“The Greatest Boxing Movie Ever Made”? See Robert Wise’s First Masterpiece, Written by Art Cohn and Joseph Moncure March, The Set-Up (1949), Starring the Old Pug, Robert Ryan, in His Greatest Performance, with Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford and Percy Helton, as TCM’s Film Noir of the Week, Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET

By David in TN
saturday, april 19, 2025 at 1:50:00 a.m. edt

TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Robert Wise’s The Set-Up (1949), with Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford and Percy Helton.

Film Noir Guide: “Ryan portrays a boxer, old and washed-up at 35, who is so little esteemed that his manager and trainer (Tobias and Helton) don’t even bother to tell him that he’s supposed to take a dive during his next fight. (This way they don’t have to split the 50-buck payoff with him.)

“In some of the most excting [sic] boxing scenes ever filmed, Ryan (in real life a college heavyweight champion) and his opponent duke it out for four rounds, trading ferocious blows until only one of them is left standing. Before the final round, Ryan’s nervous corner men finally tell him to go down. When he doesn’t, the slimeballs take off with the dough, leaving Ryan to face the wrath of a gangster (Baxter) who doesn’t like welshers.

“Totter, Ryan’s boxing-weary wife, won’t even go to the arena to watch her man receive yet another merciless beating. Veteran character actor Ford plays the kindly dressing room attendant who patches up the boxers after their fights.

“Director Wise and screenwriter Cohn, without being preachy, make a poignant statement about boxing and its sordid world. Despite the pleasant sounding names of the buildings in Wise’s world (Paradise City, Dreamland and the Hotel Cozy, the battered faces, cauliflower ears and hopeless dreams tell the true story. Boxing noir at its best, The Set-Up is one of Ryan's finest acting achievements.”

David in TN: Ryan plays a sympathetic character, something of a casting against type.

N.S.: Red Eddie Muller, in his teaser last week, called this “arguably the greatest boxing movie ever made.” Not so. I recall it from my childhood on The Late Show as a masterpiece, but I also recall Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul (1947) as having been even better. That would likely be because the earlier picture starred “Julie” Garfinkle (better known as John Garfield), who was a better actor than Ryan, and had the beautiful, moving Lili Palmer as his long-suffering girlfriend.

I suspect that Ryan, on account of having been a crypto-commie, was Red Eddie’s favorite actor.