The Crowd Roars

With such a wonderful story or plot, this movie overcomes the bias that one might have for the believability of Robert Taylor as a boxer. You can't help but pull for Tommy McCoy to win. If you like a myriad of emotions within a movie then I would definitely recommend this one. I laughed, choked back a tear and I was on the edge of my seat during the ending. This movie has everything that makes a great movie. It has a wonderful plot, a great lead actor with a great supporting cast, a beautiful actress (Maureen O'Sullivan), good versus evil, suspense and a surprise ending. The Crowd Roars is a gem that I plan on adding to my collection. You don't have to be a sports fan to love this one, but it does help. I can't understand how this movie has gotten lost in roar of the crowd.

This is the kind of old-fashioned entertainment that the studios used to churn out every week. Gorgeous Robert Taylor plays a prize fighter, Frank Morgan his moronic father, Edward Arnold a mob boss, and Maureen O'Sullvian is Arnold's beautiful daughter, who falls in love with Taylor. And hello, who wouldn't.

This is a piece very much of its time. Today, the relationship between the Tommy McCoy character as a young kid and the light heavyweight title holder Martin would be instantly suspect. How the world has changed.

The film manages to hold one's interest, especially with its exciting fight sequences. As an added treat, "Hart to Hart" co-star Lionel Stander, who played "Max," has a supporting role. I'd know that voice anywhere.

This sensational boxing film introduced a rougher and tougher Robert Taylor to 1938 audiences, the result of a well-publicized body building regimen under the personal supervision of Max Baer. Taylor plays Tommy McCoy, a handsome boxer who has to contend with the mob, his drunken father, and the prospect of having his perfect pan punched to a pulp.

After a bunch of early films where Robert Taylor was playing both modern and costumed romantic leads, taking full advantage of his extraordinary good looks, Robert Taylor asked for some more rugged type roles. Louis B. Mayer's answer to his most cooperative of stars was to cast him first in A Yank At Oxford and then in The Crowd Roars.

In the first film, Taylor rowed crew for dear old Oxford where he was a matriculating student. But in The Crowd Roars he's even more rugged as a boxer. The role was chosen for him so he could have lots of opportunities to go bare-chested and show that in fact he's got hair on his chest. Taylor himself made that comment and back in those more innocent days it was to show he was not a powderpuff as if having follicles on your anterior was proof of that.

Overlooked in this hairy situation was the fact that Robert Taylor got a very fine role for himself as a boxer determined to make a quick buck and get out as fast as possible before becoming a punch drunk rummy. He's had poor and he's had rich and rich was better. Back when he was poor he was living hand to mouth with a near do well father, Frank Morgan, and a gentle mother who took in washing because her husband couldn't hold down a job. Taylor's mother in The Crowd Roars was played by Emma Dunn in a brief, but very telling role.

Anyway when young Gene Reynolds grows up to be Robert Taylor he's now supporting dear old dad who's still drinking and gambling. Those two habits are nearly the undoing of his son when he falls into the hands of rival gamblers Edward Arnold and Nat Pendleton. The usual bumbling oaf that Frank Morgan portrays on screen is played far more serious here. It's one of Frank Morgan's best screen roles.

Arnold has his secrets also, his daughter Maureen O'Sullivan and her ditzy friend Jane Wyman think Arnold is a stockbroker, as if that wasn't also gambling. Taylor in courting Sullivan does not disillusion her.

Look for another good performance by William Gargan as a former Light Heavyweight champion who takes an interest in young Gene Reynolds and Lionel Stander as Gargan's trainer and later Taylor's trainer.

The Crowd Roars is a fine film from MGM that went a long way in expanding Robert Taylor's range as thespian.

And we proved he had hair on his chest.

This version is 10X the quality of the later (1947) Mickey Rooney version. Even though Rooney makes some "cute" comments, the lack of "feel" for the story is apparent. Watch both and you'll agree. This version is EXCELLENT. Much better fighting scenes, too. And a definitely better love angle...