Great Film overall

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Champion is a below average boxing tale that doesn't pack a punch.It's not a bad film, it was engaging, that said Midge was a nasty fellow. Connie should of seen Midge's actions towards Emma coming and he shouldn't of let him treat him like dirt. It's just weak writing. Why did Midge want Grace? Why? His wife was more attractive and sweet and Grace was a snob just using his money. Then he gives up on Palmer for money, when he probably just wasted a bunch on Grace. The boxing wasn't memorable, so you basically have a drama about an unlikable character that hurts people in and out of the ring.

When it comes to this 1949, b&w, Fight Flick - Here's the Good, the Bad, and the Pug-ly.The Good - Kirk Douglas (at 33) was in absolute top form for this picture, both physically, as well as in his craft as one of Hollywood's most dynamic actors of his day.As the ambitious & unscrupulous boxer, Midge Kelly, Douglas came across at times as if he were an angry, caged tiger ready to claw the world to pieces. And, believe me, Douglas was impressive.The Bad - At times Champion's story-line tended to be quite choppy.And, besides that, Arthur Kennedy's role as Midge's brother, Connie (a guy with a limp, who needed a cane) seemed to have no real purpose in the story. For the most part Connie appeared to be nothing more than dead-weight added to this tale as a mere afterthought.The Pug-ly - While some of Champion's fight scenes really packed a terrific wallop, others just wimped out.I don't know about you, but, for me, a boxing film's "boxing" has got to be bang-on at all times. Otherwise this sort of "pugilist passion play" might just as well take a dive in the ring.Anyways - If you ask me, had Champion's overall story-telling been well up to snuff, then, yes, it would have been a real knock-out.And, that's the Good, the Bad, and the Pug-ly.

A boxer goes from rags to riches by working his way to the middleweight championship. It is interesting that this film and "The Set-up," another fine boxing drama, were in concurrent release in the U.S. in April 1949. Each film looks at corruption in the ring and pulls no punches, so to speak. Douglas, getting top billing for the first time, is quite believable as the boxer, an arrogant heel. There are also good performances from Kennedy as his brother, Roman as the woman he reluctantly marries, and Stewart as his manager. It is solidly directed by Robson, who also made "The Harder They Fall," another good boxing drama and Humphrey Bogart's last film.

Hollywood was never slow to exploit a cycle which accounts for several great screwball comedies in the thirties which alternated with aviation stories. Boxing movies tended to be thin on the ground in the early days of sound albeit titles like Kid Galahad and Golden Boy gave the impression they were about the subject but in the late forties three of the best movies in the genre turned up, The Set Up, Body And Soul and Mark Robson's Champion. You'll look in vain for anything remotely original here but you won't regret looking because what you'll find is a solid script interpreted by a highly talented cast of whom none was better than Paul Stewart as that rara avis a decent boxing manager. Arthur Kennedy was appearing on Broadway in Death Of A Salesman playing Biff Loman, a completely different role to his Connie, handicapped brother of 'Champ' Kirk Douglas. Ruth Roman is the best actress of the three women in the champ's life, and the way Douglas hits the canvas mirrors as well as prefiguring his falling into the camera in Billy Wilder's Ace In The Hole shortly afterwards. Sixty years on it's still great to watch.