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Plot summary
Tiny, who manages the boxer Bill 'Stoker' Thompson, expects another loss, so he accepts money from a mobster to arrange a dive and keeps the plan from his fighter. Thompson, 35 and long past his best, is matched at the Paradise City Arena against Tiger Nelson, a 23-year-old with gangster backing. His wife Julie fears the bout will be his last and asks him to forfeit. Thompson argues that a win could bring him a top spot and a purse of $500 or $600, enough to buy a cigar stand or a share in another boxer, Tony Martinez. She tells him his health matters more to her than money. He answers that a fighter cannot stop fighting. Claiming a headache, she stays away.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Set-Up (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- RKO rushed The Set-Up into release in March 1949 and sued the filmmakers of Champion in federal court for $500,000, seeking an injunction to halt its rival's release; the studios settled out of court when United Artists agreed to cut 101 feet of film and two words of dialogue from Champion.
- Director Robert Wise and Sid Rogell wanted Joan Blondell to play Julie after her performance as Zeena Krumbein in Nightmare Alley, but RKO owner Howard Hughes refused, saying, "Blondell looks like she was shot out of the wrong end of a cannon now."
SPOILER
The adaptation changed the poem's protagonist from the black bigamist Pansy Jones to the white, devotedly married Stoker Thompson, and swapped his death on a subway track for an alley beating and a shattered hand.- Uncredited executive producer Dore Schary is credited with giving The Set-Up a real-time narrative structure, three years before the device was used in High Noon.
- The fight scene was choreographed by former professional boxer Johnny Indrisano, and Robert Wise shot it with three cameras: one on the whole ring, one on the fighters, and a hand-held camera for details like a glove connecting with a body.
