A movie that proved a fine swansong for Humphrey Bogart, The Harder They Fall is a gripping drama set against a background of fixed boxing matches. Not so much about the fights as the exploitation of the sport, the film is based on a novel by Budd Schulberg, whose Oscar-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront (1954) helped turn Rod Steiger into a star. Here Steiger delivers an equally bravura performance as the chillingly corrupt manager, Nick Benko, a man who will do anything to turn a buck. Bogart meanwhile is outstanding as unemployed sports writer Eddie Willis, hired against his better judgement to promote a no-hope Argentinean boxer, Toro Moreno (Mike Lane).

Powerfully written, if built around the unlikely premise of building a 10th-rate fighter into a world-class contender, the drama is essentially a battle for Willis’s soul as he is torn between money and conscience. Though the scenes with Bogart and Steiger facing off are the strongest and a veritable masterclass of hardboiled characterisation, Mark Robson, who also helmed the Kirk Douglas boxing classic Champion (1949), directs with a convincingly dirty realism, the final punishing and bloody match a clear influence on Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980).

On the DVD: The Harder They Fall‘s anamorphic 1.77:1 transfer is excellent with only one brief scene showing any significant print damage. Burnett Guffey’s noir-ish black-and-white cinematography looks sharp and fresh as the day it was shot, with only minimal grain. The mono sound is strong and clear, without a hint of distortion or compression. The only extra is a scored gallery of posters and lobby cards from other Bogart films available on Columbia. There are dubbed versions in French, German, Spanish and Italian, and a plethora of subtitle options. –Gary S Dalkin

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Amazon.co.uk Review
I Spit on Your Grave, writer-director Meir Zarchi’s controversial story of rape and revenge, has lost none of its ability to shock viewers since it first gained notoriety in 1978. Camille Keaton (grand-niece of Buster Keaton and, later, Zarchi’s wife) stars as a young woman who is terrorised and then brutally assaulted by four men while on vacation. After slowly pulling herself together, she methodically tracks down and butchers each of the perpetrators. Zarchi’s film has been consistently accused of celebrating violence against women, and while the rape scenes are graphic, they also lack the voyeuristic qualities that earmark other similarly plotted exploitation films. If anything, Zarchi is guilty of awkward scripting; the dialogue is leaden, and Keaton’s transformation from victim to avenger is too swift. But to label him a pornographer is wrong, and while the film is challenging–perhaps more than most audiences can bear–its depiction of the psychology of violence is undeniably powerful. –Paul Gaita

I Spit On Your Grave

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