Champ for a Day (1953) User Reviews (2)

He coulda been a champ.

[horn-5 · 22 December 2006]

A lot of the motivational issues with the two lead characters in this one revolves around two characters who are no-shows.

An up-and-coming heavyweight fighter, George Wilson (Alex Nicol)arrives in Vulcan City, a small mid-western town over-run by racketeers, to fight a heavily-favored Frankie Sebastian (Johnny Polan). George arrives but his manager Dolan is nowhere to be found. But Ma (Hope Emerson) and Pa Karlsen (Charles Winninger), owners of Karlsen's Kozy Kottages motel and restaurant take him under their wing. He meets Miss Gormley (Audrey Totter) who is also there to meet the no-show manager who is blackmailing her no-show brother. Another resident of the Kozy Kottages is Calhoun (Richard Wessel), a beefy, officious motorcycle Kop whose contributions aren't enough to justify his upgraded Richard-instead-of-Dick billing name.

Dolan still hasn't arrived by the date of the fight but, to the surprise of sports-promoters Tom Healy (Barry Kelley) and Dominic Guido (Joseph Wiseman), George shows up and knocks Frankie flatter than a fritter. This wins him the friendship of trainer Al Muntz (Harry Morgan, as Henry Morgan)and the enmity of Willie Foltis (Jesse White), a punchy ex-fighter and a Healy henchman.

This leads George to a fight with "Soldier" Freeman (Hal Baylor), whose manager Scotty Cameron (Grant Withers) has made arrangements for the favored-Freeman to take a dive, so he and Healy and Guido can clean up betting on the underdog.

But Honest George has other plans.

Another twelve o'clock girl in a nine o'clock town.

[mark.waltz · 10/10 · 30 December 2023]

What's a hardboiled dame like Audrey Totter doing in a small corrupt town like Vulcan City? With most of these characters, it should have been called Vulture City. Prize fighter Alex Nicol shows up looking for his missing manager, takes room and board with the kind Charles Winninger and Hope Emerson (who instantly takes to him like a son), becomes involved in the local rackets in order to find his manager and becomes involved with Totter who has her own score to settle with him.

With some obviously corrupt characters like Harry Morgan, Jesse White and Joseph Wiseman, there's plenty of intrigue, and a heartfelt performance by Celia Lovsky as the missing man's sister. This is one of the best film noir fans have probably never heard of, top notch with its hard-core dialogue and great direction by William A. Seiter. After "Caged", it's nice to see Emerson playing a gentle character, bombastic and loveable, and unaware of her husband Winninger's dishonest activities.

There's a lot of heat between Totter and Nicol as well, and the relationship is one of the most realistically presented love/hate trust/distrust, with the viewer kept guessing over Totter's sincerity. Nicol's a great dark anti-hero, one of the best since Tom Neal in "Detour". But the performance praise goes to Lovsky whose character really makes you feel sorry for her, kept in the dark by Nicol about what really happened to her brother. Brilliant, dark expose on small town rackets, reminding me of the cult noir "Phenix City Story".