The Square Ring

A British film from the 50's about professional boxing. We get to meet those fighters who participate in a one-night event that involves a programme of many fights.

This film is like a snapshot of a long lost era of British filmmaking. We have great characters, a sly sense of humour at play and grit in the way the sport is portrayed as completely corrupt and in turn corrupting.

The film also shows how truly brutal the sport is. The ending is totally gut-wrenching and completely unexpected.

We also get British film royalty in the guise of legends such as Joan Collins, Joan Sims and Sid James as part of the cast.

Highly recommended.

Boxing is a popular sport in Britain, but it is one which the British cinema tends to ignore. There have been plenty of American boxing films- there have been nine entries in the "Rocky" franchise alone- but "The Square Ring" is about the only British one I can think of. The action takes place over a single evening at a boxing stadium, where six bouts are taking place. There are six storylines, each concentrating on one of the boxers taking part in each bout. (We do not learn very much about their opponents). Uniting the film is the figure of Danny Felton, a former professional boxer himself, who acts as trainer to some of the six.

Between them the six boxers embody just about every cliche known to the boxing movie. There is Jim 'Kid' Curtis, a former champion trying to make a comeback. (Despite his nickname, Kid is at 34 the oldest of the six, too old, it is implied, for the sport. The actor playing him, Robert Beatty, was actually 44 at the time. This was long before George Foreman won a world championship in his mid forties). There is Eddie Lloyd, a young rookie making his professional debut after fighting as an amateur, who becomes disillusioned when he loses to a dirty fighter using illegal tactics which the referee does not spot. Whitey Johnson is a punch-drunk has-been. (Or perhaps, more accurately, a punch-drunk never-was and never-will-be). And Rick Martell is a crooked boxer planning to throw a fight as part of a gambling scam. (Just about every boxing film from this period seemed to make use of this particular storyline; it even surfaces in "On the Waterfront". If real-life boxing had been as corrupt as the movies tried to make out, bookmakers would doubtless have refused to offer odds on it).

The film was based on a stage play by the Australian dramatist Ralph Peterson. I haven't seen the play, but I understand that it had an all-male cast. The film-makers decided to add a female element, so we also get to see the wives and girlfriends of some of the boxers (and, in Eddie's case, his mother). Kid is hoping to be reconciled with his estranged wife, but she hates boxing and does not welcome his attempt at a comeback. Rick is played by Maxwell Reed and his girlfriend Frankie by his then real-life wife Joan Collins.

Peterson's play appears to have been a hit in the theatre, but the film was less of a success. From my point of view there are too many different plotlines; it might have been better if the film-makers had concentrated on only two or three. The story, as one contemporary critic pointed out, veers uneasily from comedy to tragedy and back again. Kid Curtis is a genuinely tragic figure, but someone like Whitey Johnson is treated as a figure of fun, when his story should really be nearly as tragic as Kid's. Despite the presence of a few well known faces- a young Collins, Jack Warner, Sid James, Alfie Bass- this is a film which has largely disappeared from view over the last seventy years. It doesn't stand comparison with American boxing films like "Body and Soul", "Champion" or "Raging Bull". 5/10.

A British boxing drama with a surface chirpiness that seeks to conceal its increasingly jaded undertone. Jack Warner dispenses nuggets of down-to-earth wisdom to a number of boxers (including Bill 'Compo' Owen, Bill Travers and Robert Beatty), all of whom are at some kind of turning point in their lives. As always with this kind of movie, some strands are stronger than others, but a rewarding enough watch overall.

Vividly drawn characters indelibly played by a brilliant cast. Most boxing films see the sport as a metaphor for the struggle of life and THE SQUARE RING is no exception. Winning is everything to these men (and to at least one woman). The fight against more odds than their opponent in the ring. What becomes of a fighter who's had enough--one who never got rich,or became a "star" to be commemorated in retirement? A couple of these characters face those questions and more. The rest are young and fit enough keep the fight going. It's schematic in the ways that most in the sub-genre are: representative characters--they're aging, or too young to know better, delusional, infantile, vain, but some are also good-hearted. Jack Warner, Robert Beatty and the great Bill Owen stand out, but no one can be faulted, not even the very young Joan Collins. The film is based on a stage play and dialog sometimes gives that away, but it's good dialog--sharp and insightful, while Basil Dearden's direction is equal to his better-known work. Finally now widely available on blu-ray. It deserves a place beside BODY & SOUL, THE SET-UP, CHAMPION or any others one could name.

Based on the stage play by Ralph W.Peterson, THE SQUARE RING hardly ventures outside its theatrical roots but is one of the very few British films about the 'Noble Art'. It contains every single cliché known to boxing movies: the nervous novice, the washed up ex-champ looking for one more shot at the 'big time', the anxious wife who threatens to leave if he doesn't quit, the behind the scenes 'fix', camera close ups of ringsiders screaming for blood and of course the rows of spectators throwing imaginary punches during the fight scenes. Unfortunately THE SQUARE RING has the worst impersonation of a 'punch drunk' boxer in celluloid history. George Rose narrows his eyes into slits, screws his mouth sideways and ends up resembling a grumbling grotesque gargoyle. His repetitious rendering of the line "first, first ...I'll show 'em" in a strange, gravelly groaning whine is deeply embarrassing. It's a terrible performance from Rose. Almost as bad is Bill Travers as a morose heavyweight in a permanent state of idiocy, reading a juvenile comic and only answering questions in a monosyllabic, moronic fashion. These two wouldn't pass the stringent medical examinations of todays Boxing Board of Control. On the plus side THE SQUARE RING has an excellent performance from Bill Owen, who bounces into the dressing room full of vitality and spouts out lines like "look at the nose son, not a dent in it". He moves like a confident fit boxer even when he's not in the ring. Real life man and wife Maxwell Reed and Joan Collins share a few scenes, your enjoyment of these scenes will be enhanced if you read her autobiography before viewing the film. Ronald Lewis makes his film debut as a clean cut, shy, Welsh amateur having his first professional fight, who learns the hard way that the pro ranks aren't "fair". Look out for the stiff way he moves towards the centre of the ring when the first bell goes, it's unintentionally hilarious. If he moved like that in a real fight he wouldn't last 20 seconds. Also, watch out for the ending of his bruising battle, he literally sees stars (and so do we!). The climatic encounter between Kid Curtis (Robert Beatty) and the unbeaten prospect Barney Deakon (Alf Hines) contains some excellent camera work and is quite realistic. Robert Beatty, 44 at the time, looks too mature to be sporting the ring moniker "Kid". His opponent was played by the former light-heavyweight from West Ham, Alf Hines, a good club fighter who fought at the Albert Hall, Wembley and Earls Court and had just retired from the ring. He played a boxer in another Joan Collins movie THE GOOD DIE YOUNG, boxing historians should find it interesting that the world famous gym owner, Joe Bloom, was the referee in both these movies. On 2 June, 1958, a TV version with Sean Connery playing Rick Martell and a very young Alan Bates was broadcast on the ITV Play of the Week. THE SQUARE RING's technical adviser was Dave Crowley, the former British Lightweight Champion, it's not a bad little movie and is well worth watching. Fans of CARRY ON comedies will enjoy the early performances of Sid James and Joan Sims.