BOXING FILMS, MOBSTERS, DAMES!

VOLUME 1
HOW KIRK DOUGLAS AND ROBERT RYAN PUNCHED THEIR WAY TO STARDOM
William Hare
William Hare 2015
Index
Chapter One: A Dark Tunnel
Chapter Two: Boxers, Managers and Sexy Women
Chapter Three: Depression Boxer, Sociopath Manager
Chapter Four: Bogarts Finale
Chapter Five: Geronimo and Fighting the Mob
Chapter Six: The Golden Boy Visits Fat City
Chapter One: A Dark Tunnel
The term tunnel vision denotes negativism. It refers to someone of severely limited
vision. It is used as a pejorative, a negative term, an assessment that an individual cannot see beyond
his or her nose.

Stanley Kramer would have the last laugh in the case of anyone exclaiming that tunnel vision is
necessarily a bad thing. In the case of Kramer his tunnel vision precipitated the breakthrough hit of
the young producers career at a critical time.
After growing up in a tough section of New York City during the Great Depression Kramer had the
good fortune to attend New York University. He studiously dedicated himself toward the cinema,
where he hoped to make his living. Kramers first effort, however, was a bomb. He faced the tension
of someone whose abilities were being questioned. The nagging question was Does this young man
belongs in the business or should he choose another profession?
Kramer launched his career in the big time as a full-fledged producer after beginning as an associate
producer on the 1942 adaptation of a Somerset Maugham novel, The Moon and Sixpence. He
followed a traditional rule laid down long ago of writing about what you know best. In this case the
rule applied to producing, but the reasoning was valid in any instance where the story process was
involved. As someone growing up during a trying economic period in Americas largest city Kramer
to survive became mature beyond his years.
When Kramer joined the ranks of producers his launching pad was an option deal involving two
stories by a New York legend who knew the city intimately from the perspective of a renowned
journalist and freelance author. Ring Lardner was the author and Kramer set sail for the big time in
cinema by filming the first of the two stories in the city where he had grown up. Its title was fittingly
So This Is New York. It was a comedy starring Henry Morgan, Rudy Vallee and Bill Goodwin.
After a setback in his first effort Kramer turned his attention to the second of the two Lardner stories
he had optioned. In Lardners New York newspaper days he was at one point one of the citys most
prominent sportswriters. One intriguing beat that many sportswriters have found fascinating,
particularly among those who later find work as freelancers, such as Lardner, Paul Gallico and Budd
Schulberg, was covering the boxing scene. There was no better place to cover boxing than in New
York City, the worlds fistic capital. The dream of young fighters was to headline in fabled Madison
Square Garden.
During the early days of television three of the most popular weekend staples in addition to Saturday
nights Your Hit Parade and Sundays hit variety program The Ed Sullivan Show featuring as host yet
another prominent Gotham columnists who was once a sportswriter, was the leadoff Friday night
Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. The manufacturer of the world famous blue blades sponsored the main
event of boxing cards featuring the finest in fistic talent. They generally originated and were televised
live from The Garden and on some occasions St. Nicholas Arena with action commencing at 10 p.m.
Eastern Time.
The Roaring Twenties followed by the Great Depression emerged as the foremost competitive period
in the history of boxing. The two heavyweight title fights between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney
set both attendance and box office records.
New Yorks frequently violent streets proved to be a training ground for champions and numerous
others who had aimed for the professions top rung and failed. Two tough survivors from the Bronx
who would ultimately become world middleweight champions had major films made about them that
were among the finest boxing movies ever made.
Rocky Graziano came first with Paul Newman portraying him in the 1956 Robert Wise vehicle
Somebody Up There Likes Me. Newman received his prominent career boost as a result of the death
of James Dean, who had been slated to play the colorful Graziano. As an ex-fighter Grazianos
humorous side was tapped by Martha Raye, who made him one of her television regulars and
introduced him to a new career in comedy.

