Fat City (1972)

You won't be disappointed!

The first must-see film of the year.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

NO MATTER WHAT the field of endeavor, there are always the stories of those successful at the top of the ladder and those who struggle yet remain on the bottom wrung. We are generally exposed to the "glamour"of being Champ or at least being considered a Contender. For every one who is successful at getting to the pinnacle of any particular field, there is a multitude of those who do not make it. Director John Huston chose to show us this view.THE STORY TELLS us of two sort of "Minor Leaguers"or "Ham & Eggers", whose relationship is not really all that close . It's only through the chance meeting of the young and aspiring pugilist (Jeff Bridges) and the journeyman (Stacey Keach) that the two are acquainted. It was the occasion of a chance meetin at a workout for both at thye local YMCA that they sparred. The "old guy" (30 year old) Keach tells the young (19 year old) Bridges that he had the right stuff to turn pro. He sends him to the veteran trainer Nicholas Colasanto.OTHER THAN THE beginning of the film ans the end, the two do not hardly cross paths. There's is a relationship that is there for comparison and contrast.IN MANY WAYS that may not be apparent at first, the settings and overall incidents in the story remind us of an earlier work of Mr. John Huston. That would be THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (Warner Brothers, 1948); which has come to be revered more and more as a true Classic as the years roll by.ANOTHER MOST INTERESTING aspect of this film is its settings in the not so pretty worlds of suburbia and the city that we have become all too accustomed to viewing. The characters are flawed to be sure. But they do have hope to better their lot in life. AS WE ALL know fro our real world experiences; some make it and some do not.

For a prize fighter, winning is everything, but if you're a loser when you climb into the ring, you're still going to be a loser when you come out, even if you KO your opponent. Such might be the moral of this very atypical sports movie, starring Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges as aspiring fighters in the lower echelons of the boxing game in and around Stockton, California.John Huston was one of the most commercially and popularly successful of mainstream Hollywood directors, making such major classics as The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen, yet most film historians and critics have been reluctant to rank him among the best cinematic artists. Fat City makes it hard to see why: this gritty, realistic film is one of those great films which surprises you by how much more it seems like real life than like a movie. Keach and Bridges both give what may be their best performances, and Susan Tyrrell, an actress better known for stage work, gives an unforgettable performance as an alcoholic barfly, for which she was nominated for an Oscar, and she should have won.Fat City is not at all a typical sports film, which by Hollywood convention must show a hero overcoming early difficulties to rise to stardom, nor is it really about boxing, though it includes an extended fight scene which may be the best ever included in a Hollywood film -- the fact that Huston was a prize fighter himself in his youth no doubt adds to the authenticity of the prize ring atmosphere. But this is a film about people, very flawed people who manage to hold onto some shreds of integrity and to be kind to one another, despite the fact that they are all in their own desperate situation. The atmosphere of the seedy towns and endless fields of California's Central Valley, a rare location for major films, is portrayed with great vividness and accuracy.All in all, not a fun film, but an unforgettable one. The Sony Home Entertainment DVD is of acceptable quality, but this film really needs to be remastered and put on Blu-Ray.

This is a magnificent movie. Simply magnificent. With a very simple, minimalistic plot John Huston succeeds in creating a story which you can not abandon and on the contrary await avidly to see scene after scene. And, let alone the extraordinary direction (and photography: only a shadowy hint of Edward Hopper, where one risked to have tons of it), the magic is done by the actors. All, all, all of them, but particularly (and obviously) Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges and Susan Tyrrell. This last one is simply fantastic in her portrayal of the desperate, solipsist boozing woman. Bridgse is my favorite actor after Dustin Hoffman, but I had never seen him so young and yet a perfectly accomplished actor. And Keach… well, tell me I am dumb, but I didn't even know him. When I look at a DVD I like to stop near the middle and begin again from that point the day after. So, with this movie I spent two splendid evenings. Depressing movie, I read somewhere. No, no way. I will look at it again

By the time John Huston made Fat City in 1972 his glory as one of the finest directors in Hollywood was fading. But this character study put him back up on top of the A list with the new breed of filmmakers of the period who were essentially going against the political core of the established movie-making industry.In Stockton California ex-boxer Billy Tully (Stacy Keach) takes a job as a day laborer to make ends meet and takes a break to go to the gym for a workout. When he meets young Ernie Munger (Jeff Bridges) and spars with him he is impressed with his natural boxing abilities. Tully sends Ernie to meet his former manager who takes the young boxer into his care for training. When Tully isn't working he hangs out in bars talking of his return to the ring. He meets Oma (Susan Tyrrell) in a bar and moves in with her and returns to his manager to train for another fight. Meanwhile Ernie settles down with a pregnant wife and continues to pursue his boxing and support his family. Through all the trials and tribulations each man learns that the value of his own life is a culmination of hard-earned small victories.The film is a study in the balance of styles, and characters, sometimes opposites, but always comparing one with another. Stacy Keach's washed up boxer Billy Tully is balanced against eager, youthful Jeff Bridges as Ernie Munger and in this comparison the filmmakers make a simple statement of how choices of occupations not only determine a man's character, but his fate as well.The women figures in the film are also designed around a symbolic fulcrum. The world weary Oma as played by Susan Tyrell could be the future or the opposite of Candy Clark's innocence loving Faye. Oma is resentful and intoxicated, whereas Faye is enlightened by her new-found knowledge of the relationship that can occur between man and woman.Each veteran boxer is introduced to the viewer lying down and coming to life as if resurrected from the dead. We first meet Tully rolling over in bed just looking for a light for his cigarette, and as he continues moving about into the world, gives up and just moves out of his rented room. Later we are introduced to the pro boxer, Sixto Rodriguez's Lucero moving up from a prone position to take some unidentified medication and appearing in the bathroom with medical troubles.Aside from the open-ended existentialism of the narrative, the cinematography by Conrad L. Hall which captures the natural light and urban landscape of the skid row area of Stockton Californiais worth the visit to this film. Many scenes of dialogue-less action feature merely the visual content of the world of small dreams and broken hopes.The look of the film recalls in many ways the canvasses of Edward Hopper with whole areas of light dedicated to details of the landscape and its weight on solitary human figures residing within the frame. Hall's work can be seen in classics such as Cool Hand Luke from 1967, the Oscar-winning films Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid from 1969, American Beauty from 1999, and the graphic-novel adaptation Road to Perdition from 2002. Hall is one of only six cinematographers to have his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame.The film was based on the boxing novel Fat City (1969) by Leonard Gardner, who penned the script for the movie. Virtually all the shooting was on location in a part of the skid row section of Stockton that doesn't exist anymore. Thus this movie is partly an historical document of the city and what it looked like before progress paved the way for a new highway and torn down many of the buildings.This film is one to return to again for the excellent direction, the great substantial acting and the beautiful cinematography. Cherish it as one of John Huston's best works.