The Harder They Fall (1956)

Name: The Harder They Fall
Director: Mark Robson
Released: 1956

Jobless sportswriter Eddie Willis is hired by corrupt fight promoter Nick Benko to promote his current protégé, an unknown Argentinian boxer named Toro Moreno. Although Moreno is a hulking giant, his chances for success are hampered by a powder-puff punch and a glass jaw. Exploiting Willis' reputation for integrity and standing in the boxing community, Benko arranges a series of fixed fights that propel the unsophisticated Moreno to #1 contender for the championship. The reigning champ, the sadistic Buddy Brannen, harbors resentment at the publicity Toro has been receiving and vows to viciously punish him in the ring. Eddie must now decide whether or not to tell the naive Toro the truth.

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What critics compared The Harder They Fall to

Breathless (1960)

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Therefore, “Breathless” is a film suffused with films--it opens with a dedication to Monogram Pictures, an American B-movie studio of the time and contains references to such movies as “The Harder They Fall” (best known for being the last screen appearance of Humphrey Bogart), “Westbound,” “Whirlpool” and homages to the works of such American filmmakers as Sam Fuller and Anthony Mann.

Ben Nieporent • eFilmCritic

archive.org ↗

Lifting his defining gesture of rubbing his thumb across his lips from Humphrey Bogart in "The Harder They Fall," Michel has tailor-made for himself an identity collaged from Hollywood myth.

24 Frames Per Second

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Bullet Train (2022)

Directed by David Leitch

I was reminded, too, of how Zazie Beetz is the best thing about Deadpool 2 --she's in Bullet Train as a fellow assassin called The Hornet (Brad Pitt is "Ladybug")--and how she was also in the incredible The Harder They Fall , a film that is better than this one in every single respect for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it's not a self-satisfied, self-referential, Oceans Eleven smug-stival.

Film Freak Central

filmfreakcentral.net ↗

The Fighter (2010)

Directed by David O. Russell

Themes

Boxing has often been the subject matter of many films but few have captured the good and the bad of the sport as clearly as The Fighter, which can stand up to comparison with classics such as Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Mark Robson’s The Harder They Fall.

archive.org ↗

Warrior (2011)

Directed by Gavin O'Connor

Themes

And its fondest fans can point to exceptions — “Body and Soul,” “The Set-Up,” “The Harder They Fall,” “Raging Bull” and even the first “Rocky.”

nj.com ↗

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