http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049291/
This 1956 release, an indictment of the boxing environment of the first half of the 20th century, was the last in Humphrey Bogart's career. He was fighting the esophageal cancer that would claim his life in January of the next year. He looked haggard in many scenes, as the well-tailored suits didn't fit his frame as they did in previous pictures like The Maltese Falcon.
In this film, he plays a sports columnist recently set adrift when his newspaper folded. Like most men of that era, his self-worth and value in society were based on his job. Nick Benko, a local promoter deeply involved in fixing fights, has an angle and needs Bogart's Eddie Willis to help make the angle work. Benko, played with flamboyance and a glib tongue by Rod Steiger, is a man used to having his way with people and circumstances. He offers Eddie a generous salary and an expense account, but Eddie has to jump to Nick's commands. Nick needs Eddie to craft a narrative of a foreign force of nature landing on American shores to lay waste to all challengers.
That force of nature, Toro Moreno (played with naivete by Mike Lane), only wants to make money to help his family back in Argentina. He doesn't have the bloodlust expected of most fighters. Nick sees the "Wild Man of the Andes" as a means to dominate the heavyweight division, and collect large sums of cash in the process. However, the first time Eddie sees the big man in action, he notes "...powderpuff punch and a glass jaw...that's a great combination". Eddie's experienced enough around the fight game to know Moreno not only can't fight, he is liable to get gravely injured in the ring.
Realizing the boxer's shortcomings, Nick sends Moreno and an entourage to California to beat up on tomato cans. Once the legend of the fighter is built up (with Eddie's writing and influence with other media types), Moreno would come to New York and take on the champ for that once-in-a-lifetime payday. Nick would make a mint, Moreno would be discarded as a casualty of the boxing profession, and all would be right with the world. It doesn't quite work out that way, however.
Bogart shuffles through this film in a world-weary fashion. He's gotten involved with guys whose character he can barely stomach. He tries to look after Moreno, an immigrant ill-prepared for the cutthroat nature of boxing. Steiger's Nick carries himself like the "big man" wherever he is, but the bluster hides the fact that he needs so much outside help to carry off his plans. Nehemiah Persoff is Nick's yes-man Leo ("Nobody gets hurt"), quick to parrot Nick's pronouncements as if repeating them makes them come true.
There's an interesting list of supporting cast members. Jersey Joe Walcott is a washed-up fighter in Nick's camp to lend legitimacy to an illegitimate enterprise. Familiar face Edward Andrews portrayed an affiliated promoter - his TV credits include Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Hawaii Five-O, Love American Style and Chico and the Man. If you watched television in the 60s and 70s, he guest-starred on a show you probably watched.
Also, Max Baer played the heavyweight champion of that era, the destination of Moreno's climb. The father of the Beverly Hillbillies' "Jethroe Bodine", Baer was a smirking Cheshire Cat in a suit. In the ring, however, he was shown as a smiling assassin. In a bit of "life imitating art", Baer went through a similar situation in his real-life boxing experience. For more, look up "Primo Carnera".
Yeah, I am a huge Bogart fan. Fifty-seven is awfully young to pass away. He left a legacy and body of work that so many have emulated, but none have duplicated. Knowing he was to die soon after this film was released had me watching it in a different light, looking for signs of an artist soon to close the book on his acting career.
When you read biographies on him, and the challenges (some self-generated) he overcame, it was a wondrous career. Humphrey Bogart earned his status as one of the all-time Hollywood greats. This role was a fitting close to an interesting journey.
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