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Customer Reviews of The Harder They Fall

It is not Bogart's performance that is memorable...
By 1956 the boxing film had greatly diminished in appeal... Exceptional entries in the category such as "Body and Soul," "Champion" and "The Set-Up," with their fierce concentration on men who seek fame in the ring regardless of personal cost, rapidly gave way to the banalities of such films as "Iron Man," "The Square Jungle" and "World in My Corner." <
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>Suddenly, like an invigorating breath of fresh air - clear, innovative and compelling, came "The Harder They Fall." Here was an uncompromising, brutally frank fight drama told in terms of the human viciousness of the game's promoters rather than in the stereotyped work of the fighter himself... <
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>Bogart played an ex-sports columnist who readily enters into an unholy alliance with a crooked promoter (Rod Steiger) to push an imported Argentinian giant, possessing little real ability, into the championship through a series of fixed fights... <
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>For all the film's virtues, including the very wise decision to film it in the harshness of black and white at a time when most films were being made in color, the film does have some certainly debatable flaws... Initially, it fails as a strong Bogart film, for it is not Bogart's performance that is memorable... Rather, it is Rod Steiger's portrayal of a thoroughly despicable man that garners our attention... Another weakness is the unconvincing compromise at the film's close... <
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>Throughout the entire film, Bogart's characterization runs almost parallel to that of Steiger's in that he too is morally corruptible and generally contemptible... Therefore, at the end of the film, when Bogart becomes disgusted at Steiger's treatment of their fighter and decides not only to pay him out of his own tainted share but threatens to write a series of exposés of the fight racket, we must question the logic of this artificially introduced attempt to have a happy ending... These minor drawbacks reflect in no way, of course, on Bogart's interpretation, which was flawless... <
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>Physically Bogart's yet undetected illness was already beginning to take its toll... His voice was huskier than usual and his face was beginning to look extremely drawn and haggard on screen... <
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>At the conclusion of this film, Bogart was signed to star in "The Good Shepherd," a British naval story set in World War II... He was not to begin it, or any of many other contemplated projects, and Mark Robson's "The Harder They Fall" remains as his final contribution to the screen... <
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Essential Bogart
Disclaimer: I could watch Bogart make a tuna sandwich for an hour and a half. <
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>I did enjoy this movie though. <
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>It has such a new and simple premise that I had to check it out: a larger than life boxer from Argentina comes to America and is posed to be the next big fighting sensation because he *looks* the part. The catch? His glass jaw and powder puff punch. But Toro remains oblivious to the fact that he can't fight because the boxing community is more theater than anything else. Mostly. When they throw Toro in the ring with a hot headed boxer who can't be bought, they throw him to the wolves. <
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>Great film. Again, it's obviously not the *best* Bogart film out there because there are too many great ones, but it's still very good. Bogart never disappoints.