Perfect cast and a good story

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Blistering performances.

Tim Conway and Don Knotts team up for a 20s/30s period piece about the boxing game. Conway and Knotts are working as corner men when we first meet them and making a holy hash out of it. It was no better when Conway was the fighter and Knotts the manager. Conway had a perfect record as he points out. Zero wins, 20 loses and all 20 by knockout.Conway is the funniest boxer since Lou Costello stepped in the squared circle in Abbott&Costello Meet The Invisible Man. Conway has one thing going for him if you believe, a right hand with the power of Jack Dempsey. He just never got a chance to throw it.Anyway gangster Robin Clarke gets them involved in a scheme to take over David Wayne's gym by giving Conway the Primo Carnera buildup until he gets a crack at champ Michael LaGuardia's title. Wayne is really stealing points from what Burgess Meredith did in the Rocky series.Conway and Knotts worked well together and as solo performers. As a team they were a lot like Laurel&Hardy with Conway the dumb one who knows it and Knotts the dumb one who thinks he's a genius. This film is a great example of their team dynamic.I like them both separate and apart and fans of both will like The Prize Fighter.

Tim Conway was very funny on "The Carol Burnett Show", but outside of that show he came across as being very lame. Not just with his "Dorf" videos, but also with his motion pictures. My theory is that he had too much creative control when he was in movies, since often he also took on the role of the screenwriter, this movie being one just example. I had a little hope that there might be some laughs, seeing that Conway's co-star was the great Don Knotts. But Knotts' performance here is very subdued; it's clear that he knows he's in a real turkey. The main problems with the movie are that the script is simply not that funny, and that director Michael Preece seems unable to inject any serious energy to what unfolds on the screen. What results is gag after gag landing with a thud, made worse by a story that is obviously very padded out. Though the movie only runs about 98 minutes long, it feels a lot longer, so much so that it's sometimes agonizing to sit through . It doesn't help that the official DVD release of the movie more often than not has a transfer that resembles a rip of a VHS copy. Hard to believe that this movie did reasonably good business for an independently made production.

The Prize Fighter was originally out by the time the film Rocky 2 was out. The first Rocky had been a hit a couple of years earlier. The Prize Fighter was an attempt at comedy of a serious script...Rocky. This film honors Rocky in the manner that Scary Movie does Scream. Great comedians have had to wait in order to have their analytical talent recognized because of the fact that their analysis was way ahead of their era. That was the case for these actors/writers. It's not the only time this has been done. Tom Hanks's and John Candy's The Volunteers did the same for other classic films such as Bridge on the River Kwai. The era in which The Prize Fighter was filmed does not affect the content or message of the film even after thirty years. I give it a seven on a scale of one to ten... It's not a bad film.

It's not easy making a comedy about the fistic arts. In the 1940s Danny Kay was successful in "The Kid From Brooklyn", playing a "fighting milkman". It took almost 40 years for another boxing comedy to make an impact, and that was The Prize-Fighter.Tim Conway plays Depression Era boxer, Bags Collins. Bags has a perfect fighting record; 20 fights, 20 knockouts.............all losses! A perfect record! Don Knotts plays Shake, the brainy(LOL!) manager of Bags Collins. The movie manages to capture the times and is an interesting reflection of the Depression Era. Tim Conway is at his bumbling best when he is in the ring "knocking out" the top three contenders-Irish, Jake Folley and the Grader. The Bags/Grader fight had me rolling in my seat.There's an impressive supporting cast and Robin Clarke as "Mike" the mob-boss gives an out-standing Brando impression. The final championship match is well done too. The Prize-Fighter is a championship of a comedy.