According to the hands on the same street clock that opens and closes the film, the story takes place, at night, over 72 minutes - and in fact, THE SET-UP plays out in real time. Bill "Stoker" Thompson (Robert Ryan) is a washed-up 35-year old boxer who refuses to throw in the towel despite the pleas of his wife Julie (Audrey Totter). No one except Stocker himself expects him to win tonight's fight, and adding insult to what will surely be injury, his low-life manager Tiny (George Tobias) has made a deal with a crooked gambler for Stoker to take a dive, a fact withheld from the boxer until the bout is half over. The fight sequence is one of the most realistic and brutal ever filmed (Ryan was a fighter in his youth), with closeups of Stoker's pummeled face intercut with shots of screaming, bloodlusting spectators. Against the odds – not to mention his manager's double-cross – Stoker wins. But the gambler and his thugs get their pound of flesh. Directed by Robert Wise (who edited CITIZEN KANE for Welles and went on to direct many other outstanding films), THE SET-UP is more than realistic; it’s naturalistic, with its back streets built on an RKO back lot, and the denizens of those streets exaggerated to extreme heights of down-and-outness. Watch for the scene in which Julie, who had refused a ticket to the fight and is killing time until it's over, wanders streets that are filled with these people – hookers, street vendors and shop owners listening radios and TVs to the very fight she's trying to escape. Totter (who often played noir femme fatales) is quite good as the good wife. And Ryan is terrific.THE SET-UP (1949)
Noir holds barred
According to the hands on the same street clock that opens and closes the film, the story takes place, at night, over 72 minutes - and in fact, THE SET-UP plays out in real time. Bill "Stoker" Thompson (Robert Ryan) is a washed-up 35-year old boxer who refuses to throw in the towel despite the pleas of his wife Julie (Audrey Totter). No one except Stocker himself expects him to win tonight's fight, and adding insult to what will surely be injury, his low-life manager Tiny (George Tobias) has made a deal with a crooked gambler for Stoker to take a dive, a fact withheld from the boxer until the bout is half over. The fight sequence is one of the most realistic and brutal ever filmed (Ryan was a fighter in his youth), with closeups of Stoker's pummeled face intercut with shots of screaming, bloodlusting spectators. Against the odds – not to mention his manager's double-cross – Stoker wins. But the gambler and his thugs get their pound of flesh. Directed by Robert Wise (who edited CITIZEN KANE for Welles and went on to direct many other outstanding films), THE SET-UP is more than realistic; it’s naturalistic, with its back streets built on an RKO back lot, and the denizens of those streets exaggerated to extreme heights of down-and-outness. Watch for the scene in which Julie, who had refused a ticket to the fight and is killing time until it's over, wanders streets that are filled with these people – hookers, street vendors and shop owners listening radios and TVs to the very fight she's trying to escape. Totter (who often played noir femme fatales) is quite good as the good wife. And Ryan is terrific.