For Robert Wise's centennial, we're looking back on a random selection of his films beyond the familiar mega-hits (The Sound of Music & West Side Story) which we are far more prone to talk about. Here's Nathaniel on the Paul Newman boxing drama...
The poster art for Robert Wise's 1956 biopic on Rocky Graziano reminds us that the more things change the more they stay the same. We're still getting taglines like "A girl can lift a fella to the skies!" (see: Theory of Everything) but Pier Angeli's role as Rocky's wife Norma in the Paul Newman boxing pic is actually fairly minor. She straightens him out primarily by giving him something consistent to hold on to in a life that's been previously totally adrift in noncommittal boxing matches for money and petty crimes. Not that his crimes were always petty, mind you, but we'll get to that in a minute.
Up until Somebody Up There Likes Me Paul Newman had been doing minor TV roles and successful work on the stage. But his film debut in the biblical epic The Silver Chalice (1954) was an embarrassment. He won poor reviews and later stated...
The moment I walked into that studio I had a feeling of personal disaster..."
Newman's Breakthrough after the jump...
"Thanks." - Paul Newman at war with his screen father, He'd get better at it in Hud.
His second feature at age 31 would turn things around completely, redeeming him as an exciting find and providing the launching pad for his legend. Within two years time he was a huge movie star winning Oscar nominations...
But there is something about his performance in Somebody Up There Likes Me that feels embryonic, like he hasn't completely worked out the Brando/Clift-worshipping Method tics (there's a lot of mumbling and hunched shoulder posturing) to form his own expressive voice. He's enormously watchable but not yet mesmerizing. Yet as a warm up to his later iconic roles (especially Hud since there are in-film echoes), and a preamble or even a prequel if you will to Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980), since Rocky Graziano helped Jake LaMotta get started and their backstories are similar, it's an essential film, albeit not quite singular.
We first meet Rocky as a young street thug, stealing fighting and "terrorizing the neighborhood." It isn't long before he's in prison and then in prison again.
Rocco Barbella has been a burden to his mother during the whole of his life. Ever since he was old enough to run he was a children’s court problem. Something has got to be done!
Years in the pen and a short stint in the army don't straighten him out and he lashes out at guards, superior officers, and nearly commits a murder. In jail he finally commits to boxing as sport, and out of jail becomes a boxing star, falls in love with a supportive girl and starts a family.
Even out of prison and reformed, Rocky is a handful to deal with. A rebel
It's an interesting notion that embracing violence as a career surpresses the urge for it elsewhere. The movie consistently sells that -- even Rocky's mom and wife are convinced that he must live life as a fighter somehow -- though I'd rather not buy it. (But enough about me since I just don't understand the appeal of boxing.) Back to the movie. Cue: more setbacks, criminal temptations, eventual triumphs - you know how biopics work. The title of the film is Newman's last line as he's greeted with a parade in his former mean streets.
Since we're talking Robert Wise, let's talk about those streets for a bit. In some respects Somebody Up There, while tame today, must have been one of the tougher movie for its time, dramatizing poverty, broken homes, alcoholism, and juvenile delinquencies and going nowhere lives of crime (Sal Mineo, who specialized in troubled teens, plays Rocky's best friend). The cinematography and art direction (both Oscar nominated) go a long way in selling the atmosphere that's so crucial to understanding Rocky, and rooting for his reform. The street scenes reminded me a bit of Italian neo-realism in their naturalism though it's easy to also picture the naturalistic gritty environments within the heightened musical context of West Side Story in these streets and their gang fighting. That is if you can imagine Steve McQueen (uncredited but very visibly there for a short spell), Sal Mineo, and Paul Newman suddenly high-kicking while looking for trouble.
Sal Mineo and Paul Newman planning more terrorizing of the neighborhood
Have any of you seen this picture? If not what's your favorite reformed criminal movie?