The Setup 1949

As shown by the clock face that opens and closes the film, The Set-Up takes place within a compact 72 minutes, with the action played out in "real time." Robert Wise's blistering tour de force on the fight game, a key influence on Martin Scorsese's seminal Raging Bull (1980), remains one of the best films on that world. An undefeated boxing champion while at Dartmouth, Robert Ryan gives what's likely his best performance as the over-the-hill pug who balks when ordered by his manager to throw a fight. Wise throws the harshest possible light not only on the well-known corruption of game, on the seediness of the milieu, and the grueling punishment absorbed by the fighters, but also on the febrile bloodlust of the fans, for whom the director reserves his greatest revulsion. As the film unfolds in "real" time, it touches briefly on the range of boxers on that night's card, and from the nervous young kid to the washed-up middle-weight, all are equally mesmerized by the mythology of their craft. In the main event, Ryan absorbs perhaps the worst pre-Scorsese battering on celluloid. Noir icon Audrey Totter evinces an unexpected tenderness as Ryan's concerned wife, and James Edwards is poignant as a fighter on the slide.
Robert Ryan - Bill "Stoker" Thompson
Audrey Totter - Julie Thompson
George Tobias - Tiny
Alan Baxter - Little Boy
Wallace Ford - Gus
Percy Helton - Red
Hal Fieberling - Tiger Nelson
Darryl Hickman - Shanley
Kenny O'Morrison - Moore
James Edwards - Luther Hawkins
David Clarke - Gunboat Johnson
Phillip Pine - Tony Souza
Edwin Max - Danny
Herbert Anderson - Husband
Herman Boden
Ruth Brennan - Woman
Helen Brown - Wife
John Butler - Man
Lillian Castle
Kid Chissel - Handler
Gene Delmont - Handler
Abe Dinovitch - Ring Caller
Paul Dubov - Gambler
Dan Foster - Man
Dave Fresco - Mickey
Bernard Gorcey - Tobacco Man
William E. Green - Doctor
Donald Kerr - Man
Jess Kirkpatrick - Gambler
Michael Lally - Handler
Dwight Martin - Glutton
Tony Merrill - Man
Lynne Millan - Bunny
Frank Mills - Photographer
Tommy Noonan - Man
W.J. O'Brien - Pitchman
Brian O'Hara - Man
Jack Raymond - Husband
Al Rhein - Man
Frank Richards - Bat
Walter Ridge - Manager
Sammy Shack - Man
Carl Sklover - Man
Everett Smith - Man
Billy Snyder - Barker
Jack Stoney - Nelson's Second
Arthur Sullivan - Handler
Charles Sullivan - Man
Ralph Volkie - Man
Charles Wagenheim - Hamburger Man
Constance Worth - Wife