The Harder They Fall [DVD] [1956]
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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The bigger they come- the harder they fall,
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I am a fan of film noir. They all seem to have been made in the late forties and early fifties.This is a late one at 1956.
I remember watching these films when I was young and apart from the glossy version of Hollywood this seemed to me a truer depiction of what America was really like in the 1950s. Written by the same writer who did On the Waterfront. It covers the same sort of area, corruption.
We never had hard fhitting films about corruption in Britain so we had to view the US version.
The idea of promoting a poor amateur fighter to become the heavy weight champion of the world by fixing fights is on the first loook a little far fetched but I was reading an article about people who have either won or were runners up in recent reality telvision shows such as X factor. They are taken on by the pormoters get top billing maybe a number one record then are dropped.
It is the same sort of idea. the promotors can almost make anything happen and the public believe anything.
Rod Steiger is great as the crooked promoter and Humphhrey Bogart is remarkable as the down at heel writer who provides all the words and people believe it.
Poor old Toro Moreno from Argentina he has no idea what is going on but Bogart has a conscience in the end.
I am sure it is going on somewhere as we speak. A great film and very realistic.I am not a sports fan but this is one of the best sports films I have ever seen.
Great film unmissable
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|Bogart’s last film,
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This 1956 picture was screen legend Humprhey Bogart’s last. Playing a sports journalist Bogart watches the rise and fall of a boxfigther used by unscrepoulous managers and promoters.
Humphrey Bogart plays a great caracther in this picture, very much in the mold of his famous screen persona, but this time with a gentelness that was not always so obvious in other pictures.
Filmed in widescreen with b/w photography, the dvd presents a good copy of the film with lots of subtitles.
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|The Harder they Fall,
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A film I’ve seen before, but wanted to see again. Two superb actors, Bogart and Steiger make it a classic, revealing professional boxing as a dirty game.
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