Champion (1949)

Champion
Directed by Mark Robson
Written by Carl Foreman from a story by Ring Lardner
1949/USA
Screen Plays/Stanley Kramer Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Tommy Haley: You know what a “Golem” is? I think I knew all the time I was building one.[/box]

This was Kirk Douglas’s break-out performance.  He is scary good as a ruthless boxer.

The story is a familiar one.  Midge Kelly (Douglas) is hitching rides on freight cars with his crippled brother Connie (Arthur Kennedy) en route to a diner they have bought an interest in.  After jumping from the train after a fistfight, they get a ride from a boxer and his girlfriend and wind up at the local boxing ring.  The pugnacious Midge continues to react violently to any perceived insult.  When one of his boxers drops out, the ring manager offers him $35 dollars to fight.  The amateur is thoroughly trounced and Midge winds up paying $20 of his promised purse in various “fees”.  But trainer Haley (Paul Stewart) sees some latent talent and tells him to look him up if he is ever in Los Angeles.

When Midge and Connie arrive at the diner, it turns out they have again been cheated by the buddy who sold it to them.  They are put to work doing menial chores.  Midge starts a thing with the real owner’s daughter Emma (Ruth Roman).  When they are caught together the father forces him to marry her.  Midge does so and promptly leaves town.

At loose ends, Midge makes his way to LA and looks up Haley.  He is burning with ambition and rage at all the slights he has suffered.  He trains hard to turn pro and wins a number of fights.  He is unable to get a shot at the title though.  In order to fight the champion, he is required to throw the fight.  He agrees to this, then changes his mind in the ring.  He and Haley are both pummeled by outraged gamblers.  But Midge has finally made a name for himself and becomes a media darling.

The rest of the movie follows the fighter’s career as he betrays every single person who loves or supports him.  With Marilyn Maxwell and Lola Albright as women Midge screws over on his way to the top.

Under no circumstances do what I did.  The version currently streaming on Amazon Plus has been colorized.  The lights and shadows of the Oscar-nominated low key cinematography were rendered into an obnoxious muddy mess in the version I watched.

I can recommend the film itself though.  It’s a story we have seen before.  However, whereas usually the hero is corrupted, here Midge is more or less a rotter from the first frame.  The movie belongs to Douglas and he is absolutely a force of nature.  As much as one despises the character he is playing it is impossible to to take your eyes off him.

Champion won the Oscar for Best Film Editing.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Actor; Best Supporting Actor (Kennedy); Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. (Dimitri Tiomkin).

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