Tonight I watched a movie called "Champion" (1949) starring Ki(e)rrckk! Dugglace! Like last night, this is another one of those situations where correct pronunciation of an actor's name is a must. This time I figured I'd make it easy for you by spelling it phonetically. I know we've done Kirk Douglas before, but I thought it couldn't hurt to refresh your memory. In the above reference (in boldface), the "e" in parentheses is only hinted at, just with a slight touch of accent, so that you aren't saying the name flat, as in "Kerk", or "Kurk". It should be pronounced almost like "KEERck" but not quite, so just go easy on the "e" sound but don't leave it out entirely.
And make sure to use the exclamation points on each name, first and last. All of this will work best if enunciated in an aggressive and stilted fashion, with a clenched jaw and through gritted teeth. I know it's a bit of a chore, but it really is important and I thank you for your effort.
So how was the movie and what was it about? "Champion", as the title might imply, is the rags to riches story of a boxer, played by Douglas. As the movie opens, he and his brother (Arthur Kennedy) are dirt poor and riding the rails. They have hopped into an open boxcar in the night, only to be thrown out of the moving train by a pack of Hobos, who have also robbed them of their last few dollars.
The next morning they are thumbing a ride in the middle of nowhere and are picked up by a boxer and his gal. The boxer's name is Johnny Dunne, an up and coming challenger who is headed to Kansas City for a fight. Kirk and his bro are trying to get to Los Angeles, but any ride, even part way, is a good ride. When they get to KC, Johnny Dunne suggests they try to pick up concessions jobs at the boxing arena. It could help earn them the dough to get to L.A. The boys do get the jobs - selling soda, etc. - but Douglas is such an ill-tempered SOB that he can't take instructions from anybody. Soon he is in a punch-out with a co-worker.
By sheer coincidence, in an office inside the arena, there is trouble with a fighter on the evening's card. The ABA doctor won't clear the dude because he has an unhealed cut over his eye. The fight manager is at a loss - what to do about replacing the boxer?
Being that this is a Hollywood movie, and therefore coincidences are necessary, into the room bursts Kirk Douglas (remember pronunciation please!). He is ready to quit his recently acquired concessions job. He's just been in a fight himself and wants to get paid so he and his brother can leave.
A light bulb goes off in the head of the arena fight manager : "Oh.....so you're a tough guy, eh? How'd you like to make 35 bucks for twenty minutes of work"?
All Kirk has to do is go four rounds with the other fighter on the card. The manager promises the boxer will go easy on him. "Just try to make it look good", he says. Douglas reluctantly agrees. When he gets in the ring, we can see he is in good physical condition, but he has no training against a real boxer and predictably he gets his butt kicked. Then he gets ripped off on the payment of his 35 bucks as well, netting only 10 after the manager takes out his "expenses".
Welcome to the fight game, Kirk Douglas. "Champion" is an anti-boxing movie, and a brutal one at that. It has to be, in order to make it's point.
Douglas and his brother then make their way to L.A., Malibu specifically, where they expect to take part ownership of a roadside cafe. This business partnership was promised to them by a friend who turns out to have been just as shady as the boxing manager back in KC. There is no "ownership deal", another man owns the cafe. Douglas' friend was only an employee who scammed Kirk on the buyout plan. Now he and his brother are stuck in Los Angeles, just as broke as before. The cafe owner feels sorry for them and offers them jobs. This time, their employment goes better, because the owner has a fetching daughter (Ruth Roman), who quickly succumbs to Douglas' chin-dimpled charms. Nights on the Malibu sand ensue.
But Kirk is still restless. Having been dirt poor all his life and basically an orphan, raising his gimpy brother (Arthur Kennedy walks with a cane), he is ambitious for money. Lots of it. Whereas you or I would be content to stay on the beach with Ruth Roman, even if we had to work for minimum wage, Kirk is not so easily satisfied. Now, the cafe owner is pissed because he had told Kirk from the get-go to stay away from his daughter. Now he is insisting they get married as it's the only moral thing to do.
Kirk goes through with the marriage only because the owner has pointed a gun in his face. As soon as the vows are made, however, and the ring is on her finger, Douglas ditches Ruth Roman. He leaves the cafe, the Malibu beach, and heads with his brother to Downtown L.A. There he sees a boxing gym with advertising out front : "We Train Champions". Recalling his brief stint in the ring back in Kansas City, a light bulb goes off in Kirk's head......."maybe I can do this after all".
Now, all of what I have described takes place in the first 40 minutes of the movie, which once again demonstrates the high level ability of the 1940s screenwriters to pack a Ton Of Story into a short timeframe. We still have an hour to go, and that hour will chronicle the rise of Kirk Douglas as he uses his inner toughness to become a boxer. He works hard and trains for long hours. Soon he will begin his rise to the top, but along the way his ambition and his ego will get the better of him. Really he has been an a-hole from the beginning, a sociopath more or less. His upbringing explains his personality but does not excuse it. Before long, he is winning every fight, making money hand over fist, and now he is having affairs with the wives of his new manager, and when he gets tired of her, the girlfriend of a wealthy boxing patron who has influence in the way top contenders are ranked. This guy can make or break you, and Kirk is cheating with his gal.
I have to interject a little bit here, and wonder if Kirk, who is still alive and is 102 years old, is more than just a great actor. He certainly is that, but he played these tough guys with a conviction bordering on real life. The womanising in this movie feels realistic, and I hate to say it because I don't know if it is true, but in the interest of the MeToo# movement I feel I should at least mention the ongoing rumour that Kirk Douglas raped Natalie Wood during a private audition in his apartment, when she was just a teenager.
This legend has been going around Hollywood for quite a while. Given Douglas' onscreen persona, it would be easy to accuse him of something like this after the fact, decades later, by people who weren't even born when it allegedly happened. But Natalie's sister is his main accuser. She was there in the aftermath on the day it happened. She swears it is true, and if so, it takes the luster off Kirk Douglas as a person, great actor though he may be. If true, it could be said that this part of his onscreen persona - the on-edge tough guy who is always ready to explode - is just Kirk playing himself in real life.
I don't know which is true, and I make no judgement, but I do encourage you to research the information for yourself. Just do some Googling about Kirk Douglas and Natalie Wood.
He does play a hell of a role as the boxer in this movie, however. He will become the "Champion" who will stop at nothing to remain at the top. The only thing he doesn't figure on is that the boxers don't run the fight game. Mob-connected moneymen do. His own desire to keep fighting, and getting his brains bashed in, will become his undoing.
"Champion" is a grim. gruesome film, but it tells an important story, an epic one involving youthful struggle, the finding of true love, and the throwing away of same in the quest for self-importance, and the lives of others affected along the way.
I give it Two Huge Thumbs Up, even though I don't like boxing or boxing movies in general. I said the same about "Gentleman Jim" which we saw last month. That film, with Errol Flynn in the title role, was more a celebration of a champ, the real life Jim Corbett. It shows the downside of boxing, too, but "Champion" on the other hand is just plain ugly, and Douglas' character makes it even more so.
It's a horrible story about a lowdown bum of a man, but as a movie it is really good (in a dark way) and thus highly recommended. /////
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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