Movie
1949
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. The Set-Up was the last film Wise made for RKO, and he named it his favorite of the pictures he directed for the studio, as well as one of his top ten of his career.
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Poetry is an unusual literary source for Hollywood films. One such rarity is *The Set-Up*, a 1928 narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March. In 1949 it was adapted into a feature film, directed by Robert Wise, nowadays celebrated as one of the best sports films and a classic of the film noir genre. The plot unfolds over one evening in the fictional Paradise City, where 35-year-old washed-up boxer Bill "Stoker" Thompson…More
Source Robert Wise, who was the editor of Citizen Kane and director of other great films that cinephiles remember, directed this B-movie that I would classify as a cult film because other later works about boxing noted its influence. In just 72 minutes of enviable compositional power, such as is unlikely to be found among today's filmmakers, the dark world of the Twelve Strings and its most tragic misery is d…More
