The Champ
Encyclopedia
The Champ is a 1931 American film written by Frances Marion
, Leonard Praskins and Wanda Tuchock, and directed by King Vidor
. The movie stars Wallace Beery
(Andy "Champ" Purcell) and Jackie Cooper
(Dink), and tells the story of a washed up alcoholic boxer who tries to put his life together for the sake of his young son.
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture
. Beery won the Oscar for Best Actor
(sharing the prize with Fredric March
for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
), and Marion for Best Story
.
. Despite the melodramatic script, director King Vidor eagerly took on the film since it emphasized the traditional family values and strong belief in hope—qualities he felt were essential to a good motion picture. Wallace Beery claimed to have turned down a $500,000 offer from a syndicate of India
n studios to play Buddha
in order to take the role in The Champ. Cooper was paid $1,500 a week while working on the film. A special outdoor set, rather than location shooting, was built to accommodate the Tijuana horse racing track scenes. Shooting began in mid-August 1931. Shooting ended eight weeks later, at which time Jackie Cooper's contract with Paramount Pictures
was transferred to MGM.
The Champ debuted on November 9, 1931, at the Astor Theatre in New York City
. Wallace Beery flew his own plane from Los Angeles, California
, cross-country to attend the premiere. After the film's debut, Beery declared Cooper was a "great kid" but that he would not work with the child actor again, a promise he broke within the year.
) is the former world heavyweight champion, now down on his luck and living in squalid conditions with his eight-year-old son "Dink" in Tijuana, Mexico. Champ attempts to train and to convince promoters to set up a fight for him, but his efforts are consistently stymied by his alcoholism
. Dink is repeatedly disappointed and let down by his father's irresponsible actions and frequent broken promises to quit drinking, but his utter devotion to his father nonetheless never wavers.
In addition to his drinking problem, Champ is also a compulsive gambler, another vice which he repeatedly promises Dink he will surrender (but never does). After a winning streak, he fulfills a previous promise to buy Dink a horse, whom they subsequently name "Little Champ" and decide to enter into a race. At the track, Dink happens across a woman who, unknown to either of them, is actually his mother Linda. She is now remarried to Tony, a wealthy man who owns one of the other horses in the race.
Linda and Tony observe Dink and Champ together and realize that Dink is her son. Champ allows Linda to see Dink, who accepts that she is his mother. But Dink feels no emotion toward her, as she has never been part of his life. Linda resolves to remove Dink from the negative atmosphere in which he's growing up and have him live with her family.
Catching Champ during an all-night gambling binge, Tony asks him to turn Dink over so that Tony and Linda can put Dink into school. Champ refuses. As the exhausted Dink sleeps on a nearby table, Tony bluntly observes that Champ is not a good father. The night of gambling ends with Champ having lost Little Champ, which devastates Dink. Champ asks Linda for enough money to buy the horse back, and she gives it to him. But before he can buy the horse back, he starts gambling again and loses the money Linda loaned him. He also winds up in jail, breaking Dink's heart once more.
Ashamed of his actions and with his spirit broken, Champ finally agrees to send an unwilling Dink to live with Tony and Linda. On the train ride home, Tony and Linda try their best to welcome Dink into their family. Dink does not dislike them, but he is consumed only by thoughts of his father. He runs away back to Tijuana, where he finds that Champ has a fight scheduled with the Mexican heavyweight champion. When he sees Dink, Champ immediately returns to good spirits. He trains hard for the fight and, for the first time, really does stay away from drinking and gambling. Champ is determined to win the fight, make Dink proud of him, and use his prize money to buy back Little Champ.
Tony and Linda attend the fight, bringing genuine best wishes and assurances that they will make no further efforts to separate Dink from Champ. The match is brutal, and Champ is seriously injured. Dink and the others in his corner urge him to throw in the towel, but Champ refuses to allow that. He musters a last burst of energy, and knocks out his opponent. After the fight, he triumphantly presents Little Champ to Dink. But after witnessing his son's overjoyed reaction, Champ collapses.
