The Set-Up (1949)

Directed by Robert Wise. Starring Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, Alan Baxter, George Tobias, Wallace Ford, Percy Helton, Darryl Hickman, Hal Fieberling.

Pretty good boxing quickie pits has-been pugilist Ryan against the heavily-favored Fieberling, despite the pleading from Ryan’s weepy wife (Totter) not to risk it. Title refers to the dive Ryan is supposed to take, but Ryan’s manager (Tobias) neglects to tell him that the fix is in. Takes place during a single night in real time, Milton Krasner’s shadowy palette reflective of film noir, the camera roving low during the visceral fight and jumping to feverish reactions from a squalid crowd of brutes, blackhearts, gluttons, gangsters and their molls. Deflated by a fairly one-dimensional protagonist, stale truisms, and the squared-off spousal melodrama (Totter’s concluding line is plenty corny), but still packs enough of a punch. Screenplay by Art Cohn, based on a poem by Joseph Mancure March.

69/100