The Prizefighter and the Lady

Plot synopsis:
While working as a barroom bouncer, sailor Steve Morgan (Max Baer) impresses alcoholic ex-boxing manager "the Professor" (Walter Huston) with his skills. The Professor talks Steve into entering a prize fight with an up-and-coming boxer to make money for both of them.
While out training on the road, Steve is nearly run over by a speeding car that crashes into a ditch. He carries nightclub singer Belle Mercer (Myrna Loy) out of the wreckage. Though she is attracted to him, she refuses to have anything to do with Steve. He learns where she lives and goes to see her anyway. He is too cocky to be concerned when she reveals that she is the girlfriend of well-known gangster Willie Ryan (Otto Kruger). When Willie finds out, Belle reassures him she is in control of her emotions. Willie is not so certain about that, but is too shrewd to have Steve killed out of hand by his bodyguard, whom he jokingly calls his "Adopted Son" (Robert McWade). It turns out that he had cause for concern; Steve persuades Belle to marry him. Deeply in love with Belle himself and still hoping to get her back, Willie lets Steve live.
Steve quickly rises through the boxing ranks. However, he cannot keep from fooling around with other women. When Belle catches him in a lie, she tells him that she loves him, but if he cheats on her once more, she will leave him. While waiting for a bout for the heavyweight championship of the world, Steve performs in a musical revue. When Belle unexpectedly goes to his dressing room, she finds a woman hiding there. It is the end of their marriage. She gets her old job back with Willie.
Anxious to see the overconfident Steve humiliated, Willie finds out what is holding up the match with the current champion, Primo Carnera (playing himself), and pays $25,000 to set it up. When the Professor tries to get Steve to train properly (without women and liquor), Steve gets angry and slaps him, ending their partnership.
The championship bout is refereed by boxing promoter and former champion Jack Dempsey (himself). Belle, Willie and the Professor are all in attendance. For most of the ten-round fight, Steve gets pummeled by the much heavier Carnera. Finally, a distraught Belle urges the Professor to forget his wounded pride and go to Steve's corner to provide much needed advice. With his old friend and his ex-wife rooting him on, a heartened Steve makes a furious comeback in the final rounds. The match ends in a draw; Carnera retains his title.
Later, Willie enters Belle's nightclub dressing room and tells her she is fired. Then he brings Steve in and leaves the couple alone to reconcile.

Tags: romantic

Review:
In her biography, she admits that the only major mistake she made in her career was underestimating the raw physicality and animal presence, as well as the dominating personality, of heavyweight champion-to-be Max Baer for "The Prizefighter and the Lady".
Jack Dempsey, just seven years removed from his championship days, is the referee in Baer's climactic title fight with cinema---and actual world champion---Carnera.
When Baer and Carnera actually met for the championship, on June 14, 1934, at New York's Long Island City Bowl, Max entered the ring wearing not his own robe, but the one from the film...with Steve Morgan's name emblazoned on the back.
I think he might have beaten Primo." Whichever name he used, Baer knocked down Carnera a record 11 times in 11 rounds before the referee stopped the bout and awarded Max the crown.
This film is worth watching for the charismatic Baer, his exciting and entertaining battle with Carnera, and all those historic boxing figures..
We see him in semi-comic scenes as a braggart strong man; in love scenes with Myrna Loy in which something seems really to be going on between them, and in flirtations or affairs with other women; in a ten-minute "dance" number embodying fighter training techniques with a line of chorus girls; and finally in an only slightly abridged championship fight with the then heavyweight champ Primo Carnera, anticipating their actual battle a year later.
As I watched this film last night the thought came to me that he was born fifty years too soon; he could have been successful in the kind of roles recently played by Stallone and Schwarzenegger, neither of whom, in my opinion, has the range for which Baer showed the potential..
Though his character name was Steve Morgan, believe me this is the genuine Max.And this is a lot closer than the portrayal of Baer in that otherwise excellent film Cinderella Man that came out this year.
In addition he was a colorful playboy who just loved the fast nightclub life as he does in The Prizefighter and the Lady.Myrna Loy and her chauffeur are saved from an auto wreck by Max and his fight manager Walter Huston.
I won't say more, but there are some of the same plot elements that are found in Broadway Through a Keyhole and Stars Over Broadway in which this same story has the protagonist a singer.Today's audience might find it a little silly that fighter Max Baer appears in a Broadway review.
