The Square Ring (1953) Movie Review Movie Review

The Square Ring (1953)   3/53/53/53/53/5


The Square Ring (1953)

Ring Work

It is fight night at the Adams Stadium and there are a variety of fighters on the card. Eddie Lloyd (Ronald Lewis - The John Sullivan Story) is new to the game whilst Rick Martell (Maxwell Reed) is a washed up veteran who now takes dives. Happy Burns (Bill Owen - Once a Jolly Swagman) has had more fights in the last 12 months than is safe whilst Rowdie Rawlings (Bill Travers - Hindle Wakes) is like a bear with a sore head. And pulling the strings at the stadium is Mr Adams (Sidney James - Emergency Call) himself, a penny pincher who walks around with a cigar in his mouth which is never lit and he keeps hidden in a box in his office.

I rarely start a review like this but someone needs to remake "The Square Ring" but do so in a seamless way as in one scene traverses in to the next rather than cutting. The script, which I believe originated as a play, screams out for this as most of the action takes place in the Adams Stadium and revolves around a dozen or so characters. The annoying things is that whilst we have various characters, from the nervous novice to the punch drunk veteran believing he can still show them, the depth of these individuals never really materialises as it flits from trying to be deep, such as one boxer whose wife left him, to the humour of the punch drunk ramblings of one of the guys.

Despite this "The Square Ring" certainly features a cast of familiar faces from Bill Travers and Joan Collins to Bill Owen and Sidney James. And to be honest they all play their parts well but it is a case than none of them are overly memorable which is what this movie ends up being.

What this all boils down to is that "The Square Ring" is not a bad boxing drama from 1953 but it is the sort of movie which is screaming out for being remade and done so using technology to make it seem like a continuous one take movie where characters come and go from the locker room.

Tags: Boxing Movies


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