Fat City (film)

Fat City is a 1972 American sports drama film directed and produced by John Huston, and adapted by Leonard Gardner from his 1969 novel of the same title. It stars Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, and Candy Clark in her film debut.

Fat City
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJohn Huston
Screenplay byLeonard Gardner
Based onFat City
by Leonard Gardner
Produced byRay Stark
John Huston
Starring
CinematographyConrad L. Hall
Edited byWalter A. Thompson
Music byMarvin Hamlisch[1]
Production
company
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • July 26, 1972 (1972-07-26) (U.S.)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The plot follows a former champion boxer (Keach) who begins to develop a rivalry with a younger fighter (Bridges) on the rise, whom he is training. The supporting cast features several real-life boxing personalities, including Art Aragon, Curtis Cokes and Al Silvani.

Released by Columbia Pictures on July 26, 1972, Fat City was a critical and commercial success, rebounding Huston’s career after a string of box office flops. Susan Tyrell was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

Plot

Billy Tully, a boxer past his prime, goes to a gym in Stockton, California to get back into shape and spars with Ernie Munger, an 18-year-old he meets there. Seeing potential in the youngster, Tully suggests that Munger look up his former manager and trainer Ruben. Tully later tells combative barfly Oma and her easygoing boyfriend Earl how impressed he is with the kid. Newly inspired, Tully decides to get back into boxing himself.

Tully's life has been a mess since his wife left him. He drinks too much, cannot hold a job, and picks fruit and vegetables with migrant workers to make ends meet. He still blames Ruben for mishandling his last fight.

Tully tries moving in with Oma after Earl is sent to prison for a few months, but their relationship is rocky.

Munger loses his first fight, his nose broken, and he is knocked out in his next bout as well. He gets pressured into marriage by Faye because a baby's on the way, so he picks fruit in the fields for a few dollars.

For his first bout back, Tully is matched against a tough Mexican boxer named Lucero, who is of an advanced age and in considerable pain. They knock each other down before Tully is declared the winner. His celebration is brief when Tully discovers that he will be paid only $100, which causes him to end his business relationship with Ruben. He then returns to Oma's apartment and finds Earl there. Earl, still paying the rent, assures him that the alcoholic Oma wants nothing more to do with Tully.

Munger is returning home from a fight one night when he sees Tully drunk in the street. Munger tries to ignore him, but when Tully asks to have a drink, he reluctantly agrees to coffee. The two men sit and drink, and Tully looks around at all the people immediately around him, all of whom now seem at an impassable distance. Munger says he needs to leave, but Tully asks him to stay to talk a while. Munger agrees, and the two men sit drinking their coffee together in silence.

Cast

Production

John Huston was attracted to the project due to his own youthful experiences with boxing, having attended Abraham Lincoln High School because of its boxing program there, despite the fact that it was in a rougher part of the city.[2] At the age of 15, he was a top-ranking amateur lightweight in California. He ended his brief professional career after suffering a broken nose.[3]

Casting

Huston originally planned to cast Marlon Brando as Billy Tully and Beau Bridges as Ernie Munger. When Brando informed Huston repeatedly that he needed some more time to think about it, Huston finally came to the conclusion that the star wasn't really interested and looked for another actor until he finally cast the then relatively unknown Stacy Keach. Beau Bridges turned down the role, feeling he was too old to convincingly play an 18-year old, but recommended his younger brother Jeff to the part.

Huston's cast several real-life boxers, some of them his old acquaintances, in supporting roles. Art Aragon (Babe) was a former top lightweight contender, and Curtis Cokes (Earl) was the simultaneous WBA, WBC and The Ring World Welterweight Champion,[4] though ironically his character isn't a boxer. Top boxing trainer Al Silvani was the film's fight choreographer, and appears in the film as a referee.

Fat City was also the film debut of Candy Clark.

Filming

Like the novel, the film was set in Stockton, California and shot mostly on location there. All of the original skid row depicted in the novel was demolished (West End Redevelopment) from 1964 to 1969. Most of the skid row scenes were filmed in the outer fringe of the original skid row, which was torn down a year after Fat City was filmed in order to make way for the construction of the Ort Lofthus Freeway.

Music

The melancholic "Help Me Make It Through the Night" is sung by Kris Kristofferson at the beginning and end of the movie. Marvin Hamlisch was the musical supervisor.[2]

Meaning of title

In a 1969 interview with Life magazine, Leonard Gardner explained the meaning of the title of his novel.

"Lots of people have asked me about the title of my book. It's part of Negro slang. When you say you want to go to Fat City, it means you want the good life. I got the idea for the title after seeing a photograph of a tenement in an exhibit in San Francisco. 'Fat City' was scrawled in chalk on a wall. The title is ironic: Fat City is a crazy goal no one is ever going to reach."[5]

Fat City is also an old nickname for Stockton, California, where the novel and film are set. The nickname preceded Gardner's novel.