But that was definitely Max as he sings with a bunch of chorus girls, Lucky Fellow, Lucky Guy.Myrna Loy, Walter Huston and Otto Krueger all turn in fine performances in their parts.
Baer was no longer the physical specimen he was in 1933, but he had great comic timing and also did several movie roles by himself and with Rosenbloom.He also did a great dramatic part in The Harder They Fall as a stone cold killer of a heavyweight champion, the image that Cinderella Man tried to convey of him.Also the Twentieth Century Fox film, Footlight Serenade, uses Max Baer as a model for Victor Mature's character.And as a special treat for you boxing fans, a whole slew of former ring greats are introduced at the climax of the film before Baer fights for the heavyweight champion.I found the film thoroughly enjoyable and hope TCM shows it more often so the real Max Baer is seen by today's audiences..
The movie's routine plot involving the on-again, off-again romance and marriage between Myrna Loy and Max Baer seemed completely dwarfed by the drama of the final 25 minutes, which pitted Max Baer against Primo Carnera for the world heavyweight championship.
Max Baer is the prizefighter and Myrna Loy is the lady in "The Prizefighter and the Lady," a 1933 film also starring Walter Huston and Otto Kruger.
In "The Prizefighter and the Lady," as in real life, he fights Primo Carnera, as he would a year later.
The screen fight is very effective.There are several real sports figures in the film besides Carnero - Jack Dempsey, who helped Baer make a comeback later on when he started telegraphing his punches, and also James Jeffries and Frank Moran.
The way Hawks and Van Dyke tell their story is to the point, the acting by both Loy and real-life boxer Max Baer is vivid and engaging.
At least it seems that everyone involved was aware that heavyweight boxing champion of the world Max Baer could not act, and therefore the cast was filled with very capable players (Loy, Kruger, Huston).
Even though Max Baer was second billed, and is the center of attention of the plot, he actually gets very few lines or real acting scenes.
In spite of this danger, Morgan won't take no for an answer and pursues Belle, although with sparse dialogue and little finesse, making her succumbing to his charms all the more mystifying.So far you have your standard fight movie of the 1930's - a washed up promoter gets a second chance and an unknown natural gets an opportunity to work up to the championship, with a classy lady and a gangster thrown in for good measure.
Then there is a bizarre little musical number stuck in the film featuring Max Baer and a bunch of chorus girls with fight training gear as props.
Plus it's a chance to see Myrna Loy in a role that MGM would never have assigned her to after she really hit the big time the following year in "The Thin Man"..
Interesting piece of history as Max Baer learned enough during his boxing scenes with Carnera that he was easily able to beat him in their 1934 bout for the Heavyweight Championship.
Only to be pitted in real life the following year for a bona fide championship bout.Van Dyke's direction and his crew's camera work and editing for the climactic screen fight are all excellent.
The real surprise though is Baer himself, acting, boxing, singing, and dancing.
That's because this boxing film is unique in that it stars several real boxers--including several champions.
Max Baer and Primo Carnera were, at the time, the most famous active boxers--both having been champions.
Max Baer is the star of the film and does a pretty good job of acting considering he is NOT an actor.
Walter Huston as the failed alcoholic manager and |Otto Kruger as the sinister Gangster Willie Ryan.All surrounded by Myrna Loy cute as a pixie.The Broadway Show number starring Baer is an exhausting brilliant tour de forceThe fight scenes intense and realistic(save for over multitude of knockdowns) I counted about 15!This movie from 1933 has it all Romance Sex, Revenge and plenty of amazing cameos by the likes of Jack Dempsey, Jess Willars and Gentleman James Jeffries.
There is a lot to like about this movie, starting with the beautiful Myrna Loy, who is caught in a love triangle between a gangster and an up and coming boxer.
The boxer is played by real life heavyweight Max Baer, who is certainly as good an actor as most for the time period, and very interesting to watch.
I liked seeing Loy singing (though it may have been lip sync'd), and it was fun (and a little silly) to see Baer in a pretty long musical number later.
That's probably the beginning of where the film finds itself being a little too long, but it's really the big fight at the end with real-life champion Primo Canera which drags on.
They introduce a number of other real-life boxers, which may have been a thrill to boxing fans in 1933, but with the exception of Jack Dempsey, is less interesting today (at least to me).
