The Set-up

There’s a great American film that many, if not most people have ever seen or even heard of it. it’s The Set-Up, produced in 1949, and directed by Robert Wise. It’s dramatically tight and riveting and unfolds in the real-time length of the film’s running time—just 72 minutes.

The story is about an aging fighter named Stoker Thompson played by Robert Ryan, who was a heavyweight boxer in real-life when he attended Dartmouth College. In the film, Stoker is battered, down-on-his-luck. He lives in seedy hotel rooms and fights for not much money in small town arenas, far from the big time.

Stoker’s wife is played by Audrey Totter. She is so terrified of her husband getting hurt in the ring anymore that she begs him to get out of the fight business before it’s too late. But Stoker is determined to win just one more fight and use the prize money for the better life that they dream of having together. There’s just one problem: as Stoker heads for the bout that he has that night, he has no idea that his manager has fixed it with a gangster that Stoker will lose his fight.

Everywhere you look there’s a clock, a constant reminder of the race against time.

As Stoker walks across the street to the boxing arena—called Paradise City—a deeper thematic meaning about this remarkable film flowers into view. There’s a game arcade called Dreamland where people win and lose at games of chance. Everywhere you look there’s a clock, a constant reminder of the race against time, of time slipping away. And once Stoker is inside Paradise City with the other boxers—desperate men at various stages of their careers—the tension of life in this world ratchets as a delirious crowd of fight fans cry out like jackals, bloodthirsty for the violence inside the ring.

Director Martin Scorsese has professed his deep love for this movie.  To him, the whole film is an allegory where boxing is treated as a symbol of what he calls “the theatre of life.” In his words: “To a lot of people…no matter how successful you think you are in life, there is this struggle [like inside the boxing ring]. Whether the struggle is emotional, philosophical, religious, or physical…that’s what makes this picture so special. It strips [that struggle] down to the [primal, universal] truth” that we’re all just “trying to make it” …trying to win against “the chaos of life.”

And so, Stoker’s big fight in the film is incredibly intense, visceral. You feel like you’re in the ring with him as he fights for his life. The camera work, fight choreography, and editing are stunning.

I give 1949’s The Set-Up a powerful four out of four stars. As Scorsese might say, the “theatre of life” has rarely been depicted with more punch than in this classic.