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The Set-Up
1949 |
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According to publicity written for THE SET-UP, the film "covers 80 minutes, second-by-second of a ring-scarred bruiser's life," and adds that "incidents are filmed exactly as they happened, and in accurate
chronological order." Few directors other than Wise could have pulled
The tour-de-force which earned him the Critic's Prize at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival was Wise's last film for RKO (which had recently been bought by Howard Hughes). Based on a long narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March, the film starred Robert Ryan as the aging boxer and Audrey Totter as his long-suffering wife. From a 1975 seminar with AFI students, Wise discussed how he strove for realism in the SET-UP: "I was determined to get this real feeling of the fight game. I haunted the fight arenas around this area. There used to be a rundown area in Long Beach, and that's where I got a lot of my material, all the attitudes and the business. I was down there every week making notes, recording and photographing. Then I got actors to do as close as they could to what I had seen there. I watched audiences too. A lot of the business in audience reactions is from there. The fellow with the radio I saw at the Hollywood Legion, same with the guy with the cigar and the fat man. The blind man may seem far-fetched to you but he was an actual character in San Francisco that Art Cohn used to see regularly every Friday night at the fights. He'd come with his buddy and have him describe what was going on."* Wise used three cameras and brought in former boxing professional John Indrisano to make sure the choreographed fights were realistic. THE SET-UP was also the first film for which Wise used storyboards--every scene was mapped out before he started shooting. He would continue to use storyboards for his subsequent films. |
Outside a rundown boxing arena,
where an evening of
fights is about to begin, boxing manager Tiny and trainer Red
discuss their aging
heavyweight, Bill "Stoker" Thompson, who is schudeled to compete
that night.
A few minutes later, at the Ringside Cafe, Tiny accepts a fifty
dollar bribe
from gambler Little Boy, who wants Stoker to throw his four-round
 match and
assure the up-and-coming Tiger Nelson a victory. Tiny
agrees to Little Boy's
stipulations that Stoker "go down" after the second round, then
informs
trainer Red that he is not going to tell Stoker about the deal,
as he is sure
the boxer will lose the bout anyway. In a nearby hotel,
meanwhile, Stoker
tries to convince his concerned wife Julie that even though
he is
thirty-five, he is still only "one punch away" from a "top spot."
Julie, who
has dutifully supported her husband's declining career, is unmoved
by his
boasts and begs him to retire from the ring. When Stoker
insists on
continuing, Julie sadly informs him that she will not watch
him fight that
night. Disturbed by Julie's words, Stoker grows pensive
while being prepped
in the arena's crowded dressing room and listens thoughtfully
to the hopeful,
nervous chatter of his fellow boxers. Before Shanley,
a young and frightened
boxer, leaves to make his professional debut, Stoker notices
that the light
has gone off in his hotel room and happily assumes that Julie
has changed her
mind about the fight. As Julie is about to enter the arena,
however, she
hears the roar of the bloodthirsty crowd and retreats in disgust.
After
Shanley returns to the dressing room, glowing with victory,
Gunboat Johnson,
a washed-up middle-weight whose idol is a champion boxer who
once suffered
twenty-one losses in a row, is pummeled to defeat. Restless
and depressed,
Julie, meanwhile, walks the seedy streets near the arena, stopping
on a
bridge to watch the passing trolleys below. Back at the
arena, two more
fighters meet their opponents, one losing, the other winning.
Stoker then
enters the ring for his bout and is dismayed to see that Julie's
seat is
empty. As Stoker receives his last-minute rubdown, Little Boy
and his girl
friend Bunny place bets against him from the stands. Still
unaware of Tiny's
deal, Stoker ignores Red's advice to "stay away" from Nelson
and goes after
his opponent with conviction. By the end of the second
round, Stoker has
Nelson, who was told by Little Boy to go easy on Stoker during
the first two
rounds, against the ropes. Stoker continues to fight hard
in round three,
but is nearly knocked out by Nelson, who then calls him a "fink."
Fearful now
that Stoker may win the bout, Tiny tells him about Little Boy's
deal and begs
him to "lie down" in the last round. Although exhausted
and bleeding, Stoker
instead hammers Nelson with a volley of punches and knocks him
unconscious.
Stoker's unexpected glory is shortlived, however, as he is immediately
condemned by an angry Little Boy. Aware that Little Boy's
thugs are waiting
to attack him outside, Stoker tries to sneak out of the arena,
but becomes
trapped in an alley. After Stoker, who has been beaten
and pinned to the
ground by the thugs, manages to slug Little Boy in the face,
the enraged
gambler crushes Stoker's hand with a brick, thereby ending his
career.
Sometime later, Julie sees Stoker stumble out of the alley and
rushes to his
side. As she holds her battered but proud husband in her
arms, she asks his
forgiveness, then assures him that they "both won tonight."
From the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
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 72 min. RKO Radio Pictures;
Distributed by: RKO Radio Pictures;
Directed by: Robert Wise;
Produced by: Richard Goldstone;
Screenplay by: Art Cohn;
Edited by: Roland Gross;
Director of Photography: Milton Krasner;
Music Directed by: C. Bakaleinikoff;
Production Design by: Albert S. D'Agostino & Jack Okey;
Sound by: Phil Brigandi;
Make-up by: Gordon Bau;
Hair by: Hazel Rogers.
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Robert Ryan (Bill Stoker Thompson),
Audrey Totter
(Julie Thompson), George Tobias (Tiny), Alan
Baxter (Little Boy), Wallace Ford (Gus), Percy Helton (Red),
Hal Fieberling
(Tiger Nelson), Darryl Hickman (Shanley), Kenny
O'Morrison
(Moore), James Edwards (Luther Hawkins), David
Clarke (Gunboat Johnson), Phillip Pine (Tony Souza), Edwin Max
(Danny), Dave
Fresco (Mickey), William E. Green (Doctor),
Abe Dinovitch (Ring caller), Jack Chase (Hawkins' second), Mike
Lally (Handler),
Arthur Sullivan (Handler), William McCarter (Handler),
Gene
Delmont (Handler), Noble "Kid" Chissel (Handler),
Herbert Anderson
(Husband), Jack Raymond (Husband), Walter
Ridge (Manager),
Helen Brown (Wife), Constance Worth (Wife),
Jess Kirkpatrick
(Older gambler), Paul Dubov (Young gambler),
Frank Richards
(Bat), Jack Stoney (Nelson's second), Archie
Leonard (Blind man), John Butler (Blind man's companion),
Larry Anzalone
(Mexican fighter), Vincent Graeff (Newsboy),
Bernard Gorcey
(Tobacco man), Tom Noonan (Masher), Charles
Wagenheim
(Hamburger man), Billy Snyder (Barker), W.
J. O'Brien
(Pitchman), Frank Mills (Photographer), Everett
Smith (Tattoo man), Gay Waters (Girl), Maxine Johnston (Girl),
Dan Foster
(Bettor with Bunny), Bobby Henshaw (Announcer),
Dwight Martin
(Glutton), Ben Moselle (Referee), Arthur Weegee
Fellig
(Timekeeper), Brian O'Hara (Man with cigar),
Lynn Millan
(Bunny), Donald Kerr (Vendor), Ralph Volke,
Tony Merrill,
Lillian Castle, Carl Sklover, Sam Shack, Frances Mack,
Ruth
Brennan, Herman Bodel, Andy Carillo, Charles Sullivan,
and Al Rhein.
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