Belle (Myrna Loy) falls in love with a dunce of a jock named Steven (played by real-life boxer Max Baer) - "A big kid" as Belle calls him.
Steven is a man who doesn't seem to know any better and Belle is fully aware of this but can't help that she has fallen for him; you really can feel the raw sexual attraction between these two, especially in their introductory scene in which Loy has nothing but a blanket draped over her.The third end of the triangle of this not so swooning love story is Willie Ryan (Otto Kruger) as Belle's original lover.
The Great Heavyweight Boxing Champ, Max Baer Wanted To Be A Movie Star..........
It would appear that this story and film were tailor made for "the Livermore Larruper" as he had co-starring status (along with Miss Myrna Loy) and basically just did himself.OBVIUSLY WE'RE TALKING a Boxing Movie here ("No sh*t Sherlock!), but it does manage to touch base with the Love Story, the Morality Play and the always popular Success Story.
The Heavyweight Champ, Primo Carnera, "the Ambling Alp" (himself) had third billing playing himself (who else, Schulz?)WELL NEEDLESS TO say, Max Baer never did achieve stardom in Hollywood; but did a lot of film work.
Myrna Loy is Belle, headline singer at a club owned by tough guy Willie Ryan (Otto Kruger).
Willie wants to retaliate against the iron-jawed palooka, but his love of Belle forces him to step aside and hope for her happiness.Max Baer is the center of this film.
And Baer performs with them, tap for tap.The end of the film includes a boxing match between the contender and the champ, featuring three boxing champions in the ring at the same time: Jack Dempsey (as the referee), Max Baer and Primo Carnera.
I think that because Baer really does sell the emotions of this guy - there are times that Dyke's camera just lays on his face as he thinks of something, and it feels real, like he's not faking it - and can deliver the dialog with a great amount of believability, he's a natural for the role.
Other actors around them are fairly standard (Walter Huston as the Professor is fine, but not as great as one might think), but it's just a pleasure to see Loy on screen in a role where she can be naturally beautiful and sexy and deliver a good song (albeit two different times which is odd) and yet is still interesting in the climax.By the final fight it seems fairly clear what the trajectory will be, but maybe that's not a bad thing and the director and writers get a lot of good, conventional movie mileage out of the fall and rise element in just this final fight.
It actually became intense, and I have to wonder if other boxing movies in decades to come (maybe even Rocky to a small extent) looked to something like The Prizefighter and the Lady as an example of how to do it.
I watched this film because of the involvement of 30s great W.S. Van Dyke and his oftentimes leading lady Myrna Loy, and I was more or less satisfied with his direction and her performance as Belle.
Also, Walter Huston does good work as Steve Morgan's manager, "The Professor", and I was particularly impressed with Otto Kruger's unusual performance as Willie Ryan, Belle's bitter ex.However, there is a black hole at the center of this film, and its name is Max Baer.
I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time to cast a real boxer as Steve Morgan -- and they could've done much worse, as Primo Carnera and Jack Dempsey evince toward the end of the film -- but I would've much rather seen a real actor in the role.I wish I knew more about what went with the director's chair on this film.
When muscular Max Baer (as Steve Morgan) shows his fisticuffs and strength in a bar, alcoholic fight promoter Walter Huston (as Edwin "Professor" Bennett) sobers up fast.
While training for his first bout, Mr. Baer rescues lovely nightclub singer Myrna Loy (as Belle Mercer) from a road mishap and invites her to the fight.
Nothing too revolutionary happens here, but the "big fight" ending at Madison Square Garden is more realistic than average; it features Baer, a real boxer becoming a concurrent movie star, fighting his actual rival Primo Carnera.****** The Prizefighter and the Lady (11/10/33) W.S. Van Dyke ~ Max Baer, Myrna Loy, Walter Huston, Otto Kruger.
Though I do not like boxing, finding it brutal and barbarous, I loved this movie about boxing.For one thing, seeing Max Baer was an experience.
Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised: After all, he had to be graceful in order to box and a boxer's routines included jumping rope.Baer was, according to the histories I've seen, actually a very nice man, but he plays a real rotter here and, alas, does it well.Myrna Loy had one of her best roles, and it was also an experience seeing her handle this, in my movie-watching career, different role.
