The Set-Up (1949)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Robert Wise

Writers:

Art Cohn (screenplay)
Joseph Moncure March (poem)

Release Date:

10 January 1950 (Portugal)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Sport

Tagline:

I Want a Man... Not a Human Punching Bag!

Plot:

Against all odds, a worn down fading boxer, painstakingly clashes against his driven opponent, firmly refusing to accept the hearsay of a washed up career.

Plot Keywords:

Boxer | Fixed Fight | Real Time | Boxing | Underdog

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 wins

Cast

Robert Ryan	...	Stoker
Audrey Totter	...	Julie
George Tobias	...	Tiny
Alan Baxter	...	Little Boy
Wallace Ford	...	Gus
Percy Helton	...	Red
Hal Baylor	...	Tiger Nelson (as Hal Fieberling)
Darryl Hickman	...	Shanley
Kenny O'Morrison	...	Moore
James Edwards	...	Luther Hawkins
David Clarke	...	Gunboat Johnson
Phillip Pine	...	Souza
Edwin Max	...	Danny
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Herbert Anderson	...	Husband (uncredited)
Burman Bodel	...	Man (uncredited)
Herman Bodel	...	Man (uncredited)
Ruth Brennan	...	Woman (uncredited)
Helen Brown	...	Wife (uncredited)
John Butler	...	Blind Man's Buddy (uncredited)
Andy Carillo	...	Man (uncredited)
Lillian Castle	...	Woman (uncredited)
Jack Chase	...	Hawkins' Second (uncredited)
Noble 'Kid' Chissel	...	Handler (uncredited)
Heinie Conklin	...	Fight Spectator (uncredited)
Gene Delmont	...	Handler (uncredited)
Abe Dinovitch	...	Ring Caller (uncredited)
Paul Dubov	...	Gambler (uncredited)
Arthur 'Weegee' Fellig	...	Timekeeper (uncredited)
Dan Foster	...	Man (uncredited)
David Fresco	...	Mickey (uncredited)
Bernard Gorcey	...	Tobacco Man (uncredited)
William E. Green	...	Doctor (uncredited)
Bobby Henshaw	...	Announcer (uncredited)
John Indrisano	...	Corner man (uncredited)
Donald Kerr	...	Hot Dog Vendor (uncredited)
Jess Kirkpatrick	...	Gambler (uncredited)
Mike Lally	...	Hawkins' Handler (uncredited)
Archie Leonard	...	Blind Man (uncredited)
Frances Mack	...	Woman (uncredited)
Dwight Martin	...	Glutton (uncredited)
William McCarther	...	Handler (uncredited)
Walter Merrill	...	Bit Role (uncredited)
Lynn Millan	...	Bunny (uncredited)
Frank Mills	...	Photographer (uncredited)
Ben Moselle	...	Referee (uncredited)
Tommy Noonan	...	Masher on Street (uncredited)
William J. O'Brien	...	Pitchman (uncredited)
Brian O'Hara	...	Man (uncredited)
Jack Perry	...	Fight Spectator (uncredited)
Jack Raymond	...	Husband (uncredited)
Al Rhein	...	Man (uncredited)
Frank Richards	...	Bat, Program Vendor (uncredited)
Walter Ridge	...	Manager (uncredited)
Sammy Shack	...	Man (uncredited)
Carl Sklover	...	Man (uncredited)
Emmett Smith	...	Ring Second (uncredited)
Everett Smith	...	Man (uncredited)
Billy Snyder	...	Fun Palace Barker (uncredited)
Jack Stoney	...	Nelson's Second (uncredited)
Arthur Sullivan	...	Handler (uncredited)
Charles Sullivan	...	Man (uncredited)
Harry Tenbrook	...	Fight Spectator behind the Glutton (uncredited)
Ralph Volkie	...	Man (uncredited)
Charles Wagenheim	...	Hamburger Man (uncredited)
Constance Worth	...	Wife (uncredited)

Directed by
Robert Wise

Writing credits
Art Cohn		(screenplay)
Joseph Moncure March		(poem)

Produced by
Richard Goldstone	....	producer
Dore Schary	....	executive producer (uncredited)

Cinematography by
Milton R. Krasner		(director of photography) (as Milton Krasner)

Film Editing by
Roland Gross

Art Direction by
Albert S. D'Agostino
Jack Okey

Set Decoration by
James Altwies
Darrell Silvera

Makeup Department
Gordon Bau	....	makeup supervisor
Gale McGarry	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Josef Norin	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Bill Phillips	....	makeup artist (uncredited)
Hazel Rogers	....	makeup artist (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Edward Killy	....	assistant director
Joel Freeman	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Phil Brigandi	....	sound
Clem Portman	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
James Almond	....	gaffer (uncredited)
Jim Curley	....	grip (uncredited)
Gaston Longet	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Eddie Pyle	....	camera operator (uncredited)

