Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25918 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-12-10
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Jeff Bridges stars as an amateur boxer on a brief rise who catches the eye of an aging pugilist (Stacy Keach) heading downward in this 1972 film by John Huston and based on the novel by Leonard Gardner. Keach becomes the younger man's mentor, and the two hit central California's tanktown circuit of small matches for small money, interspersed with visits to smoke-filled bars and hellish gyms. Theirs is a cut-rate dream, all right, but as real and driving--and finally just as punishing--as the mythical black bird itself in Huston's The Maltese Falcon. The cast is outstanding, the cinematography by Conrad Hall stunning, and the climax one of Huston's most painfully memorable. The story is filled out by surrounding detail that never leaves the memory: boxers and trainers who whisper of injuries that could put them out of business for good; a lone fighter who takes a bus into town, bides time in a crummy motel room, takes a beating in the ring, then leaves on the next bus with a few dollars in his pocket. This film helped re-establish Huston's reputation as a major filmmaker. It was followed by the likes of The Man Who Would Be King. --Tom Keogh

Review
One of the masterpieces of Hollywood's last golden age, John Huston's Fat City is the kind of film studios wouldn't touch these days: a small-scale character study about unlucky men living on the margins. Set in a rundown California border town, the movie follows the trajectory of Tully (Stacy Keach), a farm laborer whose once-promising boxing career was derailed by booze. Tully's dismal wallow in limbo contrasts with the halting rise of Ernie (Jeff Bridges), a fresh-faced rookie trying to make it big in the low-stakes world of small-time boxing. Graceful, dignified and seemingly effortless, Fat City finds Huston at the top of his game. A model of understatement, it's a movie of indelible, unobtrusive details, like the thick layer of smoke hanging over a dingy boxing arena, or the slouched silhouettes at the local tavern on a lazy afternoon. Laced with empathy, these moments all add up to a fully realized portrait of failure. Huston is aided immeasurably by his cinematographer, the great Conrad L. Hall. From the Hopper-esque light on an empty city block to the seedy murkiness of dive bars, Hall achieves a gritty, naturalistic look that, like Huston's direction, never calls attention to itself. With its relentlessly downbeat tone, Fat City at times threatens to verge into self-parody (the recurring Kris Kristofferson song, "Help Me Make It Through the Night," doesn't help). For all the potential for bathos, however, the movie remains impressively dignified and self-possessed, and stands as one of the high points of Huston's illustrious career. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide

On the DVD
ccOnly sound option is the Dolby Digital logo.

Customer Reviews

Lives of quiet desperation...
Every few years I reread Leonard Gardner's novel, "Fat City" and am awed by how vividly it paints a world of men and women whose lives are going nowhere. Over a hundred and eighty-three pages, divided into twenty-four chapters, each one a model of economy and precision, Gardner manages to say something about defeat that most writers wouldn't be able to convey in twice that length. After every reading of the book, I end up seeking out John Huston's film hoping it will somehow match the brilliance of Gardner's prose. It never does. But it comes pretty close.

The story of "Fat City" involves two men, both boxers, who are at different points on the same arc. Billy Tully has had a brush with a modicum of success but has long lost whatever gift took him even that far. Ernie Munger, ten years younger, has his youth to award him a glimmer of hope but more than likely he will be lucky to achieve even the level of mediocrity Tully climbed to. Interconnected with these two characters are the women they become involved with and the usual boxing hangers-on - the trainers and managers whose meager dreams are built on the Billy Tullys of the world. There is very little plot to speak of, the narrative following Ernie's entry into boxing and the responsibilities of adulthood, and Tully's last few grasps in the ring to rise above the laborers he picks vegetables with at ninety cents an hour.

Whereas the novel is able to directly express the inner lives of its characters by sharing their thoughts and histories, the film is forced to leave much of this content out, relying on visual details presented through Conrad Hall's brilliant cinematography to create its texture of lives gone to seed. The film's screenplay, also written by Gardner, takes its dialogue directly from the novel. Both the novel and film are more about mood or tone rather than plot. There is no conflict or tension to propel the narrative forward. Nothing much happens. We are just given a glimpse into a world. The novel's superiority might be due to the slightness of the story flattening out even more on screen.

