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''The Champ'' is a 1979 American neo noir
drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
sports film A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme. It is a production in which a sport, sporting event, athlete (and their sport), or follower of sport (and the s ...
directed by
Franco Zeffirelli Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli (12 February 1923 – 15 June 2019), was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post-World War II era, ...
and a remake of the 1931
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning film of the same name directed by
King Vidor King Wallis Vidor (; February 8, 1894 – November 1, 1982) was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, ...
. It stars
Jon Voight Jonathan Vincent Voight (; born December 29, 1938) is an American actor. He came to prominence in the late 1960s with his Academy Award–nominated performance as Joe Buck, a would-be gigolo, in ''Midnight Cowboy'' (1969). During the 1970s, h ...
as Billy Flynn, a former boxer who attempts to support his son ( Ricky Schroder) and reconcile with his ex-wife (
Faye Dunaway Dorothy Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress. She is the recipient of many accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a BAFTA Award. In 2011, the government of France mad ...
) by fighting in the ring again. The film is the last featuring
Joan Blondell Joan Blondell (born Rose Joan Bluestein; August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in film and television for 50 years. Blondell began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, she embarked on ...
to be released during her lifetime.


Plot

Ex-boxing champion Billy Flynn lives in the city of
Hialeah Hialeah ( ; ) is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. With a population of 223,109 as of the 2020 census, Hialeah is the sixth-largest city in Florida. It is the second largest city by population in the Miami metropolitan area, whi ...
,
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
, where he is trying to settle down as a horse trainer after giving up his boxing title. A boxer propositions that Billy enter a match with him in the future. Billy shows up at the gym with his son T.J., who calls his father Champ. When he learns the man has not arrived, Billy angrily storms out of the gym, leaving his son behind. T.J. later finds him drunk inside a bar. When he takes him home, neighbor Josie asks about his drunken state on the street, and T.J. tells her that Charlie and his friends bought him four beers as a celebration. The next morning, Billy announces that he won $6,400 gambling and uses it to buy T.J. his own horse named She’s a Lady. Lady is entered in a race, but suddenly collapses, scraping her leg. Annie, Billy's wife from whom he had separated seven years ago, had placed a bet on the horse and arrives after Lady's fall. Billy explains that he told T.J. that Annie was dead and that she had deserted them. Annie invites T.J. to her cruise ship. Annie's current husband confronts Billy to convince him to tell T.J. that Annie is his mother. Billy tells him that because she was not there for T.J., he has no mother. Billy loses a gamble on T.J.'s horse and is told by Whitey to either give him Lady or $2,000 in cash. Annie gives Billy the money, but Whitey takes the horse instead. After assaulting Whitey in response and attacking anyone who tries to stop him, including a police officer, Billy is arrested and taken into custody, where he tells T.J. that he is to live with Annie. T.J. refuses to leave, and Billy slaps him in a fit of rage. At her home, Annie tries to comfort T.J., but accidentally tells him that she is indeed his mother. T.J. refuses to accept her as his mother, and Annie is distraught. When Billy is released, he hugs T.J. at a stadium and promises to never leave him ever again. Annie visits Billy and says that she wants him to explain why she wasn't there for T.J. After a fight, Billy allows her back into his life as a friend. To make amends with his son, Billy explains his promise to fight in the ring after Jackie warns him about his age and constant headaches, which could be fatal when boxing. Jackie reluctantly agrees to train Billy to fight again. The night of the fight arrives. From his dressing room, T.J. sees that Billy's opponent is much stronger than Billy, but Billy wins the first two rounds. He later receives many blows to the head and is weakened. The doctor examines Billy during a break and explains that if Billy suffers more damage, the fight will have to be stopped. Billy continues to receive sharp blows but finds enough stamina to knock out his opponent. Billy faints on the way back to his dressing room, and he calls for T.J. to ask him if he is happy that his father won. T.J. replies that "the champ always comes through." Billy then dies from his injuries. T.J., unaware that his father is dead, tries frantically to rouse him. Jackie tells T.J. that his father is dead. T.J. says goodbye to Billy and is embraced by Annie.


