The Harder They Fall (1956)

(On Cable TV, July 2021) Even if The Harder They Fall doesn’t feature guns, femmes fatales, violent crime or private investigators, there is absolutely no doubt that it is a film noir, and that’s part of why it remains so interesting. Let’s see: Humphrey Bogart (in his last movie before his death), boxing (and the violence of it), corruption both of the system (in showing a series of fixed matches meant to promote an incompetent boxer) and of the individual (in having the protagonist help create the deception), organized crime (touch your nose and grab your ear), great black-and-white cinematography, and a hard-nosed tone suggesting that the real world is much seedier than most movies. Bogart doesn’t play a man of action, but as a former sports columnist his character understands better than most the darkness that lies behind the façade of boxing, especially when he’s asked to create the illusion of a heavyweight contender from a big but unskilled Argentinian. There’s an elusive but solid narrative drive to the results, helped along with a wealth of credible details. The Harder They Fall has aged amazingly well in becoming a time capsule of mid-1950s boxing corruption — the numerous exterior shots featuring Bogart walking down the streets of Manhattan are almost worth watching the movie by themselves. If you do a bit of research on the film’s boxing figures, you’ll find out that at least two roles are essentially two boxers playing themselves — something that audiences would have known in 1956 but not in 2021. Still, there’s no denying the effectiveness of the result even today—Director Mark Robson keeps things moving, and the boxing scenes are still surprisingly effective. I’ve seen quite a few boxing movies, but few are as scathing about the sport as The Harder They Fall — and few are as interesting either.