Tuesday, May 10, 2022

The Ring (1927)

The boxing champion hires a circus boxer (that’s a thing) as his sparring partner, and has eyes for his girl.

One of four Hitchcock films released in 1927, we follow ‘One-Round’ Jack from circus side show up the ranks of organized boxing to become a legitimate contender. All for the love of a woman. Shades of Rocky, anyone? The first Rocky, not the others were he fights space robots, or whatever foolishness. Lillian Hall-Davis plays ‘the girl’ that the men, for some reason, desire. Her career faltered in the early sound era, then she ended it all at age 35.

While never uninteresting, The Ring (not that Ring) drags a little, a victim of a one hour story with a two hour runtime. The twenty-something Hitchcock wasn’t yet the master of suspense he would later become. A more mature Hitch would have tightened it up a bit. Oh, and have left out the N word. AMRU 3.

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