The second film came two decades later. Like Somebody Up There Likes Me, it was based on an
autobiographical bestseller. The 1980 Martin Scorsese hit The Raging Bull was based on the life of
the aggressive ring warrior Jake LaMotta, who had been christened by the media with the moniker of
The Bronx Bull. New York City native Robert De Niro was coached in the manly art and prepped for
the role by none other than LaMotta himself, who was delighted to serve as the films technical
adviser. De Niro, always a quick study, responded to the occasion by playing LaMotta with fidelity
and securing a Best Actor Academy Award in the process.
From a Black Tunnel to Cinema Gold
So into this interesting historical mix merging the tough streets of New York and a Darwinian
survival of the fittest pattern leading to professional boxing came Stanley Kramer. When he hit full
stride and joined the ranks of greatness as initially a producer and eventually a director as well,
handling both responsibilities in numerous films, Kramer became known as the industrys message
filmmaker. How did this fruition occur?
The place to begin was with Kramers roots. His keen intelligence blending with an all pervasive
sensitivity marked him as a potential message filmmaker before he would envisage such a result.
Kramers destiny as a message filmmaker was ascertainable by the way he used his life experience as
a molder of creative behavior. By encountering difficulty and seeing others do the same, Kramer put
into motion the rock-ribbed creative journey he would take.
During his developmental phase Kramer developed an ideological kinship with Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, whose New Deal was a game plan to combat the Great Depression that his stewardship
was given a mandate to overcome. An effort was made as never before in U.S. history for the federal
government to undertake emboldened policies that prevailing conservative forces not only sought to
end, but declared to be dangerously all-intrusive and ultimately unconstitutional.
Kramer from his college days at New York University through the remainder of his life identified
with liberal causes after becoming an ardent supporter of Roosevelt and his New Deal. His
sympathies lay with the working class. Not only did he support Rooseveltian New Deal domestic
legislation, carrying that support onward to presidents Harry S.Truman and John F. Kennedys Fair
Deal and New Frontier policies. Kramer enjoyed contributing to the marketplace of ideas. He was the
only major American film director who tackled an entire range of issues in spirited television debate.
One major cause he embraced was opposition to capital punishment.
So here was a young man very much in love with film and the enriching magic cinema can perform
in its capability of bringing worldwide audiences into an intimate, dramatic setting who retained an
equivalent fascination with the world of ideas. Kramer recognized the kind of convergence to be
realized through a blend of the dramatic intimacy of a film close-up alongside the intellectual
challenge of laying out important sets of ideas. He had an acute awareness of how the power of those
ideas could be heightened through presenting them in the framework of an incisively written script
serving as a blueprint.
That black, lonely tunnel that was ultimately converted to cinema immortality had a genesis
extending back to those mean streets with which Kramer became so familiar in his youth and early
adulthood. The way out of the morass of poverty to many moving toward the precipice of maturity
was boxing. As Jake LaMotta asserted in his powerful autobiography Raging Bull, by the time that he
made the transition from clenched bare fists and street battles to fists enclosed in gloves and into a
controlled environment of a canvas ring and referee he had engaged in some one thousand physical
confrontations.
Kramer recalled that ominous tunnel many times as well as what it denoted. He had known many
friends and acquaintances from the neighborhood that had passed through that tunnel on the way to

the ring to do battle. He did not like the system nor what that highly symbolic walk through the
tunnel signified. Kramer disliked the fact that young men in his view were manipulated by
opportunistic managers. One fighter would be manipulated to the ultimate extent of his use in what
Kramer saw as a corrupt system, after which a successor would replace him, following the same
pattern. It led too often to disillusionment accompanied frequently by permanent physical scars.
So Kramer saw an opportunity to write about a topic he knew and toward which he felt abiding
passion. Such was the creation of a message filmmaker. Professional boxing was a subject about
which he felt strongly and the liberal activist within him merged with the creative filmmaker. The
Ring Lardner story proved a convenient outlet for expression and a chance at the same time to vault
into the Hollywood success ranks.
While Kramer would serve only as producer of his second film with Mark Robson as director, the
highly active producer with the alert story mind and acute visual skills knew what he wanted. The
same applied to the script by Carl Foreman. The ideas of Kramer can be seen carried out to fruition
on screen. The grit and hunger of a tough Depression period and the longing of a sturdy young man
who could use his physical skills to batter his way to the top of the professional boxing scene are
elements depicted in the manner that Kramer sought. This was his response to what he had seen
occur with many he knew growing up on New Yorks tough streets. The result of that experience led
to a hard-hitting film that established Kramer as a young man with a bright Hollywood future. For
Kirk Douglas Champion was a breakthrough film that led to the ranks of enduring superstar.
If Kramer needed a breakthrough success to convince the Hollywood power elite that he belonged in
celluloid land the powerfully built Douglas sought the kind of role that would carry him into the
echelon of superstar. A product of New York City as was Kramer, Douglas received a break when
fellow drama classmate Lauren Bacall recommended him to producer Hal Wallis. The man who
would eventually run Paramount Studios agreed with Bacalls assessment, providing Douglas with a
starring role in his first effort before the cameras in the highly regarded 1946 film noir drama, The
Strange Love of Martha Ivers.
The film gave neophyte Douglas a golden opportunity to earn his acting spurs. The only drawback
was that he was cast in a role of a fearful, weak man who suffers in comparison to the machismo
displayed by Van Heflin, a daring war hero who lives by his wits as a professional gambler and has a
successful way with the ladies. Douglas sturdy natural physical presence is never given the
opportunity to be displayed. To make him appear even more recessive and frightened he spends the
entire picture staring timidly at the world he fears and totally fails to comprehend through the
perspective of glasses.
Douglas second effort before the cameras was another noir gem. RKOs Out of the Past directed by
French emigre Jacques Tourneur finds Douglas shorn of spectacles and given the role of mob boss
Whit Sterling. His character possessed considerably greater strength than lamentable Walter ONeill
in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers but once more, as in the case of Van Heflin in his debut effort,
the story line conveyed the role of superior strength, insight and overall goodness on Robert
Mitchum. It is Mitchum who has the enduring love scenes with Jane Greer, the dazzling young
brunette beauty queen and recent arrival on the RKO lot from Washington, D.C. Once more Douglas
was superb, but it was another actor whose role was spiced with the kind of machismo and
readymade charisma potential generating a fast track to the highest echelon of stardom.
As the forties neared their end Douglas continued to work and was provided with a solid opportunity
in a film that would debut in America less than three months before Champion. Director Joseph
Mankiewicz, in the early phase of a brilliant career, adapted the screenplay of a Cosmopolitan
Magazine novel with A Letter to Three Wives.

