's next fight because he doesn't think that his 35-year old pugilist can survive in the ring against a younger man. Clocking in at a meager 72 minutes, "The Set-Up—which draws its title from the take-a-dive-deal that Tiny negotiated with the opposing boxer's manager—is lean, mean, and entirely straightforward. Robert Ryan is terrific as the boxer who is determined to win his next fight. Audrey Totter is cast as his wife who wants him out of the game. George Tobias plays Tim, Ryan's slimy fight manager. Tobias is so sure that Stoker will fold that he doesn't even confide in him anything about his crooked deal. Percy Helton is Tobias' assistant Red, and he struggles without success to convince Tobias to let Ryan in on the secret. Incredibly, Stoker surprises everybody and defeats Tiger Nelson (Hal Baylor of "Sands of Iwo Jima") during a grueling match. The man who surprised the set-up is a slickly-attired gambler, Little Boy (Alan Baxter of "Santa Fe Trail"), who doesn't like it when people 'welsh' on him. The believable cast is populated with a number of familiar character actors, such as Wallace Ford, Darryl Hickman, and David Clarke. Milton R. Krasner's gritty black and white cinematography captures the grimy underbelly of American society. The ending delivers a knock-out punch. If you're looking for an excellent example of film noir, you need look no further.

You know what's odd? I couldn't even tell you who the World Heavyweight Champ is today. However there was a time, and I'm referring to my own youth here back in the Fifties and Sixties, that even if you weren't a boxing fan, the names of the champion and top contenders were a ubiquitous presence in newspaper headlines and the evening news. Times sure change.This is the tale of a hanger-on, an over the hill pugilist going by the name of Stoker Thompson, admirably portrayed by Robert Ryan in one of his classic roles. At the age of forty, he's playing a thirty five year old fighter against a much younger contender on the way up, backed by a flashy gangster the townies call Little Boy (Alan Baxter). I can't say I was much impressed with actor Ryan's ring style, virtually spending the entire match in an uncomfortable looking crouch position that seemed defensive most of the time. This really hit me when I learned that Ryan actually did some boxing in his college and military service days. I've never boxed, so what do I know, except that it looked awkward for someone who wanted very much to win just one more fight.The film gets a lot of mileage out of it's supporting players. George Tobias and Percy Helton are wonderfully smarmy and duplicitous in the mismanagement of their boy Stoker. Edwin Max as Little Boy's stooge Danny also conveys a lot more with his facials than with any lines he gets to deliver. Stoker's long suffering gal Julie conveys all the desperation and fatigue of someone who stands by her man, but hopes against hope that he'll give up the fight game to join the rest of humanity. In that scene on the bridge overlooking the trolleys, the torn up pieces of her fight ticket seem to flutter away like the last remnants of desire in her heart that maybe, just maybe she and Stoker can someday have a happy life together.So it's 1949, and things were a lot simpler back then, but here's what I don't get. The money involved in the fix seemed inconsequential to me, and I don't understand how a hood like Little Boy could get so worked up over fifty bucks. Fifty bucks! Sure, he was bankrolling his girlfriend Bunny on a side wager for a C-note, but how far was that fifty dollar pay off expected to go between Tiny (Tobias), Red (Helton) and Stoker? This is what Stoker was supposed to lay down for? Maybe I'm being naive, but an average week's pay to throw a preliminary fight seemed like small potatoes to me.Anyway, you don't have to be a boxing fan to get something out of this flick. Filmed in a crisp noir style, it captures all the seedy atmosphere of small town venues and smoke filled arenas that anyone could ask for. The ticket to this match is worth every penny.

I love boxing films, preferably in a vintage black and white Hollywood production like this and have to say this is about the best I've ever seen. Other movies either dramatise the life and career of a well-known fighter or portray the boxer becoming a champion or at least a contender. This is different. In "The Set-Up", Robert Ryan is a washed-up ageing fighter whose long-suffering girlfriend can't even stand to see him lose one more time. Fighting in cheap joints over four rounds at the end of the bill for $20 or so, this is the epitome of anti-glamour, but even this far down the ladder, the reach of cheap hoodlums looking to make money on the side by fixing fights, encroaches into Ryan's world, giving the classic boxing dilemma of should he dive or fight.The settings and acting are almost universally good. In the early stages of the movie, we're introduced to all the other fighters at different stages of their careers, who all share the same dressing-room with Ryan's "Stoker" Thompson. By the end, however, after he's crossed the mob by knocking out their "boy", he's alone in the alley way, his future as a fighter crushed, like his punching-hand. And yet there's a sort of redemption for him, as his girl comes back to him and they consider an enforced future away from the fight game.This movie runs for only 72 minutes and yet packs a good deal of action, situation and characterisation into its brief running time. There are some superb touches by director Wise, particularly his thumb-nail characterisations of the fight fans at ring-side, including an almost demonic everyday-looking housewife out for blood, the blind guy who gets roused even as he can't even see the action and humorously, the guy who gets through a four-course fast-food meal in his seat, while watching the bouts.Unquestionably though, it's Ryan's superb acting which carries the film. World-weary at the start, we see him as almost a father figure to his fellow pugilists. Later, with the mob at his back he displays an almost palpable dread, while in the ring itself, he aptly demonstrates that he used to box himself in his younger days.The fight scenes are terrific, extremely life-like and absolutely gripping - what a great three rounds of boxing the spectators got for their money. The make-up applications on the faces of the beaten-up boxers are worth special mention. Almost the only wrong note is the name of the local mobster who exacts a grim revenge on Ryan - I mean, "Little Boy"...you've got to be kidding.But if that's my only carp, you can easily tell this was a first-rate realistic drama on the seamy side of boxing at the ground level. It avoids clichés, (for instance, the director purposely doesn't have Ryan's girl fill her vacant seat at the fight to inspire his come- back, reinforcing the fact that it's his own determination and unwillingness to be corrupted, which inspire his some might say fool-hardy courage - look where it got him) and feels as real as you could possibly get.A knockout, in fact.