THE HARDER THEY FALL uppercuts a knockout as one of the best of the small cadre of ‘expose’ movies that gave the boxing ‘game’  black eyes over its gangland and corporate coddled corruption and the accepted hypocrisy of its essential component; good’ol’-fashioned  brutality-as-mass-entertainment. Though this 1956 bout more than holds its own with earlier ranked contenders like Body And Soul and The Set-Up, it’s best known for being Humphrey Bogart’s final film. Cancer took him the following year at the age of 57 but not before he went out in style with one of his finest performances. *

“What do you care what a bunch of bloodthirsty, screaming people think of you? Did you ever get a look at their faces? They pay a few lousy bucks hoping to see a man get killed. To hell with them!”

Desperate for a job, sportswriter ‘Eddie Willis’ (Bogart) stoops to serving as PR man for shady boxing promoter ‘Nick Benko’ (Rod Steiger), who’s acquired a new find in ‘Toro Moreno’, a king-sized kid from Argentina. Strong, genial Toro can’t fight an old lady or take a punch better than one, but Nick seizes his size as a gimmick to draw crowds. Eddie’s job is to design a campaign selling ‘The Wild Man of The Andes’ and negotiate set-up bouts with other managers that allow the naive and trusting Toro to rack up wins in fixed matches against palookas, one of whom, handicapped by a neck injury, dies as a result. The bill for a big payoff (for Eddie and Benko, not Toro) comes due when Toro faces one opponent who relishes the chance to beat him to a pulp. Toro is there for pride, Benko and his crooked crew for money, the fans for blood.

Directed by Mark Robson, Philip Yordan’s script was lifted from Budd Schulberg’s 357-page 1947 novel, and while the theme of the sport’s corruption wasn’t new (1937’s Kid Galahad one example), no punches are pulled in this mauler, from the driving score composed by Hugo Friedhofer to the twisted faces of the howling mob. Steiger’s venomous mobster-as-businessman is one of his better of his numerous bad guy essays (he did two more that year in Jubal and Back From Eternity). Fully convincing as slimy underlings are Nehemiah Persoff, Val Avery and Felice Orlandi (an actor who warranted a bigger career). Vouchsafing authenticity are former World Heavyweight champs Max Baer (eagerly brutal as Toro’s final challenger) and Jersey Joe Walcott (as Toro’s trainer). Other ring vets in small, tellingly sad roles include Pat Comiskey (nicknamed “The Celtic Crusher”) and Joe Greg (basically playing himself, he was brain damaged from 119 fights). Jan Sterling gets a welcome reprieve from her typecast ‘tough broad’ roles, soft but strong here as Eddie’s wife ‘Beth’, alarmed over his association with scuzzballs and seeming abandonment of principle.

Fine as they all are, the champs are 23-year-old newcomer Mike Lane as Toro, and battered but defiant Bogart, 28-year veteran of 75 features, a good dozen of them classics. Lane (1933-2015), a 6’8″ wrestler, perfectly conveys the proud and pitiable fall guy, a minnow in a sea of sharks. Bogart’s final sally links with his other memorably etched characters, beset and conflicted men who head down the wrong road until their conscience breaks thru bitterness and sees that gallantry can take the wheel.

Burnett Guffey’s excellent cinematography was nominated for an Academy Award. A gross of $3,900,000 tagged #90 at the box office. With Carlos Montalban, Edward Andrews (in slime mode), Herbie Faye, Jack Albertson, Abel Fernandez, Peter Leeds, Paul Frees, Mort Mills, Robert Fuller and Roy Jenson. 109 minutes.

* There were four other boxing dramas in 1956: Somebody Up There Likes Me with Paul Newman, The Square Jungle starring Tony Curtis, World In My Corner featuring Audie Murphy and The Leather Saint with John Derek. The Curtis and Murphy efforts drew few, Derek’s (about a pugilistic priest!) defines obscure. ‘Somebody‘, a gritty bio of middleweight champ Rocky Graziano, was the most popular, and it edged bristling newcomer Newman up a notch but Bogie’s swan song has greater emotional resonance. The Harder They Fall was later joined by the powerful and painful Requiem For A Heavyweight and Fat City. With occasional exceptions like Cinderella Man and The Fighter, most modern movies about boxing fall into the Balboa pond. ‘Rocky’ flix are a mix of rousing fun and plain ridiculous (we do like the first and third) but as far as ring reality goes they’re a joke. Lincoln, right again.