The Ring

Vidal Cantanios struggles to find honorable work in East Los Angeles. He's been laid off by the Anglo boss. Rebellious son Tomas 'Tommy' Cantanios gets into a street fight with a couple of racists and gets picked up by boxing promoter Pete Ganusa. He starts prize fighting despite his father's disapproval. Lucy Gomez (Rita Moreno) is his girlfriend.

It's an early film examining institutional racism with a boxing film. It's a little jarring to see overt racism against Mexicans done so plainly. The lead's acting is rather amateurish. He does act opposite future star Rita Moreno. This is one of her first non-dancing acting jobs in a non-racist role. Overall, this is an important indie for the themes of racism and lower class struggles. The lead's poor acting does hold this back. If only, they had somebody real.

East LA local Lalo Rios has a quick temper and quick hands. When a fight promotor (Gerald Mohr) gets him out of a street scrap arrest he takes him on as a boxer, much to his proud father's chagrin. Things start out rosy as "Kid Kansas" wins his first three fights. The undisciplined Rios soon goes diva as his skills dull and his beatings increase.

The Ring is a sincere little effort that shows brief flourishes of style but is unable to go the distance or rank with the heavyweights of the genre. There are split second shots that evoke Raging Bull and Mohr's manager is a switch from the usual exploitive orgre to down to earth realist but Lalo Rios's pugnacious Tomas is a flat lead unable to go the distance.

The film's most notable feature is the injection of institutional racism that culminates in a Beverly Hills restaurant scene which not only comments on race but status as well. Neither champ or tomato can The Ring is a game low-budget effort.

While obviously made as a "B" feature in its day, "The Ring" is a surprisingly good little flick deserving of far better than the relatively low rating (a 5.6 as I write this) it is currently receiving here on the IMDb.

"The Ring" starts off as a typical boxing "rags to riches" story. A young kid gets into a street fight just as a boxing manager happens to be passing by. Liking what he sees, the manager vows to turn the fiery youngster into a star.

Halfway through the film, however, the "rags to riches" storyline begins to turn and a much deeper side is revealed. More than a decade before the civil rights movement became a large issue in American society, "The Ring" tackled head-on topics such as stereotypes and racial discrimination.

The issues raised are still very relevant today, 56 years after this film was made. Are professional sports truly a way out for impoverished minorities? Or just an unobtainable illusion? And is becoming white the only way for minorities to become accepted into our society? (What could be whiter than a ring name of Tommy Kansas?) All this and a young Rita Moreno, too!...as the "girl next door" love interest.

"The Ring" is not a perfect 5 star film, but it was a movie truly ahead of its time. If you give it a try sometime I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Lalo Rios is Tommy, a young boy who turns to boxing to help out his struggling family in early 1950's Los Angeles. He learns about a lot more than just how to fight in this 80 minute art house type drama, including about how his values don't always mix with the values of those trying to get him ahead in the business. Rios is outstanding, and it is surprising considering he never became a bigger star. The only name actor in this film is Academy Award Winning Rita Moreno as his sweet girlfriend. Then just starting out her career with a few appearances in MGM musicals ("The Toast of New Orleans" & "Pagan Love Song") to name a few, the future "Anita" of "West Side Story's" film version is one of the few good people in Tommy's life who cares for him, not for his success as a boxer.

The scene where Tommy and his pals go into a restraunt in Beverly Hills after a boxing match Tommy looses is quite revealing about attitudes towards Latinos (and probably other minorities) during the early 1950's. The waitress reluctantly places glasses of water (spilling most of it) at their table, then calls the police, prepared for trouble. She then goes about her business, ignoring them, and waiting on the white customers at the tables around them. When the policeman arrives, he seems suspicious at first, but then is actually sympathetic when he realizes that the boys are not up to no good, just misunderstood. It is a remarkable scene, not played for any type of shock value, but just to make the audience aware of how little prejudices can lead to bigger ones, and ultimately, cause the types of race and gang wars seen in the newspapers every day.

There are also some touching understated moments where Tommy's younger brother begins to show idol worship, and Tommy begins to realize how his ambitions are affecting the future of his younger brother. This leads to the final scene where Tommy confronts all of these demons. The final is very powerful, leading to an ending which some might consider "incomplete", but it actually does reflect reality, ending one chapter in his life, and moving onto wherever his life happens to take him.

While not a fan of boxing movies, I found "The Ring" to be engrossing because of the sympathetic way it presented the young hero, not type casting. A bit at the beginning where Tommy's father, ailing at work, is called a lazy Mexican by two American tourists, is very revealing too about the way many white people then (and even today) look at people of different cultures. Anyone who sees this film will find the scene disturbing, and may see the prejudices in themselves that they have always tried to keep hidden. For a small and simple film, "The Ring" says a lot, and achieves more than some of the bigger films released at the same time.

Outstanding overlooked boxing film with an outstanding cast of B actors. Lalo Rios stands out and it seems his fictional boxing career mirrored his real life acting career, in that he showed alot of potential, but for some unexplained reason, never became successful. Filmed on location in early 1950s California in glorious black and white. Very realistic and unromantizied look at boxing and ethnic discrimination. Honestly, I think this film is better then Raging Bull.