The Harder They Fall 1956 123movies

Watch: The Harder They Fall 1956 123movies, Full Movie Online – After 17 years as a recognized and respected sports journalist in New York City, Eddie Willis finds himself out of a job when his newspaper folds. He’s approached by a major fight promoter, Nick Benko, to act as a public relations man for his new heavyweight fighter Toro Moreno. Eddie knows the how the fight game works and after watching Toro in the ring, realizes Toro is nothing but a stiff who has no hope of succeeding. Benko offers him a sizable salary and an unlimited expense account and given his financial situation, he agrees. Benko’s strategy to make money is one that has been used time again. Starting in California and moving east, they arrange a series of fights for Toro with stiffs and has-beens. All of the fights are rigged to build up his record and get him a fight with the heavyweight champion, Buddy Brannen, where they will make a sizable profit at the gate. Along the way, one boxer gets killed in the ring and Eddie begins to have serious doubts about what he is doing..
Plot: Jobless sportswriter Eddie Willis is hired by corrupt fight promoter Nick Benko to promote his current protégé, an unknown Argentinian boxer named Toro Moreno. Although Moreno is a hulking giant, his chances for success are hampered by a powder-puff punch and a glass jaw. Exploiting Willis’ reputation for integrity and standing in the boxing community, Benko arranges a series of fixed fights that propel the unsophisticated Moreno to #1 contender for the championship. The reigning champ, the sadistic Buddy Brannen, harbors resentment at the publicity Toro has been receiving and vows to viciously punish him in the ring. Eddie must now decide whether or not to tell the naive Toro the truth.
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Ratings:

	7.5/10 Votes: 8,340
	100% | RottenTomatoes
	N/A | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 107 Popularity: 8.669 | TMDB

Reviews:

The pen is mightier than the boxing glove.
Eddie Willis was once a top sports writer, but now he is down on his luck and searching for work. He gets a proposition from dodgy promoter Nick Benko, he is to write up sensationalist press for Benko’s new discovery, the gigantic Toro Moreno. Trouble is is that Moreno is a poor boxer, powder puff punches and a glass jaw. But each fight is fixed by Benko and along with Eddie’s press writings, this propels Moreno to being a household name, thus a crack at the heavyweight title is in the offering. However, Eddie starts to feel conflicted the more the story unfolds and just around the corner is a tragedy that will shape the destinies of everyone who is involved.

This was sadly to be the last film from the great Humphrey Bogart. He would pass away the following year, but thankfully this Mark Robson directed piece proves to be a fitting swansong. He puts depth to his portrayal of Willis and his face off scenes with Rod Steiger’s Benko are a real acting joy to observe. The film itself N/A is a scathing and critical look at the boxing circuit, corruption, greed and a scant care for human life come bubbling to the surface, with Burnett Guffey’s stark black & white photography adding grime to the nasty underbelly. Real life N/A boxer Primo Carnera sued N/A Columbia because The Harder They Fall’s story was close enough to his own life story, that in itself makes this film’s core story all the more interesting. 8/10

A boxing film that pulls no punches
This was a terrific film to end the long and extraordinary career of Humphrey Bogart, though it isn’t exactly one of his more famous films. Like REQUIUM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT, CHAMPION and THE SET-UP, this film is an exposé about the sleaziness and inherent evil of the boxing business. Sadly, since these films appeared decades ago, boxing continues to be a savage business filled with some apparent thugs and poor saps continued getting their brains scrambled–and in many cases not having enough to live on once their career was shot.

Bogart plays an ex-sports columnist who’s out of work. Rod Steiger is a mobster who wants to hire Bogey to promote a newly discovered boxer from Argentina, “el Toro”. Unfortunately, when they see him spar, it’s obvious that he can’t punch, can’t take a hit and is awkward. His only asset is that he’s huge–about 6’7″ and almost 300 pounds. But, being a cynical sort of film, el Toro’s incompetence isn’t a hindrance–they will just arrange a huge publicity campaign and place him in a long string of setup fights–where his opponents will take dives. Sadly, el Toro is very naive and truly believes he’s winning these fights.

Bogey plays a nice role as a guy torn between his love of money and his nagging conscience. None of the mobsters have this dilemma–they could care less about the big lug. In fact, when one of the setup fights results in a man’s death, no one but el Toro and Bogey seem the least bit concerned. Later, when el Toro is badly beaten and gets his reality check, the film does a great job of piling on the makeup and making the actor looked as if he went through a meat grinder.

The acting is exceptional throughout and the writing was rather uncompromising. Several standouts”, other than Bogart, are Steiger and Nehemiah Persoff as thugs as well as Bogey’s on-screen wife, Jan Sterling–in a good and understated performance. Also Mike Lane plays el Toro very well and is quite convincing. The only negative is that in so many ways this isn’t the most novel of films–being so much like REQUIUM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT and the other films.

Interestingly enough, Italian boxer Primo Carnera saw this film as a thinly veiled biography of his career. While he ultimately lost his lawsuit against the production company, the parallels are too obvious to be accidental. He was almost the exact size as el Toro, there were allegations that many of his fights were fixed and like el Toro, it seems like he had no idea his entire career was a sham.

An interesting thing to watch for is the height of all the actors. While el Toro IS a big guy, they deliberately chose chose lots of short actors to heighten the effect. You’ll realize this is true when you see that Bogart (at 5’8″) is one of the taller actors!

Other Information:

Original Language en
Runtime 1 hr 49 min (109 min)
Budget 0
Revenue 1350000
Status Released
Rated Passed
Genre Drama, Film-Noir, Sport
Director Mark Robson
Writer Philip Yordan, Budd Schulberg
Actors Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling
Country United States
Awards Nominated for 1 Oscar. 2 nominations total
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix Mono (Westrex Recording System)
Aspect Ratio 1.85 : 1
Camera N/A
Laboratory N/A
Film Length (12 reels)
Negative Format 35 mm
Cinematographic Process Spherical
Printed Film Format 35 mm