The legendary Humphrey Bogart's last movie, during the mid-1950's when the big message could become more important than the characters, which is the opposite of ON THE WATERFRONT that Mark Robson's boxing scandal expose THE HARDER THEY FALL attempts the suspenseful, brawny big city edginess of... armed gangsters ruling over muscular everymen... but in a passive mainstream fashion...
A shame since the boxing sequences - where has-been sports-writer Bogart and his seedy promoter boss Rod Steiger have ringside seats - are filmed with brutal realism... both making sure the opponents of their mediocre gigantic upstart takes the same kind of fall that could have made Marlon Brando a contender....
The main problem are the bad guys - all short of sporting menacing little mustaches - lacking intriguingly vicious bravado that'd make them worth rooting against... and Steiger can be a lot of fun to hate, like in AL CAPONE with the same tough yet vulnerable sidekick in Nehemiah Persoff...
While Bogart, despite starting-out reluctantly alongside Steiger in the con-game before predictably coming around, lacks the enigmatic moral ambiguity that underlined his early game-changing film noirs... characters bordering on crooked and dependable... here seeming more a passenger along for the ride: somewhat having to do with his illness but mostly caused by the bland, middling screenplay.
A shame since the boxing sequences - where has-been sports-writer Bogart and his seedy promoter boss Rod Steiger have ringside seats - are filmed with brutal realism... both making sure the opponents of their mediocre gigantic upstart takes the same kind of fall that could have made Marlon Brando a contender....
The main problem are the bad guys - all short of sporting menacing little mustaches - lacking intriguingly vicious bravado that'd make them worth rooting against... and Steiger can be a lot of fun to hate, like in AL CAPONE with the same tough yet vulnerable sidekick in Nehemiah Persoff...
While Bogart, despite starting-out reluctantly alongside Steiger in the con-game before predictably coming around, lacks the enigmatic moral ambiguity that underlined his early game-changing film noirs... characters bordering on crooked and dependable... here seeming more a passenger along for the ride: somewhat having to do with his illness but mostly caused by the bland, middling screenplay.