Cast

*
Jon Voight Jonathan Vincent Voight (; born December 29, 1938) is an American actor. He came to prominence in the late 1960s with his Academy Award–nominated performance as Joe Buck, a would-be gigolo, in ''Midnight Cowboy'' (1969). During the 1970s, h ...
as Billy Flynn ("Champ") *
Faye Dunaway Dorothy Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress. She is the recipient of many accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a BAFTA Award. In 2011, the government of France mad ...
as Annie Phillips * Ricky Schroder as Timothy Joseph "T.J." Flynn *
Jack Warden Jack Warden (born John Warden Lebzelter Jr.; September 18, 1920July 19, 2006) was an American character actor of film and television. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for ''Shampoo'' (1975) and '' Heaven Can Wait' ...
as Jackie *
Joan Blondell Joan Blondell (born Rose Joan Bluestein; August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in film and television for 50 years. Blondell began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, she embarked on ...
as Dolly Kenyon * Arthur Hill as Mike Phillips *
Strother Martin Strother Douglas Martin Jr. (March 26, 1919 – August 1, 1980) was an American character actor who often appeared in support of John Wayne and Paul Newman and in Western films directed by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. Among Martin's memorable pe ...
as Riley *
Elisha Cook Jr. Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. (December 26, 1903 – May 18, 1995) was an American character actor famed for his work in films noir. According to Bill Georgaris of TSPDT: They Shoot Pictures, Don't They, Cook appeared in a total of 21 film ...
as Georgie *
Stefan Gierasch Stefan Gierasch (February 5, 1926 – September 6, 2014) was an American film and television actor. Career Gierasch made over 100 screen appearances, mostly in American television, beginning in 1951. In the mid-1960s, he performed with the Trin ...
as Charlie Goodman * Mary Jo Catlett as Josie *
Kristoff St. John Kristoff St. John (July 15, 1966 – February 3, 2019) was an American actor best known for playing Neil Winters on the CBS daytime soap opera ''The Young and the Restless'' from 1991 until his death in 2019, which earned him two Daytime Emmy A ...
as Sonny *
Dana Elcar Ibsen Dana Elcar (October 10, 1927 – June 6, 2005) was an American television and film character actor. He appeared in about 40 films as well as on the 1980s and 1990s television series ''MacGyver'' as Peter Thornton, MacGyver's immediate ...
as Hoffmaster, an attorney Robert Redford turned down the lead role.
Ryan O'Neal Ryan O'Neal (born April 20, 1941) is an American actor and former boxer. He trained as an amateur boxer before beginning his career in acting in 1960. In 1964, he landed the role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera '' Peyton Pla ...
signed to play the lead but wanted his son Griffin as T.J. After the director refused, claiming that Griffin was too old, O'Neal withdrew from the project. The filmmakers conducted a six-month talent search with thousands of applicants to cast the role of T.J., and Schroder was chosen immediately after his audition.


Production

Director Franco Zeffirelli said that he was inspired to remake the original film after seeing it again on television. It had first made an impression on him as a child because of the parallels between his own troubled youth and that of the boy in the story.


