Champion Blu-ray Review
You'd fight too if you were named Midge.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, April 20, 2013
While there had been early efforts like 1936's John Wayne melodrama
Conflict and 1938's
The Crowd
Roars with Robert Taylor, Clifford Odets probably could be credited with having created the "modern" boxing drama
with his epochal
Golden Boy, the Group Theatre's most successful production (which just recently received a
lauded remounting on Broadway back at the Belasco Theater where it had originally premiered in November 1937).
Odets' story was a thinly masked screed pitching the old Art vs. Commerce line, but it was filled with the playwright's
visceral intensity and had an unusually tragic denouement (which of course was bowdlerized in the Hollywood
adaptation that inevitably followed a couple of years after the stage version).
Golden Boy bit player John
Garfield (who did his own stint as the star of the show in an early fifties Broadway revival) went on to star in a film
which owes a rather large debt of gratitude to the Odets outing, Robert Rossen's celebrated 1947 film
Body and Soul (Garfield would
evince the
other side of
Golden Boy's hero's talents by playing a violinist in 1946's
Humoresque
with Joan Crawford). 1949's
Champion wants to be a little
Golden Boy and a little
Body and
Soul, and if it doesn't quite have the goods, it provides Kirk Douglas with one of his signature early roles and the
one which snared him his first Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor. Douglas had had a rather stratospheric rise
to the top, debuting in a supporting role in 1946's
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and continuing in a series of interesting
supporting and co-starring roles until he was at the point where he got the ultimate above the title billing in
Champion. This was in a day when billing and even font sizes for various contributions in film were strictly
controlled and where the difference between a "Starring" and "With" billing for even established stars could mean a
huge difference in pay. (I have a fantastic old letter from Edward Arnold's manager taking Samuel Goldwyn to task for
having the audacity to have an ad for
Come and Get It offer co-star Frances Farmer—who coincidentally starred
in Broadway's
Golden Boy—the same font size as Arnold.) Douglas is front and center in virtually every scene in
Champion, dominating a film that isn't
quite as gritty as it needs to be but which is nonetheless exciting
and involving.
We meet the unfortunately named "Midge" Kelly on a boxcar, where he and his crippled brother, the equally
unfortunately
named Connie (Arthur Kennedy) are being accosted by a group of toughs who know that the Kelly boys have money on
them. An ugly fight ensues, with Midge and Connie being thrown off the train (Connie is actually thrown off the train
by Midge in an attempt to keep him safe). The two start hitchhiking and as luck would have it, they're picked up
by boxer Johnny Dunne (John Daheim) and his excessively blonde girlfriend Grace Diamond (Marilyn Maxwell). Grace is
none too pleased to have these two haggard guys sharing her car, which of course means that romance can't be
too far off.
Dunne gets the boys to Kansas City and suggests the Kellys can get a job hawking drinks ringside, but that turns into a
fiasco when the bar manager calls Connie a "gimp", bringing out Midge's violent side.
That in turn leads to the
local fight manager offering Midge a quick $35 if he'll replace an injured boxer in one of the night's matches. Midge
agrees, barely surviving the bout, and getting more than a bit perturbed when the manager's "fees" mean that Midge's
net pay is a measly $10. However, that gives him and his brother enough scratch to try to make their ultimate goal:
Los Angeles, where they've just bought a one third interest in a little diner.
They arrive at the diner only to find out they've been duped and own one third of nothing. However, the diner does
have work available, and that gives the boys a chance to settle down and for Midge to start romancing pretty Emma
Bryce, (Ruth Roman) the daughter of the owner. Midge is smart enough to know he won't be able to provide much of a
life for Emma, and so he decides to track down a trainer who had seen him box in that impromptu bout in Kansas City.
Though initially reluctant, Tommy Haley (Paul Stewart) agrees to take Midge under his wing and develop his inherent
talents.
Midge's rapid rise to the top of the boxing heap of course brings its own increasing set of emotional tolls. He forsakes
Emma, whom he's married, and ends up in disastrous relationships both with Grace and, later, Palmer Harris (Lola
Albright), the estranged wife of a manager (Luis Van Rooten) who is carrying a lot of Midge's debt. The interesting thing
about
Champion, which in many ways plays like
Body and Soul-lite, is how there's not
that
vicious of a quality to Midge's character. He's ambitious and even avaricious (the scene where he forsakes
Palmer for a hefty payday and forgiveness of his debts is one of the best in the film), but he's shown to be a
basically nice guy, something that perhaps undercuts (no boxing pun intended) the dramatic impact of the film. There's
also perhaps a bit too much roiling romantic melodrama in the film, especially with the late reappearance of Emma, who
now is Connie's girlfriend (albeit almost by default).
Champion was well received in its day, garnering several Academy Award nominations (and winning for Editing),
and it holds up rather well, given reasonable expectations. Anyone who has seen the original stage version of
Golden Boy or experienced what is now a glut of "gritty" boxing films may find
Champion a bit anemic by
comparison, but it's bolstered by a fantastic early performance by Douglas, an actor who, to paraphrase a quote in a
famous film by another
Golden Boy alum, was much more than just "a contender".
