The Ring

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.

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.

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.

Even the cheap production values of The Ring which admittedly looks like it was shot on chump change give it a look of authenticity. The Ring is a fine film about a young Mexican-American kid who thinks that boxing could be his ticket out of the slums. The lead here is played by young Lalos Rios who went on to a substantial career for the next twenty years.

Better known of course is Rita Moreno who was doing her fourth film and she plays Rios's girl friend. It's a part light years different from Anita in West Side Story.

Lalos Rios plays young Tommy Cantanios whose family is going through a real financial crisis. His father is laid off from work and they owe a lot of money for furniture on credit. Young Tommy asks to help, but his father, Martin Garralaga sluffs off the offer.

In the history of Mexican-Americans, The Ring tells its story in a time almost halfway between the zoot suit rioters of the Forties and the organization of migrant farm laborers by Cesar Chavez in the Sixties. Still a time when the discrimination that brought on the zoot suit riots was very real.

After a couple of encounters with some discrimination young Rios gets a lift by chance from fight manager Gerald Mohr who sees some possibilities in the kid. He takes him under his wing and changes his professionally to Tommy Kansas. He and trainer Robert Osterloh bring him up the ranks slowly.

Of course Rios is impatient and Mohr starts to question whether he really does have the talent to make it really big in the fight game.

The Ring is a very realistic film about the fight game and life in East Los Angeles in the Fifties. Look also for good performances from Jack Elam as a sleazy fight promoter and from Art Aragon who was a popular welterweight boxer from back in the day who later went into acting after his ring days were done.

Rios learns two very valuable lessons, one is best summed up by that eminent American philosopher Clint Eastwood who once remarked a man's got to know his limitations. But even more important Rios learns that The Ring is not the only place he can fight for his beliefs and his people. The arena of life is not just a squared circle.

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.