Enjoyable if clichéd '30s Warner Brothers fare about a handsome, cornfed young boxer who eventually appeals to the better nature of a cynical promoter played by Edward G. Robinson. It's predictable stuff ---- you can pinpoint the moment when a spinning newspaper montage will make an appearance -- and the fight scenes often look unconvincingly staged.
Still, it's hard to dislike any film where Robinson and Bogart face each other down in smoky rooms and sweaty gyms, snarling and chomping…
It's all about Joseph Cotten. He's both seething with menace + disconcertingly sexy as the beloved, urbane visiting uncle. The almost-gothic sexual intrigue absolutely elevates this, and Hitch plays it -- and the foreboding - just right.
A film which has all the specificity that comes from being written by political advisers + pundits. Guys who know the rat race, the publicity, and the day-to-day grind of running an unpopular campaign.
Redford is easily the film’s best asset — as a Bobby Kennedy-like politician. His unreadability is a great factor, allowing us, and his potential constituents, to project essentially what we like onto him. One of the women at the voting booth: ‘All my neighbors are voting…
