The Harder They Fall (Columbia). When Budd Schulberg wrote the novel from which this picture is drawn, he hoped it might prove to be a sort of Uncle Tom's Cabin of the fight racket, a body blow to one of the least savory survivals of slavery in U.S. society: the tradition of the chattel athlete. Author Schulberg hit hard, but he was striking at bulletproof-vested interests, and in the nine years since he made his attack, these interests (on evidence adduced in recent investigations) seem to have grown even stronger. This picture will not seriously weaken them, but it will hang a terrific mouse on the public eye.
Schulberg's story is, with scarcely any disguise, the Primo Carnera story. Like the onetime (1933-34) heavyweight champion, Toro Moreno ("El Toro, the wild man of the Andes") is a big country bumpkin who stands 6 ft. 7¾ in., weighs 285 Ibs., and serves his opponents a punch that would scarcely be too stiff for a six-year-old's birthday party. Like Carnera, El Toro (touchingly portrayed by Wrestler Mike Lane) falls among thieves. A well-known gambler and fixologist named Nick Benko (played good and heavy by Rod Steiger) buys up his contract and starts to fatten the Bull for the kill.
And that's where the hero (Humphrey Bogart) comes in. Sportswriter Bogart is all too ready to reach for the folding money, even if he has to get his hands a little dirty. Nick offers him 10% of Toro's take to handle the big bum.
The ballyhoo begins: the buildup in the back country, the tank artists and local strongmen, the charm where it works and the arm when they ask for it, the planted puffs in the big metropolitan dailies, the careful suckering of suspicious reporters, the old rah-rah for the worthy causes. And then all at once the first big fight, and a piece of good luck that money couldn't buy: the ex-champ, punch-drunk from his last big beating, dies in the hospital after the big boy takes him—just as Ernie Schaaf died after his 1933 fight with Carnera. Toro, a thousand headlines shout, is a killer! The story guarantees a great gate for the title fight.
Comes another hitch. The champ (Max Baer) gets sore at some of Bogart's publicity, refuses to play along with Benko's boy. "Carry him for six rounds," Benko begs. "You don't want to louse up the film rights." Baer refuses, and what happens next is a ghastly digest of the 1934 fight, in which Baer gave Carnera the most brutal beating he ever took (eleven knockdowns in eleven rounds), and won the heavyweight championship. The eleven rounds are condensed into several of the most savage minutes seen on screen in recent years, and when they are over, the ring looks like a butcher's block.
The climax, however, comes next day. Bogart goes over to Benko's place to pick up his boy's purse. After the bossman's deductions are made, it comes to exactly $49.07. "Fighters," somebody remarks with a self-satisfied leer, "are dirt."