The Set-Up (1949) is one of the great film noirs and one of my 10 Best Boxing Movies . Robert Ryan plays a washed-up boxer that nobody believes can win again, not even his long-suffering wife (Audrey Totter). His manager doesn’t even bother to tell him that he is committed to taking a dive in his next fight. But what if he wins?
Director Robert Wise makes use of real-time narrative, then highly innovative. Watch for the verisimilitude of the bar where the deal goes down.
The Set-Up plays regularly on Turner Classic Movies. The DVD is available from Netflix, and The Set-Up can be streamed from Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
