The Prize Fighter

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.

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.

Tim Conway and Don Knotts team up for a 20s/30s period piece about the boxing game. Conway and Knotts are working as corner men when we first meet them and making a holy hash out of it. It was no better when Conway was the fighter and Knotts the manager. Conway had a perfect record as he points out. Zero wins, 20 loses and all 20 by knockout.

Conway is the funniest boxer since Lou Costello stepped in the squared circle in Abbott&Costello Meet The Invisible Man. Conway has one thing going for him if you believe, a right hand with the power of Jack Dempsey. He just never got a chance to throw it.

Anyway gangster Robin Clarke gets them involved in a scheme to take over David Wayne's gym by giving Conway the Primo Carnera buildup until he gets a crack at champ Michael LaGuardia's title. Wayne is really stealing points from what Burgess Meredith did in the Rocky series.

Conway and Knotts worked well together and as solo performers. As a team they were a lot like Laurel&Hardy with Conway the dumb one who knows it and Knotts the dumb one who thinks he's a genius. This film is a great example of their team dynamic.

I like them both separate and apart and fans of both will like The Prize Fighter.

It's not easy making a comedy about the fistic arts. In the 1940s Danny Kay was successful in "The Kid From Brooklyn", playing a "fighting milkman". It took almost 40 years for another boxing comedy to make an impact, and that was The Prize-Fighter.

Tim Conway plays Depression Era boxer, Bags Collins. Bags has a perfect fighting record; 20 fights, 20 knockouts.............all losses! A perfect record! Don Knotts plays Shake, the brainy(LOL!) manager of Bags Collins.

The movie manages to capture the times and is an interesting reflection of the Depression Era. Tim Conway is at his bumbling best when he is in the ring "knocking out" the top three contenders-Irish, Jake Folley and the Grader. The Bags/Grader fight had me rolling in my seat.

There's an impressive supporting cast and Robin Clarke as "Mike" the mob-boss gives an out-standing Brando impression. The final championship match is well done too.

The Prize-Fighter is a championship of a comedy.

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.