“Perhaps the most poetic and fatalistic of all boxing movies… there’s a rock-or-a-hard-place existentialism to the movie that’s deeply sad.”
Robert Ryan stars as washed-up boxer Bill “Stoker” Thompson. His attempt to stage a comeback is undermined by his own manager and trainer, who secretly accepts a gambler’s bribe for him to throw his next fight - but Stoker has ideas of his own. Director Robert Wise captures the unsavoury underbelly of the boxing world and its inextricable link with the criminal element in this cracking and gritty sports noir.
