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The Set-Up is a 1949 American film noir boxing drama directed by Robert Wise and starring Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter. The screenplay was adapted by Art Cohn from a 1928 narrative poem of the same name by Joseph Moncure March.
A boxing manager betrays his fighter by taking bribes from a gambling gangster. The film follows the fighter's last fight in real time, with a tense and atmospheric style.
- (10K)
- Crime, Film-Noir, Sport
- Robert Wise
- 1949-04-02
SET SOMETHING UP definition: 1. to formally establish a new company, organization, system, way of working, etc.: 2. to arrange…. Learn more.
Oscar-nominee Robert Ryan ("Crossfire") stars in this unique narrative covering only 72 minutes in the life of an over-the-hill boxer.
- The film is based on a poem by Joseph Moncure March who wrote a second long-form narrative poem in the 20s called “The Wild Party” about a week-long celebration during Prohibition.
- The film opens with a clock face showing 9:05 and Wise closes the film with the same clock roughly the length of the film later.
- Scorsese first watched this film on 16mm during a college film course. It was his first exposure to the boxing drama because “for some reason I had missed it in my movie-going when I was 7 or 8 years old in 1949.”
- He showed this film on 35mm to the cast and crew of The Aviator (2004) during production.
Unbeknownst to Stoker, his manager, Tiny (George Tobias), has lost confidence in him and sets the fighter up to lose an upcoming match at the request of a local gangster.
- (13)
- Drama
Robert Ryan stars as an aging boxer who refuses to throw his last fight in this hard-boiled drama inspired by a poem. Watch the trailer, photos, and reviews of this 1949 RKO Radio Pictures film on Turner Classic Movies.
