A strange and naturalistic story of two boxers in Stockton, California. Stacey Keach is a 29-year-old who quit fighting some time ago and is now determined to regain his former stature. Jeff Bridges is the 18-year-old kid with promise. Both are managed by the talkative, nurturing but grounded Nicholas Colasanto.
In some ways the star of the movie is Stockton, a hot, negligible city in the central valley of California, where the most famous products are beef and vegetables. It's one of a string of such communities in the San Joaquin valley -- Modesto, Madera, Bakersfield -- that are all sun-baked and sere. Conrad Hall's camera captures all of Stockton's seamy underbelly. The gymnasiums, the seedy characters, the cool dim bars, the shabby apartments, the sagging hotels, are all here. Susan Tyrell, a major drunk, is sitting on a bar stool and we see that her dress is zipped up only to her shoulder blades, reminding us that her African-American lover is "in the pokey" so he's not around to help her dress. It's an oddball film. Except for a few principals, the actors seem to have been dragged in off the sidewalks. The dialog sounds naturalistic, the way real people talk, whine, and argue. But at the same time it doesn't sound at all improvised. I have no idea how John Huston got these performances out of the actors.
There's a problem with the structure of the movie, in that there is no central character and no single line of narrative development that grips a viewer. It's more of a "slice of life" than anything else. The time line is a little confusing and we don't really care deeply about what happens to any of the characters. There's no real integration of the lives of Keach and Bridges. They're no more than casual acquaintances.
But all of that is only a minor consideration. If we don't care deeply -- although we hope for the best -- the images and events roll along smoothly. Everything seems somehow right. Stacey Keach moves in with Tyrell who drinks constantly. And he cooks her the most depressing dinner ever committed to celluloid -- charred steak and peas dumped from the can onto the plate. She pules about not wanting to eat. There is a struggle over her plate. She plumps down in her seat at the table and Keach bangs the plate of food in front of her, the peas rolling around the table top like marbles.
These are all bottom-feeding losers -- reprobates and incompetents, a little stupid, but the movie treats them with tolerance and even some affection.
The fight scenes are unlike any others you're likely to have scene. Huston must have known something about the craft, since he was once a fighter himself, among a thousand other things. But these fighters are amateurish and clumsy. They bounce around face-to-face and unleash flurries of punches with neither style nor skill -- thump thump thump thumpthumpthump! Not hard, but unending. There's none of the focus on blood and gore that there is in, say, "Raging Bull," yet men are knocked out, or they win but are so dazed that they think they were knocked out instead of the other guy.
The whole thing is slightly insane but it works. You find out all about the value added theory of walnut production, whether it has to do with the plot or not.
In some ways the star of the movie is Stockton, a hot, negligible city in the central valley of California, where the most famous products are beef and vegetables. It's one of a string of such communities in the San Joaquin valley -- Modesto, Madera, Bakersfield -- that are all sun-baked and sere. Conrad Hall's camera captures all of Stockton's seamy underbelly. The gymnasiums, the seedy characters, the cool dim bars, the shabby apartments, the sagging hotels, are all here. Susan Tyrell, a major drunk, is sitting on a bar stool and we see that her dress is zipped up only to her shoulder blades, reminding us that her African-American lover is "in the pokey" so he's not around to help her dress. It's an oddball film. Except for a few principals, the actors seem to have been dragged in off the sidewalks. The dialog sounds naturalistic, the way real people talk, whine, and argue. But at the same time it doesn't sound at all improvised. I have no idea how John Huston got these performances out of the actors.
There's a problem with the structure of the movie, in that there is no central character and no single line of narrative development that grips a viewer. It's more of a "slice of life" than anything else. The time line is a little confusing and we don't really care deeply about what happens to any of the characters. There's no real integration of the lives of Keach and Bridges. They're no more than casual acquaintances.
But all of that is only a minor consideration. If we don't care deeply -- although we hope for the best -- the images and events roll along smoothly. Everything seems somehow right. Stacey Keach moves in with Tyrell who drinks constantly. And he cooks her the most depressing dinner ever committed to celluloid -- charred steak and peas dumped from the can onto the plate. She pules about not wanting to eat. There is a struggle over her plate. She plumps down in her seat at the table and Keach bangs the plate of food in front of her, the peas rolling around the table top like marbles.
These are all bottom-feeding losers -- reprobates and incompetents, a little stupid, but the movie treats them with tolerance and even some affection.
The fight scenes are unlike any others you're likely to have scene. Huston must have known something about the craft, since he was once a fighter himself, among a thousand other things. But these fighters are amateurish and clumsy. They bounce around face-to-face and unleash flurries of punches with neither style nor skill -- thump thump thump thumpthumpthump! Not hard, but unending. There's none of the focus on blood and gore that there is in, say, "Raging Bull," yet men are knocked out, or they win but are so dazed that they think they were knocked out instead of the other guy.
The whole thing is slightly insane but it works. You find out all about the value added theory of walnut production, whether it has to do with the plot or not.