I'm pretty certain that I've briefly mentioned the Kirk Douglas movie Champion on several occasions, without doing an actuall full-length review of it. TCM ran it again last November when Ruth Roman was Star of the Month, so I made a point of recording it to be able to watch it again and do that full-length post. And now that it's getting another airing, tomorrow August 30 at 6:00 PM, it's time to post that review.
Douglas stars as Midge Kelly, a boxer who as the movie opens actually is champion. But as in so many other boxing movies, the story is how he gets to the top, so we get the inevitable flash back. At some time in the past, not quite fully mentioned since the timeline of how long it takes to become a champion boxer and the end of the war a few years earlier would seem to conflict, Midge and his bother with a lame leg Connie (Arthur Kennedy) are trying to make their way west to California, since there's the promise of an ownership share in a friend's restaurant.
On the way there, they hitch a ride from a boxer and his girlfriend who suggest they could get temporary jobs at the arena where he's going to be competing. Instead, one of the boxers on the card can't go, and Midge is willing to step in, especially once it's revealed all Midge has to do is survive the fight. He does survive, and a manager from out west, Haley (Paul Stewart) offers to take Midge on as a real professional. Midge wants an easier life, so turns Haley down.
One they reach California, they find that there is no ownership share in the restaurant, so they have to do menial work for the owner on the condition that they stay the hell away from the owner's daughter Emma (Ruth Roman). Midge disregards this, with the consequences that Emma's father forces them to go through with a shotgun wedding. Midge, being unable to support Emma, abandons her and decides to take up Haley's offer to become a real professional boxer.
With the right training, Midge shows himself to be pretty good. But then he learns that the boxing world has a lot of corruption. Midge just knows that he's so damn good that he can just fight to win and not have to deal with this corruption. Midge's single-minded competitiveness is something that both Connie and Haley find off-putting. Worse, it endangers them when Midge is told in no uncertain terms that he's going to throw a fight and then refuses to do so.
Worse, the forces of corruption are much brighter than Midge could ever hope to be, so they're eventually able to bring him into the fold and make him a champion, something we knew was going to happen anyway considering the title of the movie and how it opens. But Midge has basically burned all his bridges with his old friends and family. Will he be able to put things right? Does he even want to?
Champion is a harsh -- at least by the standards of the late 1940s -- look at boxing, filled with a whole bunch of extremely fine performances. Kirk Douglas is at the top of the list and got his first Oscar nomination. Arthur Kennedy also does well and got his first nomination too. Paul Stewart doesn't get the credit he deserves, but he too delivers a fine performance. TCM showed this for Ruth Roman's turn as Star of the Month, but this is a movie she made before becoming a star. She's not bad; it's just that she understandably doesn't have much to do.
Champion is another of those movie where, as I like to say, if you haven't seen it before, do yourself a favor and make a point of watching it. It's that good.
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