While A Letter to Three Wives was a brilliantly conceived and executed film, it was a womans
viewpoint drama with the glamorous triumvirate of housewives consisting of Jeanne Crain, Linda
Darnell and Ann Sothern top-billed. Douglas provided a professional effort as an idealistic school
teacher married to Ann Sothern, who earns the marriages top dollars as a radio writer. His best
opportunity comes in a post-dinner clash with Sotherns bosses, describing them sardonically as
talking radio commercials.
By the time that Douglas heard about the casting for top lead in Champion he possessed the
restlessness of an energetic thoroughbred kept locked in the stable and eagerly yearning for the
chance to be let out and moved onto the nearest racetrack. The analogy was apt in view of Douglas
having been a college wrestling champ. He possessed the trimly muscular frame of an athlete primed
for action. With the right opportunity he could steer his raw physical energy combined with creative
sensitivity into the ranks of the select male stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck, John
Garfield and Robert Mitchum at the top of marquees worldwide, performers with first pick in films
done by top producers and directors.
Kramer immediately liked Douglas aggressive confidence as he lobbied for the role. After all, the
role of worlds middleweight champion Midge Kelly called for an athletic, confident presence that
oozed charisma. One look at Douglas sharply honed athletes physique told the sharp-eyed
producer-director that the young leading man fit the part physically. The question was whether
Kramer could be satisfied he had the needed dramatic requisites. Some extended meetings in which
Kramer put Douglas to the dramatic test satisfied him that he had found his Midge Kelly.
Charisma Immediately Established
After watching the opening sequence of Champion it is easy to see why Douglas lobbied so hard to
play Midge Kelly. After making his way through the tunnel he arrives in the ring. The broad smile on
his face and accompanying wave is for the benefit of a packed arena throng that responds with
enthusiastic cheers and applause.
The Foreman script cleverly brings the audience into focus with middleweight champion Midge
Kelly through a capsulized career introduction supplied by the fights television color commentator
seated at ringside. He is Sam Balter, whose background resembled that of Kramer and Douglas but
from three thousand miles away. Balter was a young Jewish man who grew up in Los Angeles during
the same Depression period when Kramer and Douglas would also graduate from college in New
York City.
Balter played basketball at UCLA long before John Wooden arrived on the scene, when the school
would become renowned with its habitual capturing of NCAA titles. Westwood was then a Southern
California suburb with lush rolling hills. Balters prowess as a basketball played at Westwood landed
him a coveted role on the U.S. Olympic team.
It was the political-stained and highly dramatic 1936 Olympiad in Berlin when Hitler extolled Third
Reich Aryan supremacist propaganda and became infuriated when black sprinters Jesse Owens and
Ralph Metcalfe excelled as track sprinters along with Jewish Marty Glickman. Meanwhile Jewish
Sam Balter earned a gold medal playing on Uncle Sams first place team. Ironically both Balter and
Glickman, two Jewish athletic stars in an Olympiad presided over by the worlds leading exponent of
Aryan supremacy, both became premier basketball announcers in the early days of television.
Balter, who was at his best as a sports commentator-essayist, uses his on camera time during the film
s early phase to reveal to the audience the accomplishments of the charismatic Midge Kelly of Kirk
Douglas breakthrough role to superstardom. Balter, microphone in hand, looks out at his television
audience and declares that the ruggedly handsome, broad-shouldered Douglas was probably the most

popular champion ever in his division. All it takes is one audience pan of the admiring ringside
audience members to confirm the validity of the commentators statement.
Successful drama is so often a study in contrasts. The Foreman script following Balters laudatory
comments catapults into a niftily executed flashback. After the champion is seen being admired by
his throng of fans as he prepares to defend his title the clock is turned back to the early days of Midge
Kelly before he became a popular boxing titleholder.
Depression Roots and the Johnny Dunne Link
Kramer made an identification link between the Great Depression and the number of young men with
whom he grew up in New York City entering the world of boxing. It is therefore to be expected that
the story would begin by making a connection between Douglas character Midge Kelly and his
brother, played by prominent character performer Arthur Kennedy, riding a freight train. In that those
riding them risked their lives due to the violent types often frequenting them, it is no surprise either
when Douglas and Kennedy are outnumbered or attacked by fellow free riding passengers.
Once the brothers have made their exit from the train another phase is entered that is indicative of the
economically troubled in pursuit of free travel. This time it is the proverbial thumb in the air, the act
of hitchhiking. Viewers also recognize early on that Douglas is compelled to cover for the physical
shortcomings of Kennedy, who walks with a constant limp.
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