The Set-Up

A boxing film that takes place in one night. Stoker Thompson is thirty-five and his career is over. He still goes into every fight believing he will win. His wife cannot carry that belief and does not come to the arena that evening. His manager is so sure he will lose that he takes money from a bookmaker to sell the fight. He takes it but does not tell Stoker; the man will lose anyway, he reasons. The tension comes out of that gap. The man fighting in the ring does not know who has taken what. The narrative runs in real time: the film is seventy-two minutes long and the story takes exactly that. The clocks at the opening and the close show the same span. The dressing-room sections are the best of it; the talk of the other fighters waiting their turn builds a line parallel to the main one. The source is Joseph Moncure March's 1928 narrative poem. In the book the fighter is Black and it takes place in Harlem; the film changed that, and the change has been much criticised since. Robert Ryan plays Stoker. Ryan boxed at university and it shows in the ring. Robert Wise directed. One of the tightest examples of its kind for anyone who likes film noir and sports narratives. Before you watch, know this: the film is short, but its last section is harsh and the ending is merciless.