{"id":38346,"date":"2025-02-17T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=38346"},"modified":"2025-03-15T10:03:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T14:03:58","slug":"the-champion-1949-starring-kirk-douglas-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=38346","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Champion&#8221; (1949) starring Kirk Douglas \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2025\/z021725zview_champion.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"752\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><i>The Champion <\/i>(1949)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Director:\u00a0 <strong>Mark Robson<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Screenplay:\u00a0 <strong>Carl Foreman;\u00a0<\/strong>based on <em>Champion<\/em> by<strong> Ring Lardner<\/strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Stars: <strong>Kirk Douglas, Arthur Kennedy, Marilyn Maxwell, Paul Stewart, Ruth Roman, Ruth Roman, Harry Shannon, John Daheim, Esther Howard, Sam Balter<\/strong> (voice),<strong> Polly Bergen<\/strong> (voice), <strong>Mushy Callahan<\/strong> and <strong>Bill Baldwin<\/strong><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Tagline:\u00a0 <em>Fighting or loving, he was the&#8230; CHAMPION<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The Plot&#8230;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Michael &#8220;Midge&#8221; Kelly (Douglas) and his brother, Connie (Kennedy) are down on their luck.\u00a0 They hitched-hiked across country after sending their entire savings to become partners in a diner.\u00a0 Only to find out they had been scammed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When a local boxing promotor needs a fighter at the last minute, he offers Midge $35 to step in.\u00a0 Midge does.\u00a0 Although outclassed, Midge shows heart and that he can take a punch.\u00a0 Boxing manager, Tommy Hailey (Stewart) offers to become Midge&#8217;s manager.\u00a0 Midge declines.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Later when Midge realizes that professional boxing might provide the kind of life he dreams of, he reconnects with Tommy Hailey.\u00a0 Midge is a fast learner and tough.\u00a0 Midge climbs in the rankings beating everyone put in front of him.\u00a0 Outside the ring, Midge sees every woman as a conquest.\u00a0 Fame is going to his head.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As Midge gets closer to a title fight, he gets farther away from the people who truly care for him.\u00a0 What is Midge willing to give up to become the Champion?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Champion<\/em> was nominated for six 1950 <em>Academy Awards<\/em>, winning one&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nominee for <em>Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture &#8211;<\/em>\u00a0<strong>Dimitri Tiomkin<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Nominee for<em>\u00a0Best Cinematography, Black-and-White &#8211; <\/em><strong>Franz Planer<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Nominee for<em> Best Writing, Screenplay<\/em> &#8211; <strong>Carl Foreman<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Nominee for <em>Best Actor in a Supporting Role<\/em> &#8211; <strong>Arthur Kennedy<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Nominee for <em>Best Actor in a Leading Role<\/em> &#8211; <strong>Kirk Douglas<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Winner &#8211; <em>Best Film Editing<\/em>:<strong> Harry Gerstad<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Most folks know that <em>Champion<\/em> made Kirk Douglas a star.\u00a0 He was nominated for a Best Actor <em>Oscar<\/em>. The film led to Warner Bros. signing him to a seven year contract.\u00a0 Director Mark Robson, co-stars Lola Albright and Ruth Roman were also signed to studio contracts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: inherit; color: initial;\"><strong><em><i>The Champion <\/i>(1949) <\/em><\/strong>rates 4 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/logo\/zview_b.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"100\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2025\/z021725zview_champion2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"521\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Champion (1949) Director:\u00a0 Mark Robson Screenplay:\u00a0 Carl Foreman;\u00a0based on Champion by Ring Lardner Stars: Kirk Douglas, Arthur Kennedy, Marilyn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38347,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38346\/revisions\/38347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}