- Robert Wise's brilliant and grossly underrated The Set-Up is a 72-minute real-time visit to one of the great film noir locales, also known as Paradise City. If you think the name isn't ironic, you haven't seen enough film noir. For a 35-year-old boxer like Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan), fighting on a Wednesday night in Paradise City is tantamount to being put out to pasture. Sure, he was good a decade ago, but now he's at the age where they actually schedule him after the main event, just in case anybody is still hanging around. Worse still, his manager (George Tobias) and trainer (Percy Helton) are so confident Stoker will lose that they don't even bother letting him know the fight has been fixed with a local gangster (Alan Baxter). "There's no percentage in smartening up a chump," his manager says.
- What they don't realize, however, is that Stoker remembers. He knows he used to be good, like back in Skokie on the night of his first fight so many years ago. A lesser film might have shown this victory in flashback, but this one smartly keeps the camera fixed on Robert Ryan's eyes as they gaze back into the past. While Stoker's fellow fighters (including James Edwards and David Clarke) get put through the wringer, Stoker just sits in the prep room, focusing on the fact that success could be "just one punch away." If he wins tonight, maybe he'll be able to get a few more good fights. Maybe he'll even make enough money that he can manage a boxer himself and start a new life for him and his girl, Julie (Audrey Totter).
- Speaking of Julie, she's our primary tour guide through the streets of Paradise City. While Stoker dreams of a brighter future, she's pondering whether or not to abandon the washed-up boxer and his hopeless fantasies. In the course of contemplating their situation, she passes various bars and storefronts that teem with the sights and sounds of the city's numerous, colorful denizens. I hesitate to refer to any of these people as "extras" since almost all of them have a few lines and so much character that they are absolutely intended to be noticed. The same can be said of the boxing spectators, whose jeers and sweaty countenances belie a bloodthirst that they obviously expect Stoker will fulfill. The combination of real time filming and such detailed characterization almost makes it seem like Paradise City exists outside the frames of the film even if it was constructed on RKO's studio lot. It's an ugly town, but that's part of what makes it so believable.
- The film's other major dose of realism arrives in the boxing match itself. When Stoker squares off against his opponent Tiger Nelson (Hal Fieberling), we are treated to one of the most compelling fictional boxing matches ever put on film. In fact, the fight choreography is so convincing that I wasn't at all surprised to learn after seeing the film that Ryan was a college boxer while Fieberling (aka Hal Baylor) was a successful pro. Regardless, the outcome of the match can only be described as bittersweet. It's true that Stoker and Julie find a way to go on with their lives, but it comes at a steep price. Maybe that's the closest you can get to a happy ending in a place like Paradise City. It's certainly the best ending imaginable for such a great little piece of noir.
- The screenplay was apparently adopted from a poem by Joseph Moncure March.
