Los Angeles (THR) -- In the acclaimed 1956 film "Somebody Up There Likes Me," director Robert Wise traces the real-life ascent of Rocky Graziano from New York street kid to world boxing champion. In one scene early in the story, Sal Mineo says to Paul Newman (as Graziano), "Guys like us, we ain't got no chance, have we?"
Graziano did indeed get his chance, and it's that opportunity to overcome sociological barriers and achieve success that has made boxing and its gladiators rich material for some of Hollywood's most celebrated storytelling.
Fresh off "Million Dollar Baby's" knockout performance at the Academy Awards, reality TV guru Mark Burnett aims to bring the tried-and-true elements of the fight game to success on the small screen with his series "The Contender," which debuts Monday night (March 7) on NBC.
Up from the Streets
Burnett acknowledges that a big part of the show's appeal is the theme of upward social mobility that has been the backdrop of many a Hollywood boxing film.
"The hard-luck story, coming from a disadvantaged background -- Americans like that story," says Burnett, a British native who boxed in the army and is now a licensed fight promoter in California and Nevada.
The format of "The Contender" incorporates elements of some of Burnett's current reality show successes such as "Survivor" and "The Apprentice." Sixteen boxers live and train together while vying for a $1 million purse. Each episode ends with a five-round fight, with the loser eliminated.
"Last time I checked, there were no applicants from Beverly Hills or the Upper East Side," Burnett says. "They come from underprivileged backgrounds, and that is what boxing has always stood for."
Since their earliest pairings in the 1890s, boxing and film have been a good match. The first cameras might have been cumbersome, but a boxing ring fit the frame perfectly. Soon films of major prizefights were screened throughout America's theaters, becoming a phenomenon and catching the attention of Hollywood filmmakers, who began to bring elements of the popular sport to their dramatic storytelling.
From the 1920s and '30s, with "Battling Butler" and "The Champ," through the golden era of boxing movies in the '40s and '50s, with John Garfield in "Body and Soul" and director Wise's "The Set-Up" -- a rare film that was shot in real time -- Hollywood has demonstrated a healthy respect for the sport.
And with former boxer John Huston directing Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges in "Fat City," the immense popularity of Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky" franchise and the undisputed artistry of Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull," the sweet science has long enjoyed sweet success on the silver screen. That was reinforced Feb. 27 when Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" won Oscars for best picture, director, actress (Hilary Swank) and supporting actor (Morgan Freeman).
Life Mirrored
"The canvas is a canvas to take it anywhere you want," boxing historian Bert Sugar says. "There's two participants, and you can see everything and mirror everything through them." (Sugar, former editor and publisher of the Ring magazine, is working with filmmaker Spike Lee and writer Budd Schulberg on a movie project about legendary boxing champion Joe Louis.)
Noted documentarian Ken Burns, who recently directed and produced the PBS miniseries "Unforgivable Blackness," about the life and times of controversial heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, notes that the core of drama is conflict.
"The essence of boxing is the reducing of conflict to its elemental components," he says. "You've got two essentially naked people in a ring fighting it out, using not only their physical strength but their psychological strength to try and defeat the other. Nothing could be more interesting and compelling on a dramatic level than that."
Jim Lampley, the HBO fight announcer whose production company is developing boxing-themed projects for TV and film, points to the sport's aspect of "psychological confrontation" as being a huge part of its allure.
"Boxing is the most intensely confrontational sport and therefore to me has the most powerful psychological elements," Lampley says.
The sport has drama-ready elements inside the ring, but what makes the sport attractive to Hollywood is that it allows for great storytelling outside the ring. From "The Champ," with its father-son love tale, to the upcoming "Cinderella Man," featuring Russell Crowe as beloved Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock, a struggling family man who serves as inspiration to a downtrodden country, the sport appeals to filmmakers and moviegoers because it presents such universal themes as hope and upward social mobility.
"Because the sport is fundamentally simple but the circumstances that surround it are inevitably and chronically complicated, it's perfect movie fodder," Lampley says.