Champ is brought into his dressing room, where a doctor determines that his injuries are fatal. Champ urges Dink to cheer up and then dies, leaving Dink inconsolable. Despite the best efforts of all of the men and boys in the room, who one by one attempt to calm him, Dink continually wails, "I want the Champ!" Finally, Dink spots Linda enter the room. Dink looks at her, cries out, "Mother!" and runs into her arms. She picks him up and he sobs, "The Champ is dead, mama." She turns and carries him out of the room as he buries his face in her shoulder, crying.
, transformed Beery from aging character actor to a verified star. It also made nine-year-old Jackie Cooper the first child star of the 1930s, an era noted for its numerous, popular child actors.
At the time the movie was released, critics criticized the film's lack of originality. For example, The New York Times
declared that "something more novel and subtle" was needed, although it also praised Beery's acting. Variety
, too, very much liked Beery in the film, noting that he delivered a "studied, adult" performance. Time
called the film repetitive, blasted Cooper for sniveling, and accused director King Vidor of laying "on pathos with a steam-shovel." Nonetheless, Time praised the movie, declaring it "Utterly false and thoroughly convincing..." Many critics cited the "special chemistry" between Beery and Cooper, which led the two actors to be paired again numerous times. Cooper and Beery had no such chemistry off-screen. "He always made me feel uncomfortable," Cooper said, and declared that Beery treated him like an "unkept dog". Despite the film's kitsch
iness and melodrama
, critics today still highly praise The Champ.
The Champ has been described as an inverted women's film
, because men in the film are not generally depicted at the top of the socio-economic ladder but are shown as a primary childcare provider. The famous final scene, in which the camera is thrust into Jackie Cooper's weeping face, has been compared to similar aggressive and intrusive camera work in classic motion pictures such as Liebelei (Max Ophüls
, dir.; 1933) and Broken Blossoms
(D.W. Griffith, dir.; 1919), and the films of Roberto Rossellini
.
The Champ has had significant cultural effect. A number of motion pictures in the 1930s, some of them even starring Wallace Beery, repeated the basic story about a man surrendering to drink and redeemed by the love of his long-suffering son. Film critic Judith Crist
has argued that almost any film pairing an adult actor alongside a child actor must be compared to The Champ in terms of the chemistry between the actors and the effectiveness of the film. The film had an immediate effect on world cinema as well. The Champ is considered one source film which inspired Yasujiro Ozu
's classic Japan
ese film, Passing Fancy
(Dekigokoro, 1933). The film was, in part, the inspiration for the father and son in the Berenstain Bears
books.
as a washed-up comedian rather than a washed-up boxer. It was remade again in 1979 by Franco Zeffirelli
(see The Champ
).
Frances Marion
Frances Marion was an American journalist, author, and screenwriter often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the twentieth century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos.-Career:...
, Leonard Praskins and Wanda Tuchock, and directed by King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
. The movie stars Wallace Beery
Wallace Beery
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
(Andy "Champ" Purcell) and Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...
(Dink), and tells the story of a washed up alcoholic boxer who tries to put his life together for the sake of his young son.
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. Beery won the Oscar for Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(sharing the prize with Fredric March
Fredric March
Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931 film)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fredric March. The film is an adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , the Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a man who takes a potion which turns him from a mild-mannered man of...
), and Marion for Best Story
Academy Award for Best Story
The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1957, when it was eliminated in favor of the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, which had been introduced in 1940.-1920s:...
.
Production
Screenwriter Frances Marion wrote the title role specifically for Wallace Beery, who by 1931 was no star but merely an aging character actorCharacter actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
. Despite the melodramatic script, director King Vidor eagerly took on the film since it emphasized the traditional family values and strong belief in hope—qualities he felt were essential to a good motion picture. Wallace Beery claimed to have turned down a $500,000 offer from a syndicate of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n studios to play Buddha
Buddha
In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...
in order to take the role in The Champ. Cooper was paid $1,500 a week while working on the film. A special outdoor set, rather than location shooting, was built to accommodate the Tijuana horse racing track scenes. Shooting began in mid-August 1931. Shooting ended eight weeks later, at which time Jackie Cooper's contract with Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
was transferred to MGM.
