The Prize Fighter

Well, I don't know about other comments, but when I saw the movie in 1979 or 1980, I thought it was a very good little comedy with the shenanigans and slapstick of Knotts & Conway,

As far as "Boxing" movies or documentaries, it was no "Raging Bull" or "Golden Boy", and it didn't have the real life sadness but redemption of "Ring of Fire - The Emile Griffith Story" or the excellence of "Somebody Up There Likes Me", but it wasn't a drama or true story.

It was a comedy that was well acted and deserves a three star rating on the entertainment value. Thanks to Tim, Don and the cast & crew for a slice of movie magic.

THE PRIZE FIGHTER hasn't garnered much attention since its initial release in 1979. Watching this film, one understands why. It's a drab mediocrity unworthy of the talents of Tim Conway and Don Knotts. It's more distressing to learn that Conway co-wrote the screenplay. He had a chance for creative control on this project but for whatever reason he couldn't take advantage of it.

In this Depression-era setting, Conway's a clumsy boxer called Bags and Knotts is his smart-alecky manager, Shake. They think they've struck gold when a powerful gangster named Mike (Robin Clarke) offers them a series of fights leading to a title bout. Unknown to them, Mike's using them as pawns in a scheme. He'll have Bags win some fixed fights and then get clobbered by the champion (Michael LaGuardia). Mike'll force Pop Morgan (David Wayne), an insolvent old man who befriends Bags and Shake, to bet his entire gym on the challenger.

The film's outcome is predictable but that wouldn't matter if THE PRIZE FIGHTER was entertaining. It isn't. As a comedy, it only gets by with scattered chuckles, due mostly to Conway and Knotts rather than the material. Stale gags like an auto encounter with a truck of chickens are trotted out. Worst of all, Conway's denied the opportunity to showcase his physical comedy gifts in the gym and ring; he's relegated to obvious stunts that any second-rate performer could do.

The film also fails in the area of sentimentality. Bags and Shake become surrogate fathers to an orphan boy, Timmy (George Nutting). The scenes with the child, however, are handled perfunctorily. Attempts at being heartwarming are further hampered by Nutting's wooden performance.

THE PRIZE FIGHTER cannot be considered the low point in Conway and Knotts's careers. They've done worse. But they've done much better and that realization makes the film so dismaying.

Think of all possible genres of movies. Put them together and that's this movie. With one exception, there are some great gangster types. Art direction and cinematography is excellent, if at times looking as though every prop from every movie in Hollywood was added to the sets.

This movie might have been tolerable, without the puerile approach with Knotts and Conway, whose attempts at slapstick are but slaps with a stick.

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.

Tim Conway and Don Knotts once again make a comfortable comedy team, playing a dumb boxer and his goofy manager in a tale set in the 1930s. The two of them are struggling and starving, but catch the attention of young mobster Mike (Robin Clarke, "The Formula"), who uses them as pawns in his scheme to acquire the gym of crusty old trainer Pop Morgan (David Wayne, "Adam's Rib"). Bags (the boxer) participates in a series of fights which he doesn't know are fixed, all on the way to confronting the reigning champion, "The Butcher" (Michael LaGuardia, "Total Recall").

Filmed on location in Atlanta, this film benefits from the local atmosphere. As far as the comedy content goes, this may not be a prime Conway & Knotts vehicle, but one can certainly do worse. There are enough laughs and good moments to qualify this as pleasant, if not uproarious, fare. There is some hilarity involving Mikes' dotty, senile mother (Mary Ellen O'Neill, "Galaxy of Terror"), but this material seems to exist in a different movie altogether. Conway also concocted the story and wrote the screenplay, with co-star John Myhers ("Willard"), and he and Knotts are in typically fine form. Wayne stands out among the supporting cast, which also consists of Cisse Cameron ("Space Mutiny") as Mikes' mistreated moll, child actor George Nutting (in one of only two movie roles for him) as orphaned kid Timmy, and Irwin Keyes ("House of 1000 Corpses") as Mikes' henchman.

The Bags method of fighting is certainly good for some laughs. He mostly just runs around trying to avoid the fists of his opponent, until connecting with a supposedly superior right hook which he doesn't know is NOT that effective.

All in all, a decent comedy, geared towards a family audience and mostly avoiding too much unpleasantness.

Seven out of 10.