Antonius Block There is a lot to like about this movie, starting with the beautiful Myrna Loy, who is caught in a love triangle between a gangster and an up and coming boxer. The boxer is played by real life heavyweight Max Baer, who is certainly as good an actor as most for the time period, and very interesting to watch. The gangster is played well by Otto Kruger, so it's a strong cast. The film's pace over the first half or so is great, and I found myself a little surprised with one of the directions it took, but I won't spoil it. I liked seeing Loy singing (though it may have been lip sync'd), and it was fun (and a little silly) to see Baer in a pretty long musical number later. That's probably the beginning of where the film finds itself being a little too long, but it's really the big fight at the end with real-life champion Primo Canera which drags on. They introduce a number of other real-life boxers, which may have been a thrill to boxing fans in 1933, but with the exception of Jack Dempsey, is less interesting today (at least to me). During these introductions, there is a pretty mean joke about Kate Smith, who is said to be in the audience "sitting in seats one, two, and three". The boxing action itself is spotty – director W.S Van Dyke includes some nice shots, such as Carnera coming out of his corner, as well as an overhead angle, but there is quite a bit of footage that you can tell has been sped up, and quite a bit that looks unrealistic. I also hated the ending. Oddly enough, in a movie with so many big name boxers, it was the boxing that caused me to drop the rating a bit. Still worth watching though.

jacobs-greenwood Co-produced and directed by W.S. Van Dyke, with an original story by two time Oscar winner Frances Marion, which was adapted by John Lee Mahin and John Meehan, this average boxing film features real heavyweight champion Max Baer with Myrna Loy in the title roles. Ring champs Primo Carnera and Jack Dempsey also appear, as themselves. Walter Huston plays an ex-manager, now a drunk, who discovers Baer's character as a bouncer in a bar; Vince Barnett plays his trainer. Otto Kruger plays a gangster who's "kept" Loy's character, a singer at his club, in furs and jewels. Robert McWade plays Kruger's trigger man.Upon discovering Baer, whom he thinks will be the next heavyweight champion, Huston's character sobers up and begins promoting his young, handsome fighter. While they're doing road training, Loy's car crashes nearby such that she's rescued by Baer, who instantly falls for her. Unable to "wash him out of her hair", Loy breaks with Kruger and marries the pugilist.Huston "bans" Loy from Baer's practice camp for the good of his training, but Baer strays (with various other women) while his winning streak grows to 19 bouts over the course of a year, earning him a shot at the title with Carnera. Loy learns about the cheating, giving Baer one more chance, which he blows. Kruger is only too happy to help Baer get his chance, setting him up for a beating by Carnera, after Loy returns to his lair.The climactic fight includes Dempsey as its referee. The ending is as unbelievable as it is predictable, at least for today's audience, but it must have been "original" at the time, explaining why Marion received a Best Writing Achievement Oscar nomination for this film.

blanche-2 Max Baer is the prizefighter and Myrna Loy is the lady in "The Prizefighter and the Lady," a 1933 film also starring Walter Huston and Otto Kruger. Loy plays a singer who's seeing Otto Kruger and singing in his club - she has a rich mezzo voice (courtesy of Bernice Alstock). She meets handsome Baer, who pursues her until she marries him. It's not all roses once she learns that he plays around.This is a fascinating as well as entertaining film. Loy is extremely beautiful and lovely in her role, and Huston is his usual excellent self, as is Otto Kruger. The fascinating part is Baer, the champion fighter whose character was unfairly decimated in "Cinderella Man" - I hope his family objected. Baer was an extremely colorful character out of the ring but never got over killing Frank Campbell during a fight - he put Campbell's children through college. Here he plays something closer to himself, an amiable playboy with a mean punch. His appearance in a vaudeville act is almost as impressive as his fighting. In "The Prizefighter and the Lady," as in real life, he fights Primo Carnera, as he would a year later. Carnera refused to appear in the film as originally written, where he would be knocked out. I thought Baer was big until I saw Carnera - WHOA. The screen fight is very effective.There are several real sports figures in the film besides Carnero - Jack Dempsey, who helped Baer make a comeback later on when he started telegraphing his punches, and also James Jeffries and Frank Moran. If you're a prize fighter historian, this is the movie for you.Baer went on to make other movies, in fact, he was known as a frustrated performer. His most notable appearance was in Bogart's last film, "The Harder They Fall." By then, of course, his screen persona was a little different. I don't actually agree with one of the comments about the film - I think "The Prizefighter and the Lady," despite the star performances, would have been fairly routine without him. As an added plus for baby boomers - he's Jethro's dad, after all.

MartinHafer Max Baer plays a fat-headed boxer who falls in love and marries sweet Myrna Loy. However, soon after the wedding, Baer begins drinking and womanizing and seemed to be a major jerk--and a very talented boxer. Unfortunately, he promised again and again he'd change, but he didn't. By the end of the film, he'd lost his wife and manager and didn't seem to care. However, the usual cliché of "turnaround scene" when the boxer hit bottom never really occurred with Baer's character! By the big fight at the end of the film, he STILL was a jerk--yet despite this, the wife and manager came running back to him!! This made very little sense and seems to have set back women's rights several decades.While the plot of this film and production values are at best average, this film has a lot of historical value and so it shouldn't be written off completely. That's because this boxing film is unique in that it stars several real boxers--including several champions. Max Baer and Primo Carnera were, at the time, the most famous active boxers--both having been champions. Max Baer is the star of the film and does a pretty good job of acting considering he is NOT an actor. Plus, it's interesting to see Max Baer, Jr.'s ("Jethro" from THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES) father act. In addition, Jack Dempsey (perhaps the most famous boxer of the 20th Century) makes a significant appearance as well and there are some small cameos by famous boxers and wrestlers of the age. So, as a result, this movie is a MUST for boxing fans or lovers of pop culture and American history. All I suggest, though, is that you realize this is NOT a great film--just interesting for reasons other than artistic merit.