The Champ debuted on November 9, 1931, at the Astor Theatre in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Wallace Beery flew his own plane from Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, cross-country to attend the premiere. After the film's debut, Beery declared Cooper was a "great kid" but that he would not work with the child actor again, a promise he broke within the year.
Plot
Andy "Champ" Purcell (Wallace BeeryWallace Beery
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
) is the former world heavyweight champion, now down on his luck and living in squalid conditions with his eight-year-old son "Dink" in Tijuana, Mexico. Champ attempts to train and to convince promoters to set up a fight for him, but his efforts are consistently stymied by his alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. Dink is repeatedly disappointed and let down by his father's irresponsible actions and frequent broken promises to quit drinking, but his utter devotion to his father nonetheless never wavers.
In addition to his drinking problem, Champ is also a compulsive gambler, another vice which he repeatedly promises Dink he will surrender (but never does). After a winning streak, he fulfills a previous promise to buy Dink a horse, whom they subsequently name "Little Champ" and decide to enter into a race. At the track, Dink happens across a woman who, unknown to either of them, is actually his mother Linda. She is now remarried to Tony, a wealthy man who owns one of the other horses in the race.
Linda and Tony observe Dink and Champ together and realize that Dink is her son. Champ allows Linda to see Dink, who accepts that she is his mother. But Dink feels no emotion toward her, as she has never been part of his life. Linda resolves to remove Dink from the negative atmosphere in which he's growing up and have him live with her family.
Catching Champ during an all-night gambling binge, Tony asks him to turn Dink over so that Tony and Linda can put Dink into school. Champ refuses. As the exhausted Dink sleeps on a nearby table, Tony bluntly observes that Champ is not a good father. The night of gambling ends with Champ having lost Little Champ, which devastates Dink. Champ asks Linda for enough money to buy the horse back, and she gives it to him. But before he can buy the horse back, he starts gambling again and loses the money Linda loaned him. He also winds up in jail, breaking Dink's heart once more.
Ashamed of his actions and with his spirit broken, Champ finally agrees to send an unwilling Dink to live with Tony and Linda. On the train ride home, Tony and Linda try their best to welcome Dink into their family. Dink does not dislike them, but he is consumed only by thoughts of his father. He runs away back to Tijuana, where he finds that Champ has a fight scheduled with the Mexican heavyweight champion. When he sees Dink, Champ immediately returns to good spirits. He trains hard for the fight and, for the first time, really does stay away from drinking and gambling. Champ is determined to win the fight, make Dink proud of him, and use his prize money to buy back Little Champ.
Tony and Linda attend the fight, bringing genuine best wishes and assurances that they will make no further efforts to separate Dink from Champ. The match is brutal, and Champ is seriously injured. Dink and the others in his corner urge him to throw in the towel, but Champ refuses to allow that. He musters a last burst of energy, and knocks out his opponent. After the fight, he triumphantly presents Little Champ to Dink. But after witnessing his son's overjoyed reaction, Champ collapses.
Champ is brought into his dressing room, where a doctor determines that his injuries are fatal. Champ urges Dink to cheer up and then dies, leaving Dink inconsolable. Despite the best efforts of all of the men and boys in the room, who one by one attempt to calm him, Dink continually wails, "I want the Champ!" Finally, Dink spots Linda enter the room. Dink looks at her, cries out, "Mother!" and runs into her arms. She picks him up and he sobs, "The Champ is dead, mama." She turns and carries him out of the room as he buries his face in her shoulder, crying.
Cast (in credits order)
- Wallace BeeryWallace BeeryWallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
as Champ - Jackie CooperJackie CooperJackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...
as Dink - Irene RichIrene RichIrene Rich was an American actress who worked in both silent films and talkies.-Career:Born Irene Luther in Buffalo, New York, Rich worked for Will Rogers, who used her in eight pictures, including Water Water Everywhere , The Strange Boarder , Jes' Call Me Jim , Boys Will Be Boys and The Ropin'...
as Linda - Roscoe AtesRoscoe AtesRoscoe Ates was an actor and musician in primarily western films and television.-Early years:Ates was born in the rural hamlet of Grange, Mississippi, northwest of Hattiesburg. Grange is no longer included on road maps...