Release

The film premiered in the United States on July 26, 1972.[6] It was screened at film festivals including the Cannes Film Festival[7] and the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Reception

Critical response

After a string of box office flops, John Huston rebounded with this film, which opened to tremendous praise and good business, and he was soon in demand for more work.

Vincent Canby, film critic for The New York Times, liked the film and Huston's direction. He wrote, "This is grim material but Fat City is too full of life to be as truly dire as it sounds. Ernie and Tully, along with Oma (Susan Tyrrell), the sherry-drinking barfly Tully shacks up with for a while, the small-time fight managers, the other boxers and assorted countermen, upholsterers, and lettuce pickers whom the film encounters en route, are presented with such stunning and sometimes comic accuracy that Fat City transcends its own apparent gloom."[8]

Roger Ebert made the case for it as one of Huston's best films. He also appreciated the performances. Ebert wrote, "[Huston] treats [the story] with a level, unsentimental honesty and makes it into one of his best films...[and] the movie's edges are filled with small, perfect character performances."[9]

J. Hoberman of the Village Voice wrote, "The movie is crafty work and very much a show. In one way or another, right down to the percussively abrupt open ending, it's all about being hammered."[10]

Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader wrote, "John Huston's 1972 restatement of his theme of perpetual loss is intelligently understated."[11]

Film critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "The downbeat sports drama is a marvelous understated character study of the marginalized leading desperate lives, where they have left themselves no palpable way out. The stunning photography by Conrad Hall keeps things looking realistic."[12]

Reportedly, after a showing of this movie, champion boxer Muhammad Ali apparently said to Huston: "Man that's for real, that's me talking up there."[13]

In 2009, Fat City enjoyed a week-long revival screening at New York City's Film Forum.[14]

It has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 22 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.5/10. The site's consensus reads: "Fat City is a bleak, mordant, slice of life boxing drama that doesn't pull its punches".[15]

The drama is featured in the documentary Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1992) for Conrad L. Hall's use of lighting.[16]

Awards and nominations

Wins

Nominations

New York Film Critics Circle

Under the then-extant rules, Stacy Keach should have been awarded Best Actor from the New York Film Critics Circle for his portrayal of Tully because it required only a plurality of the vote. Keach was the top vote-getter for Best Actor. At the time, the NYCC was second in prestige only to the Academy Awards and was a major influence on subsequent Oscar nominations. A vocal faction of the NYFCC, dismayed by the rather low percentage of votes that would have given Keach the award, successfully demanded a rule change so that the winner would have to obtain a majority. In subsequent balloting, Keach failed to win a majority of the vote, and he lost ground to the performance of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. However, Brando could not gain a majority either. As a compromise candidate, Laurence Olivier in Sleuth eventually was awarded Best Actor.

See also

References
  1. "Fat City- Soundtrack details - SoundtrackCollector.com". www.soundtrackcollector.com. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
  2. "FAT CITY (1972)". AFI Catalog. Retrieved 2023-03-19.
  3. Flint, Peter (August 29, 1987). "John Huston, Film Director, Writer and actor, Dies at 81". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 11, 2013.
  4. "The Lineal Welterweight Champs". Cyber Boxing Zone. Archived from the original on 2009-06-14. Retrieved 2016-10-28.
  5. Durham, Michael (29 August 1969). "A short talk with a first novelist". LIFE Magazine. 67 (9): 10. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
  6. Canby, Vincent (27 July 1972). "Huston Takes New Look at Life in 'Fat City'". New York Times. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
  7. Genier, Cynthia (5 May 1972). "U.S. Directors Are Stars Of Cannes Film Festival". New York Times. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
  8. Canby, Vincent. The New York Times, film review, July 27, 1972.
  9. Ebert, Roger Archived 2012-07-23 at the Wayback Machine. Chicago Sun-Times, film review, January 1, 1972.
  10. "John Huston's Late-Career Hit, Fat City". Village Voice. September 15, 2009.
  11. "Fat City". Chicago Reader. January 1, 2000.
  12. Schwartz, Dennis Archived 2018-04-12 at the Wayback Machine. Ozus' World Movie Reviews, film review, February 3, 2005. Last accessed: March 9, 2010.
  13. Fetter, Henry D. (2012-06-30). "The Mysterious Greatness of 'Fat City'". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2023-03-19.
  14. "John Huston's Late-Career Hit, Fat City". The Village Voice. September 15, 2009.
  15. Fat City at Rotten Tomatoes. Last accessed: June 30, 2019.
  16. Visions of Light web site.
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