Rating: NR
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 01/31/2006
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 86 Minutes
Flags: Not For Children
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
Wallace Beery won an Academy Award for his tour de force performance as a washed-up boxer. The bibulous
Beery travels from one tank-town bout to another in the company of his faithful son
Jackie Cooper and his stuttering manager
Roscoe Ates. Hoping for a comeback in Tijuana,
Beery is approached by his ex-wife
Irene Rich, now married to wealthy
Hale Hamilton.
Rich convinces
Beery that
Cooper would be better off with her. Feigning brusqueness,
Beery orders his son to get lost, hoping that the kid will be disillusioned enough to remain with his mother. But
Cooper runs away from his new home and shows up back in Tijuana, just as
Beery is in the middle of his comeback bout. Cheered on by his son,
Beery knocks his opponent cold--and then collapses himself. Dying,
Beery tells the tearful
Cooper that everything will be all right if the boy returns to his mom. While
Wallace Beery was capable of laying on pathos with a trowel, his final scene in
The Champ can still move an audience to tears--far more so than the similar scene between
Jon Voight and
Rick Schroeder in the wearisome 1979 remake. In 1953, writer
Frances Marion updated and revised her
Champ script, changed the washed-up pug to a washed-up comedian, and came up with
The Clown, one of
Red Skelton's few dramatic vehicles.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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