The Champ (1931)
Directed by King Vidor
A broken-down alcoholic prizefighter struggles to keep custody of his adoring son.
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What critics compared The Champ to
This is, after all, a film whose themes stretch back as far as Wallace Beery and “The Champ,” up through “Bad News Bears,” “Bad Santa,” “Bad Words” and beyond.
Beery was nominated twice for Oscars and won once (in 1932, for The Champ, the movie he filmed immediately before Grand Hotel).
Beery, who usually played congenial lugs like "The Champ" or, later, Long John Silver, at first refused the part, saying it was too unsympathetic, but MGM told him he'd be the only major character in the cast who would be allowed to speak in a German accent, and that won him over.
It's been done a thousand times, including such famous performers as Wallace Beery in "The Champ," Kirk Douglas in "Champion," Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky," Michelle Rodriguez in "Girlfight," Hilary Swank in "Million Dollar Baby" and Mark Wahlberg in "The Fighter."
As old as 1931’s “The Champ,” in fact, and at times nearly as soggy.
When producers Alan and Peter Riche decided to make a boxing drama similar to the 1931 father-son tale The Champ , they immediately sought out Eminem for the role.
The fall-from-grace storyline is a familiar angle in boxing films: Sylvester Stallone used it in his “Rocky” franchise and it has been a staple of the genre as far back as the 1930s when Warner Bros. and other studios were churning out such films as “The Champ,” “The Life of Jimmy Dolan” and “They Made Me a Criminal.”
Even in 1931, The Champ must have seemed old-fashioned.
Shawn Levy, who directed such lucrative disasters as the Steve Martin remakes of The Pink Panther and Cheaper by the Dozen , has been brought in by Steven Spielberg to make this conflation of The Champ (the 1931 tearjerker about a drunken boxer redeemed by his long-estranged son, Jackie Cooper) and Rollerball , the futuristic action flick built around a violent popular sport.
The writing on the wall already suggests that this experience will bring father and son closer together, though Levy and screenwriter John Gatins approach it as if they mixed up Charlie Chaplin's The Kid with The Champ as easily as they did Jackie Coogan with Jackie Cooper.
What happens next owes more than a little to both Frankenstein , as the man-made creatures take on lives of their own, and the Wallace Beery-Jackie Cooper classic The Champ , as father and son learn to bond, the kid becomes a partner and a helpmate, his dad grows up, and everyone turns into a better person.
In "The Champ" (1931), Wallace Beery -- who won a Best Actor Oscar for the film -- is a washed-up boxer and compulsive gambler who determines to pull himself together for the sake of his young son (Jackie Cooper).
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Casting a hot young performer opposite a veteran has been a common Hollywood ploy ever since Wallace Beery teamed with 9-year-old Jackie Cooper in 1931's The Champ.