as Sponge - Edward BrophyEdward BrophyEdward S. Brophy was an American character actor, voice artist, and comedian. Small of build, balding, and raucous-voiced, he was known for portraying gangsters, both serious and comic.-Career:...
as Tim - Hale Hamilton as Tony
- Jesse Scott as Jonah
- Marcia Mae JonesMarcia Mae JonesMarcia Mae Jones was an American actress whose prolific career spanned 47 years.-Career:Jones made her film debut at the age of two in the 1926 film Mannequin...
as Mary Lou
Assessment
The film, along with Beery's role in Min and BillMin and Bill
Min and Bill is a 1930 American comedy-drama film starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery and based on Lorna Moon's novel Dark Star, adapted by Frances Marion and Marion Jackson....
, transformed Beery from aging character actor to a verified star. It also made nine-year-old Jackie Cooper the first child star of the 1930s, an era noted for its numerous, popular child actors.
At the time the movie was released, critics criticized the film's lack of originality. For example, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
declared that "something more novel and subtle" was needed, although it also praised Beery's acting. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, too, very much liked Beery in the film, noting that he delivered a "studied, adult" performance. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
called the film repetitive, blasted Cooper for sniveling, and accused director King Vidor of laying "on pathos with a steam-shovel." Nonetheless, Time praised the movie, declaring it "Utterly false and thoroughly convincing..." Many critics cited the "special chemistry" between Beery and Cooper, which led the two actors to be paired again numerous times. Cooper and Beery had no such chemistry off-screen. "He always made me feel uncomfortable," Cooper said, and declared that Beery treated him like an "unkept dog". Despite the film's kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
iness and melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
, critics today still highly praise The Champ.
The Champ has been described as an inverted women's film
Chick flick
Chick flick is a slang term for a film mainly dealing with love and romance designed to appeal to a female target audience. Although many types of films may be directed toward the female gender, "chick flick" is typically used only in reference to films that are heavy with emotion or contain themes...
, because men in the film are not generally depicted at the top of the socio-economic ladder but are shown as a primary childcare provider. The famous final scene, in which the camera is thrust into Jackie Cooper's weeping face, has been compared to similar aggressive and intrusive camera work in classic motion pictures such as Liebelei (Max Ophüls
Max Ophüls
Maximillian Oppenheimer — known as Max Ophüls — was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany , France , the United States , and France again...
, dir.; 1933) and Broken Blossoms
Broken Blossoms
Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl is a 1919 silent film directed by D.W. Griffith. It was distributed by United Artists and premiered on May 13, 1919...
(D.W. Griffith, dir.; 1919), and the films of Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...
.
The Champ has had significant cultural effect. A number of motion pictures in the 1930s, some of them even starring Wallace Beery, repeated the basic story about a man surrendering to drink and redeemed by the love of his long-suffering son. Film critic Judith Crist
Judith Crist
Judith Crist is an American film critic. She appeared regularly on the Today show from 1964-1973 and has appeared in one film, Woody Allen's Stardust Memories...
has argued that almost any film pairing an adult actor alongside a child actor must be compared to The Champ in terms of the chemistry between the actors and the effectiveness of the film. The film had an immediate effect on world cinema as well. The Champ is considered one source film which inspired Yasujiro Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu
was a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
's classic Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese film, Passing Fancy
Passing Fancy
is a 1933 silent movie produced by Shochiku Company, directed by Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu and starring Takeshi Sakamoto, Nobuko Fushimi, Den Obinata and Chouko Iida....
(Dekigokoro, 1933). The film was, in part, the inspiration for the father and son in the Berenstain Bears
Berenstain Bears
The Berenstain Bears is a series of children's books created by Stan and Jan Berenstain. The books feature a family of anthropomorphic bears who generally learn a moral or safety-related lesson in the course of each story...
books.
Remakes
The movie was remade in 1952 as The Clown, starring Red SkeltonRed Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
as a washed-up comedian rather than a washed-up boxer. It was remade again in 1979 by Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
(see The Champ
The Champ (1979 film)
The Champ is a 1979 remake, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, of the 1931 Academy Award-winning film of the same name which was directed by King Vidor. It stars Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway, and Ricky Schroder. It is also the final film for actress Joan Blondell....
).