One of the attractions of "The Prizefighter and the Lady" is its cast of boxing greats, who mostly do walk-ons as themselves.But the great Jack Dempsey, as himself, has a part as does the even greater Primo Carnera -- "greater" in that he is HUGE, his character (himself) weighing some 60 pounds more than the character played by Baer, Steve Morgan.The one serious complaint is this: Too much of the story of Morgan's climb toward the championship is told with the silly and over-worked gimmick of flashing newspaper headlines on the screen.
It features a formulaic love-story about a rising boxing star who falls for the girl of a notorious criminal.It are the sport elements that still provide the movie with some good moments.
Max Baer, Myrna Loy, and Otto Kruger deliver worthy performances in this curiosity of a film.
At the time of the film's production, Primo Carnera, who also made his screen debut in the picture, was the world's heavyweight boxing champion.
Hollywood Reporter notes that Baer was 'mutilated' for the first time in his two-year boxing career when he had two teeth knocked out during a staged fight.
According to the modern interview with Myrna Loy, Baer studied Carnera's boxing techniques during the filming and later used this 'scouting' information to beat Carnera.
Average boxing film featuring real life champs Baer, Carnera and Dempsey.
Co-produced and directed by W.S. Van Dyke, with an original story by two time Oscar winner Frances Marion, which was adapted by John Lee Mahin and John Meehan, this average boxing film features real heavyweight champion Max Baer with Myrna Loy in the title roles.
Robert McWade plays Kruger's trigger man.Upon discovering Baer, whom he thinks will be the next heavyweight champion, Huston's character sobers up and begins promoting his young, handsome fighter.
Kruger is only too happy to help Baer get his chance, setting him up for a beating by Carnera, after Loy returns to his lair.The climactic fight includes Dempsey as its referee.
In addition to Miss Loy, we have Max Baer, Primo Carnera, and Jack Dempsey, plus Otto Kruger, Jean Howard and Jess Willard.
Corbett as part of the movie, and how Max Baer used what he learned about Primo Carnera to defeat him and win the World Heavyweight Championship.
I know that Willie Ryan was a gangster (and not good), but spoilers ahead: He did not order people to get knocked off, and did fire Belle (Myrna Loy) from her nightclub singing position, so she could go back to her husband boxer Steve Morgan (Baer).
Without the principals involved it's just another romance gone wrong/sports story, but when you throw in the fact that there are five, count 'em, five former World Heavyweight Boxing Champions in the picture, well just the idea simply blows me away.Regarding the love story, it's rather improbable that a character portrayed by Myrna Loy would fall for a lug like boxer Max Baer, but that's the premise so you'll have to go along with it.
Gangster Willie Ryan (Otto Kruger) couldn't believe it himself, he was Belle Mercer's (Loy) main squeeze until Steve Morgan (Baer) showed up, and when Belle announces her surprise marriage to the fighter, Ryan had to ask her "Were you on the junk"?
Whoa, pre-Code remarks like that are always a sit up and take notice moment!Before we get to the picture's world title match, Max Baer genuinely surprises with talent that supersedes the boxing ring.
Seriously, I couldn't get over Baer's performance here, he had showmanship and style that belied his large, muscular frame.The story builds to an eventual boxing match between Steve Morgan and the real heavyweight champ at the time, Primo Carnera.
Like the premise of the same year's song and dance number, "She was a Chinese Teapot (But He Was Just a Mug)" from "International House", this pairs together the rather vulgar Max Baer with the glamorous but obviously bought-and-paid-for Myrna Loy. They meet by chance, but it is obvious from start to finish that her benefactor (a dour Otto Kruger) is unwilling to let her go without a fight.
Baer goes from rags to riches as a rising prizefighter, and like others before him, he is exploited in the media, practically becoming his own circus.Throughout all this are the musical numbers which tend to interrupt the more interesting dramatic action, basically stopping the film to show Myrna Loy (obviously dubbed) performing "Downstream Drifter".
But I love pre-code films of the early 1930s and I do like Myrna Loy, so I figured there might be a chance I'd enjoy the movie somewhat.
Well, it was one of the best films I've ever seen and for those who are wincing or gagging at that, let me say it's all a matter of opinion, folks.I've been reading the reviews here (I did not know Max Baer "killed" anyone in his boxing career) and I just have to laugh at some of the comments from those who couldn't get anything out of this.For example.
This is enough to make Prizefighter and the Lady the best fight film ever.I was terrifically impressed by Max Baer.