Music Department
C. Bakaleinikoff	....	musical director

Other crew
John Indrisano	....	fight sequences
Daniel B. Ullman	....	script supervisor (uncredited)

Production Companies

• RKO Radio Pictures

Distributors

• RKO Radio Pictures (1949) (USA) (theatrical)
• C&C Television Corporation (1955) (USA) (TV)
• Fox Hills Video (1987) (USA) (VHS)
• Heron Communications (1987) (USA) (VHS)
• Nostalgia Merchant, The (1987) (USA) (VHS)
• Warner Home Video (2004) (USA) (DVD)

Runtime:

72 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Canada:18A | USA:Approved (certificate #13478) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) (cut) | UK:PG (video rating) (1987)

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

The movie plays in real time.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Julie Thompson takes her walk from the gymnasium, she watches Pacific Electric interurban cars as they enter a subway tunnel. Car No. 707 is shown passing twice in a row.

Quotes:

Stoker: Yeah, top spot. And I'm just one punch away.
Julie: I remember the first time you told me that. You were just one punch away from the title shot then. Don't you see, Bill, you'll always be just one punch away.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Fighters (1991) (TV)

Knockout

This is an awfully hard and brutal movie, produced at the end of the brief but fascinating Dore Schary regime at RKO (1946-48), just prior to Howard Hughes' purchase of the studio, which led to the company's slow, agonizing decline that forced it, or rather its new owners, to close it down ten years later. It's the story of an aging boxer, over the hill but still harboring a measure of optimism, really a sort of pride. In this tragic role Robert Ryan is superb. Tough, compassionate, deeply ethical, realistic, and yet with just enough of the dreamer in him to keep him emotionally afloat, Stoker Thompson represents the best qualities of the so-called common man. In an earlier, more heroic age, he might have been a knight; but alas we do not live in such a time, thus his personal qualities go unnoticed by all but his wife. In this role, Audrey Totter is almost as good as Ryan. Some of her scenes are unforgettable, as when she tears up the ticket to her husband's fight and throws it over the bridge into the steam of an oncoming train; or when she watches a bunch of silly teenagers "play" at boxing with a couple of performing puppets, which at first amuses her, then horrify her when she realizes her own and her husband's fate in this little "play" scene.

The film is a masterpiece of design and composition. Director Robert Wise never made a better picture than this. The movie, like High Noon, plays out in real time, and as a result has an air of urgency to it. Adapted from a poem by Joseph Moncure March, which tells essentially the same story, but with the main character a black man, Wise and scenarist Art Cohn take considerable liberties here that purists' might not care for. In the poem the setting is New York, while in the movie it's a tank town called Paradise City, a far cry from New York even if it's in fact less than a hundred miles away, upstate, or in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. The film never makes this clear. Here and there hints are dropped that the setting might be California. It doesn't matter. The Paradise City boxing arena is a place for young guys on their way up and old guys on their way down. It's a million miles from Madison Square Garden, and that's all that counts.

The film's settings are beautifully realized; and Milton Krasner's photography is no less brilliant. The central street, all blinking lights, and yet shadowy and black in odd places, is a perfect visual metaphor for the action of the film; while seldom have the denizens of a small city looked more menacing. Men in garish ties and fedoras jostle each other on the sidewalk as they pass by. They are a hard, apathetic breed, and hungry for sensation. Inside the arena we see humanity at its least admirable, as there is an undercurrent of sadism in even the most innocuous-seeming fight fans, such as a blind man ("go for his eyes!). We sense that these people come not so much to see a favorite boxer win as a hapless boxer lose.

In the center of all this is Stoker, a man with character surrounded by people who could care less. As his handlers, a porcine, toothpick-chewing Percy Helton, and a thick-witted George Tobias, are superb. In a somewhat smaller role, Edwin Max, in pinstripe suit, with pencil-line mustache's, and what look like three soggy Salada tea bags under each eye, is visually perfect as a small-time something, not even hood, just a guy who runs around and does things for the big guy, played by Alan Baxter, a sort of anti-Stoker, a man without qualities who goes to great lengths to show that he has class and principles, when in fact he has neither. The man is a monster, and he doesn't even have guts. When Stoker punches him in the face he lets his goons do the dirty work.

The interior lives of the two main characters in this film suggest an affinity with the humanistic stoicism Hemingway, while the surface is closer to Weegee and Walker Evans. Overall, though, the movie is pure RKO; its courage-in-the-face-of-adversity theme suggests, almost uncannily, this odd man out among the major studios' history and future, and the best qualities of those who worked there.