7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Boxer Midge Kelly rises to fame...mainly by stepping on other people.
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Marilyn Maxwell, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart (I), Ruth RomanFilm-Noir | 100% |
Sport | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 16-bit)
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
While there had been early efforts like 1936’s John Wayne melodrama Conflict and 1938’s The Crowd Roars with Robert Taylor, Clifford Odets probably could be credited with having created the “modern” boxing drama with his epochal Golden Boy, the Group Theatre’s most successful production (which just recently received a lauded remounting on Broadway back at the Belasco Theater where it had originally premiered in November 1937). Odets’ story was a thinly masked screed pitching the old Art vs. Commerce line, but it was filled with the playwright’s visceral intensity and had an unusually tragic denouement (which of course was bowdlerized in the Hollywood adaptation that inevitably followed a couple of years after the stage version). Golden Boy bit player John Garfield (who did his own stint as the star of the show in an early fifties Broadway revival) went on to star in a film which owes a rather large debt of gratitude to the Odets outing, Robert Rossen’s celebrated 1947 film Body and Soul (Garfield would evince the other side of Golden Boy’s hero’s talents by playing a violinist in 1946’s Humoresque with Joan Crawford). 1949’s Champion wants to be a little Golden Boy and a little Body and Soul, and if it doesn’t quite have the goods, it provides Kirk Douglas with one of his signature early roles and the one which snared him his first Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor. Douglas had had a rather stratospheric rise to the top, debuting in a supporting role in 1946’s The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and continuing in a series of interesting supporting and co-starring roles until he was at the point where he got the ultimate above the title billing in Champion. This was in a day when billing and even font sizes for various contributions in film were strictly controlled and where the difference between a “Starring” and “With” billing for even established stars could mean a huge difference in pay. (I have a fantastic old letter from Edward Arnold’s manager taking Samuel Goldwyn to task for having the audacity to have an ad for Come and Get It offer co-star Frances Farmer—who coincidentally starred in Broadway’s Golden Boy—the same font size as Arnold.) Douglas is front and center in virtually every scene in Champion, dominating a film that isn’t quite as gritty as it needs to be but which is nonetheless exciting and involving.
Champion is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The elements here are in mostly very good shape, and a lot of this high definition presentation looks spectacular. In fact the opening scene of the fight announcer introducing us to Midge boasts incredible contrast and impeccable fine detail. Unfortunately, things take a slight tip downward at various points thereafter, with a somewhat softer appearance and sometimes slightly variable contrast. Still, Franz Planer's gorgeous Oscar nominated cinematography's chiaroscuro lighting comes through stunningly almost all of the time, with crisp whites and deep blacks, and fine detail is quite admirable in the film's close-ups.
Champion features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that sounds quite good given the age of the film. While some of Dimitri Tiomkin's massed brass cues sound just a tad on the boxy side (Tiomkin, too, was Oscar nominated), for the most part the soundtrack here has weathered the vagaries of time quite well and still sounds reasonably spry and vivid. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and the film has a fairly wide dynamic range courtesy of the exciting fight sequences.
No supplements are included on this Blu-ray disc.
Though Body and Soul is probably the stronger film, Champion is a scrappy welterweight that is worth seeing for the excitingly staged fight scenes as well as Douglas' early performance, one that helped cement his reputation as one of his generation's most commanding screen presences. Despite this film having been written by rabble rouser Carl Foreman, who would soon find himself blacklisted, there's little political subtext in the film even if it once again shows the seamier side of Capitalism. The biggest problem with Champion is that Midge, unfortunate name and all, is too likable despite his repeated peccadilloes, certainly an odd predicament for any film. This Blu-ray offers largely excellent video and very good audio. Recommended.
4K Restoration
1947
Warner Archive Collection
1949
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Imbarco a mezzanotte
1952
Warner Archive Collection
1949
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4K Restoration
1946
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Warner Archive Collection
1947
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Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
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