This is an excellent and flawed film noir classic that director Kubrick made for a mere $75,000. The film was deemed good enough to be distributed by United Artists and Kubrick made enough money back to pay off his investors and the rest is history.
The story is about a down on his luck boxer named Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) who falls for a lovely young woman who lives in his apartment building. Her name is Gloria Price (Irene Kane) and her gangster boyfriend Vinnie (Frank Silvera) takes none to kindly to Davey's advances and so he decides to have his thugs kill him.
However, they kill Davey's manager by mistake and thus sets in motion a great climax involving Vinnie and Davey fighting a life or death dual with a fishing spear and an axe.
There are some brutal set pieces and you can tell the dialogue was post synched after production, but that does not detract from the quality of the film and the stunning storyline. The beautiful New York locations help add a very "real" feeling to the film.
The opening line of the film spoken in voice over by Davey almost sums up my life and really sets the tone for the entire picture. Here it is verbatim...."It's crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes and not even be able to think about it with any sense-and yet not be able to think about anything else. You get so you're no good for anything or anybody. Maybe it begins by taking life too serious. Anyway, I think that's the way it began for me. Just before my fight with Rodriguez three days ago"....I love that line..it's a classic.
This is a highly recommended film and I hope you get the chance to see it. Oh yes...you gotta love the tag line of the poster!!!
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