The Set-Up (1949)

The Set-Up (1949)

starring Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter

directed by Robert Wise

73 minutes

Boxer Bill "Stoker" Thompson (Robert Ryan) shows up for a fight in Paradise City unaware that Tiny, his manager, has taken money to ensure that Stoker only makes it through the first two rounds before getting knocked out. Tiny figures that with Stoker's history he will probably lose anyway and doesn't tell him about the money.

Julie (Audrey Totter), Stoker's wife, is so sick of watching him get beaten up that she walks around town rather than go to see him fight. Stoker, feeling like he's got something to prove, gives it his all and wins the fight in the fourth round. He knows by then about the fix but he doesn't care, until Little Boy, the gangster who paid for it, comes to pay him back for not sticking with the plan.

Thoughts

This was good, real good. It lives up to the hype in my book. The tension was palpable, even though I knew more or less what was coming. Part of the fun of the fight scenes are all the shots of the crowd. The facial and vocal reactions of the spectators are priceless. If nothing else they help to lighten the mood a bit considering how seriousness of the story.

Notes

I've seen Robert Ryan in several films, most of them in recent years including Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), which was also directed by Robert Wise, and Day of the Ourlaw (1959). He was in one episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre.

I've seen Audrey Totter in three other films, including The Lady in the Lake (1947) and Tension (1949). She was also in episodes of Four Star Playhouse, Suspicion, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), and Kraft Suspense Theatre.. 

There were two other actors whom I recognized from other things I have watched. They both played boxers but neither of them played the boxer that Stoker fought. The first was James Edwards. I've seen him in a number of movies and TV shows. I saw him most recently in a couple episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 1.07 Breakdown and 1.15 The Big Switch. The second is Phillip Pine whom I have seen in one episode each of The Twilight Zone (1959), 1.13 The Four of Us Are Dying, and The Outer Limits (1963), 1.02 The Hundred Days of the Dragon. 

There are several other actors in this film whom I have seen in other movies including George Tobias, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford, Percy Helton, Hal Baylor, Darryl Hickman, Kevin O'Morrison, David Clarke, Edwin Max, Herbert Anderson, Larry Anzalone, and Arthur Berkley, to name a few.

This is at least the fifth film I have seen that Robert Wise directed. Those five include Born to Kill (1948), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), and two other better known films that I have not watched in recent years.