Somebody Up There Likes Me **** (1956, Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckart) – Classic Movie Review 6893

Director Robert Wise’s 1956 biopic drama is the double-Oscar-winning Fifties fight movie classic that turned the 31-year-old Paul Newman into a star. It is one of the great boxing movies.

Audiences certainly liked Newman up there on screen for the first time (after his infamous catastrophic flop début as the Roman soldier Basil in The Silver Chalice) in his hard-hitting performance as 1940s middleweight boxing champ Rocky Graziano, in this punchy, gritty MGM biopic of the Brooklyn Bruiser.

The youngish Newman gives a spectacular Method acting performance as the New York East Side rebel, who survives poverty, a drunken father, a life of petty crime, reform school, Leavenworth Prison and army detention to try boxing and eventually take the world champion crown with his World Middleweight Championship title win at the age of 28 in 1947.

Pier Angeli (also in The Silver Chalice) makes something of her role as Norma, Rocky’s gal, and so does Sal Mineo make something of his role as Rocky’s buddy Romolo, while the 26-year-old Steve McQueen (as Fidel) and the 26-year-old Robert Loggia (as Frankie Peppo) make their film débuts. It also marks the débuts of Frank Campanella, Angela Cartwright (as Rocky’s daughter) and Dean Jones in uncredited bit parts.

Joseph Ruttenberg’s Oscar-winning black and white cinematography is spectacular. Ernest Lehman’s fresh, sharp and fragrant screenplay is based on the autobiography of Rocky Graziano (written with Rowland Barber). The Graziano part was originally intended for James Dean, who had died in a car crash on 30 September 1955, aged 24).

The two Oscars are for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Joseph Ruttenberg) and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White (Cedric Gibbons, Malcolm F Brown, Edwin B Willis, F Keogh Gleason).

Also in the cast are Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckart, Joseph Buloff, Harold J Stone, Sammy White, Arch Johnson, Robert Lied, Theodore Newton, Robert Easton, Ray Walker, Billy Nelson, Matt Crowley, Judson Pratt, Donna Jo Gribble, James Todd, Jack Kelk, Russ Conway, Harry Wisner, Ray Walker, Ray Stricklyn, Willard Sage, Judson Pratt, Tyler McVey, Wilbur Mack, Dean Jones, Robert Duvall, George Cisar and Tony Zale.

Somebody Up There Likes Me is directed by Robert Wise, runs 112 minutes, is distributed by MGM, is written by Ernest Lehman, is shot in black and white by Joseph Ruttenberg, is produced by Charles Schnee, is scored by Bronislau Kaper, and is designed by Cedric Gibbons and Malcolm F Brown.

Perry Como sings the title song over opening and closing credits.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6893

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com