Reception


Critical response

At review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds has an approval rating of 40% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. At
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 38 out of 100 based on eight critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." Michael Booth of ''
The Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...
'' wrote positively of the film: "Director Franco Zeffirelli makes beautiful pictures; from Shakespeare to the life of St. Francis. In 'The Champ,; he imbues Florida with some oldtime movie magic, retelling the tale of a washed-up former boxer trying to shed booze and gambling to win back his son." ''
Time Out London ''Time Out'' is a global magazine published by Time Out Group. ''Time Out'' started as a London-only publication in 1968 and has expanded its editorial recommendations to 328 cities in 58 countries worldwide. In 2012, the London edition becam ...
'' was critical of the film, calling it "a pointless update of King Vidor's '30s weepie." In ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', critic
Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
strongly panned the film, stating that "the most offputting thing about such canny, tear-stained movies as 'The Champ' is not their naïveté but their unholy sophistication. These movies don't mean to deal with the world as it really is, but as it should be, a place where there's no pile-up of emotional garbage too big that it can't be washed clean by a good cry. My problem with 'The Champ' is that I didn't cry. The garbage accumulated." In a positive review, ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'''s
Dale Pollock Dale M. Pollock (born 1950) is an American film producer, writer and film professor. A journalist whose works have been published in a number of magazines and newspapers, Pollock is also the author of a biography of George Lucas. Pollock has ...
wrote: "Hardly anyone can resist a cute kid, and with Ricky Schroder, 'The Champ' has the most irresistible moppet seen on the screen in decades. Franco Zeffirelli makes an auspicious debut on these shores with his first American film, bolstered by earnest performances from Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway." Gene Siskel of the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'' awarded the film two and a half stars out of four and questioned the point of remaking the original, adding: "Of course that question would be of secondary importance if 'The Champ' were an effective tearjerker. But it's not. For no apparent reason, the original simple story has been lengthened a full 35 minutes. With catastrophe now piled upon catastrophe, 'The Champ' seems to be begging us to cry."
Charles Champlin Charles Davenport Champlin (March 23, 1926 – November 16, 2014) was an American film critic and writer. Life and career Champlin was born in Hammondsport, New York. He attended high school in Camden, New York, working as a columnist for the ...
of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' wrote in a generally positive review that "Zeffirelli has made 'The Champ' work again, on his and its extravagant terms. It requires, makes no mistake, a willing surrender to those terms of sentimental romance and is less piquantly seasoned with wry worldliness than ' Heaven Can Wait,' for example, whose romantic idealism it shares. But, with due allowances, 'The Champ' is a strongly affecting experience for those who want to be moved." Gary Arnold of ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' opined that the film "slogs on for about two reels too many, concluding on a note of utterly contrived tragedy that should make just about everyone feel wretchedly deceived." Clyde Jeavons of ''
The Monthly Film Bulletin ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with ''Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a ...
'' wrote: "Whether the unabashed sentimentality of Zeffirelli's remake of King Vidor's 1931 was deliberate or a misinterpretation of mood, one thing is certain; rarely has the screen been quite so awash with tears for so little apparent reason." Film historian
Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...
awarded the picture 1.5 out of a possible 4 stars, calling it "Hopeless...Voight acts too smart for us to believe he's a dumb pug, while Dunaway acts as if she wants to bed down with their kid; Schroeder cries (and cries) convincingly, but this still isn't exactly Zeffirelli's finest hour." ''The Champ'' has been listed among the most depressing films, and the final scene has been used in psychology experiments to elicit strong emotional responses. In 1988, psychologists conducted a study involving more than 250 film clips shown to 500 people. The study concluded that the last three minutes of ''The Champ'', in which T.J. sees his father win his comeback fight and then die, elicited the saddest response from a majority of the subjects.


Box office

At the American box office, the film performed modestly at first but went on to become MGM's greatest international hit in 14 years, grossing $30.4 million in the U.S. and Canada and more than $35 million elsewhere, including more than $10 million in Japan. By September 1979, ''The Champ'' had registered as MGM's fourth-greatest success in its history.


Awards

Ricky Schroder won the Golden Globe Award for Best New Male Star of the Year in a Motion Picture. Jon Voight was nominated for
Drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
at the
Golden Globes The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of ...
, but lost to
Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is ...
for his role in ''
Kramer vs. Kramer ''Kramer vs. Kramer'' is a 1979 American legal drama film written and directed by Robert Benton, based on Avery Corman's 1977 novel of the same name. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, and Justin Henry. It tells the sto ...
''.
Dave Grusin Robert David "Dave" Grusin (born June 26, 1934) is an American composer, arranger, producer, jazz pianist, and band leader. He has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record w ...
's score was also nominated for an Academy Award.


Release

The film was released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
on May 5, 2015 as part of the
Warner Archive Collection The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...
.


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Champ, The 1979 films 1970s sports drama films Remakes of American films American sports drama films American boxing films Films scored by Dave Grusin Films about children Films about dysfunctional families Films about grieving Films directed by Franco Zeffirelli Gambling films United Artists films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Films with screenplays by Walter Newman (screenwriter) American neo-noir films 1979 drama films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films