The performances in the film are exceptional, with Susan Tyrell, Stacy Keach and Nicolas Colasanto being particularly outstanding. One minor complaint would be that for a film that strives for realism, many of the boxing sequences, particularly those involving Jeff Bridges, are somewhat unconvincing.

Some works of art, for whatever reason, touch you at a level that transcends their actual merit. For me "Fat City," both the novel and the film, achieve greatness because they are examples of that type of art.

Brutal Reality Brilliantly Portrayed
Stacey Keach and Susan Tyrrell deliver Oscar caliber performance while Jeff Bridges launches a brilliant career in this 1972 epic, one of the best directorial efforts of the storied career of John Huston. Keach and Bridges play fighters trying to make a go of life in the tough world of professional boxing in Stockton, a delta city in Northern California.

Keach, living in a fleabag hotel, meets young Bridges at the local YMCA, where the former professional boxer has gone to work out. After enticing Bridges to spar a little, Keach is astonished when the younger man with the fast moves reveals he has never boxed, either amateur or professional. Keach suggests that Bridges look up his former manager, played by Nick Colasanto, at the Lido Gym.

Colasanto and his trainer, played by former ranked lightweight and welterweight, Art Aragon, waste no time in turning Bridges amateur. After Bridges' first workout Colasanto tells his wife that a good looking, clean cut "white kid" like Bridges should make a good crowd draw.

Keach falls on hard times, getting fired from his fry cook's job, going out early in the morning to work as a picker at nearby farms. He also forms a romantic relationship with hard luck Tyrrell, a heavy drinker, whose live in love, played by former world welterweight champion Curtis Cokes, has gone to jail on an assault charge. The fight was brought on by resentment of his interracial romance with Tyrrell. Meanwhile Keach moves in with Tyrrell.

When Keach, spurred on by Bridges' ring progress, decides to make a comeback, in his sober state he can no longer abide Tyrrell and moves out. When Cokes finishes serving his time he moves back in with her again.

Bridges has his own romantic involvement with Candy Clark. They make love in his car. She tells him she is pregnant and they get married.

Keach gets in shape and wins the first bought of his comeback against a Mexican fighter, played by noted light heavyweight boxer Sixto Rodriguez. What Keach does not know was that his opponent had passed blood in his hotel room and could not hold up to body blows, having been injured in a previous bout. All the same, he needs the money, and so he fights Keach anyway.

When all is said and done Keach, after Colasanto has taken out deductions for expenses such as room and board for his fighter, receives one hundred dollars. Keach becomes incensed, telling Colasanto once more about the time he let him down and, to save two hundred dollars, let him travel to Panama by himself for his most important fight against a local favorite, then ranked fifth in the world. With Keach ahead his cornermen, in an effort to win the bout for the Panamanian, administered cuts over both eyes with razor blades. This resulted in the referee stopping the bout. After that Keach's wife left him and his life spiraled rapidly downhill.

With resentment for Colasanto revived, a sulking Keach hits the skids once more, returning to heavy drinking. At the film's end he sees Bridges after the latter has sought to avoid him. Bridges tells him about his second child, and that he is still fighting professionally. As they sit in the coffee shop Keach gropes for meaning in life, wondering just where he is gone, fearful of how he will turn out.

Leonard Gardner adapted the screenplay from his own novel. Each had the same hard edge as the world he describes. He should know since it was his world. Gardner grew up in Stockton, boxed as an amateur, and wrote the novel while on the bum in Mexico.

Boring...
I know that this film is supposed to be a masterpiece, but I fail to see how anyone can interpret this film that way. I was surprised to see Jeff Bridges is such a boring film. I found that this film wandered too much in the beginning. I watched the first hour and noted that there was hardly any character or plot development! I found that the movie never really amounted to anything. I believe that this movie is not even worth renting! If someone can explain to me how they could interpret this movie as an excellent one, please feel free to e-mail me with an explaination, otherwise, my feelings towards this movie will stay the same. Addy : joekerrthejoker@hotmail.com