The Set-Up

PëRMBLEDHJE

This bruising sports drama is arguably the best boxing film ever made, a knockout production from the great days of RKO studios. It was among the first to show the crippling confrontation between good and evil in the ring, when an over-the-hill, down-the-bill boxer is sold out by his manager, and then has to face the consequences of his gangster connections. The usually villainous Robert Ryan is wonderful as the plausibly decent fighter, though Audrey Totter as his wife is miscast. Director Robert Wise, way before his The Sound of Music, controversially depicted the ringside audience as sadists lusting for blood. And there is plenty of it, as Milton Krasner's camera darts around in a flurry of action to create boxing scenes of brain-jarring ferocity. This savage morality tale was adapted from a poem (by James Moncure March), would you believe. It's not to be missed.