The Harder They Fall (1955)

The Harder They Fall is the second Bogart movie I've watched this week, and I'm just so impressed. Obviously I've seen dozens of Bogart movies in my life, but I guess I just hadn't thought much about what good choices this man made as a filmmaker and also how well he can hold a picture together and bring the audience along with whatever his character is thinking.  

The Harder They Fall is not a great movie, but it has some excellent acting – Rod Steiger chews the scenery beautifully and gives a superb performance, and former boxers Jersey Joe Walcott, Max Baer, and Pat Comiskey make appearances... as older boxers, of course.

The script is not bad, but the whole thing just doesn't hang together very well, and it lags in the middle. I hate to say this as a lover of Columbia noir, but I think it needed just a little more heart – which is something Somebody Up There Likes Me (another movie about pugilism from the same year with Paul Newman) has. While we're on boxing movies, Mark Robson directed one of my favorites – also about corruption in the ring – Champion, from 1949 with Kirk Douglas.