The Prize Fighter

It's not easy making a comedy about the fistic arts. In the 1940s Danny Kay was successful in "The Kid From Brooklyn", playing a "fighting milkman". It took almost 40 years for another boxing comedy to make an impact, and that was The Prize-Fighter.

Tim Conway plays Depression Era boxer, Bags Collins. Bags has a perfect fighting record; 20 fights, 20 knockouts.............all losses! A perfect record! Don Knotts plays Shake, the brainy(LOL!) manager of Bags Collins.

The movie manages to capture the times and is an interesting reflection of the Depression Era. Tim Conway is at his bumbling best when he is in the ring "knocking out" the top three contenders-Irish, Jake Folley and the Grader. The Bags/Grader fight had me rolling in my seat.

There's an impressive supporting cast and Robin Clarke as "Mike" the mob-boss gives an out-standing Brando impression. The final championship match is well done too.

The Prize-Fighter is a championship of a comedy.

Tim Conway was very funny on "The Carol Burnett Show", but outside of that show he came across as being very lame. Not just with his "Dorf" videos, but also with his motion pictures. My theory is that he had too much creative control when he was in movies, since often he also took on the role of the screenwriter, this movie being one just example. I had a little hope that there might be some laughs, seeing that Conway's co-star was the great Don Knotts. But Knotts' performance here is very subdued; it's clear that he knows he's in a real turkey. The main problems with the movie are that the script is simply not that funny, and that director Michael Preece seems unable to inject any serious energy to what unfolds on the screen. What results is gag after gag landing with a thud, made worse by a story that is obviously very padded out. Though the movie only runs about 98 minutes long, it feels a lot longer, so much so that it's sometimes agonizing to sit through . It doesn't help that the official DVD release of the movie more often than not has a transfer that resembles a rip of a VHS copy. Hard to believe that this movie did reasonably good business for an independently made production.

THE PRIZE FIGHTER hasn't garnered much attention since its initial release in 1979. Watching this film, one understands why. It's a drab mediocrity unworthy of the talents of Tim Conway and Don Knotts. It's more distressing to learn that Conway co-wrote the screenplay. He had a chance for creative control on this project but for whatever reason he couldn't take advantage of it.

In this Depression-era setting, Conway's a clumsy boxer called Bags and Knotts is his smart-alecky manager, Shake. They think they've struck gold when a powerful gangster named Mike (Robin Clarke) offers them a series of fights leading to a title bout. Unknown to them, Mike's using them as pawns in a scheme. He'll have Bags win some fixed fights and then get clobbered by the champion (Michael LaGuardia). Mike'll force Pop Morgan (David Wayne), an insolvent old man who befriends Bags and Shake, to bet his entire gym on the challenger.

The film's outcome is predictable but that wouldn't matter if THE PRIZE FIGHTER was entertaining. It isn't. As a comedy, it only gets by with scattered chuckles, due mostly to Conway and Knotts rather than the material. Stale gags like an auto encounter with a truck of chickens are trotted out. Worst of all, Conway's denied the opportunity to showcase his physical comedy gifts in the gym and ring; he's relegated to obvious stunts that any second-rate performer could do.

The film also fails in the area of sentimentality. Bags and Shake become surrogate fathers to an orphan boy, Timmy (George Nutting). The scenes with the child, however, are handled perfunctorily. Attempts at being heartwarming are further hampered by Nutting's wooden performance.

THE PRIZE FIGHTER cannot be considered the low point in Conway and Knotts's careers. They've done worse. But they've done much better and that realization makes the film so dismaying.

Tim Conway and Don Knotts team up for a 20s/30s period piece about the boxing game. Conway and Knotts are working as corner men when we first meet them and making a holy hash out of it. It was no better when Conway was the fighter and Knotts the manager. Conway had a perfect record as he points out. Zero wins, 20 loses and all 20 by knockout.

Conway is the funniest boxer since Lou Costello stepped in the squared circle in Abbott&Costello Meet The Invisible Man. Conway has one thing going for him if you believe, a right hand with the power of Jack Dempsey. He just never got a chance to throw it.

Anyway gangster Robin Clarke gets them involved in a scheme to take over David Wayne's gym by giving Conway the Primo Carnera buildup until he gets a crack at champ Michael LaGuardia's title. Wayne is really stealing points from what Burgess Meredith did in the Rocky series.

Conway and Knotts worked well together and as solo performers. As a team they were a lot like Laurel&Hardy with Conway the dumb one who knows it and Knotts the dumb one who thinks he's a genius. This film is a great example of their team dynamic.

I like them both separate and apart and fans of both will like The Prize Fighter.

Tim Conway and Don Knotts once again make a comfortable comedy team, playing a dumb boxer and his goofy manager in a tale set in the 1930s. The two of them are struggling and starving, but catch the attention of young mobster Mike (Robin Clarke, "The Formula"), who uses them as pawns in his scheme to acquire the gym of crusty old trainer Pop Morgan (David Wayne, "Adam's Rib"). Bags (the boxer) participates in a series of fights which he doesn't know are fixed, all on the way to confronting the reigning champion, "The Butcher" (Michael LaGuardia, "Total Recall").

Filmed on location in Atlanta, this film benefits from the local atmosphere. As far as the comedy content goes, this may not be a prime Conway & Knotts vehicle, but one can certainly do worse. There are enough laughs and good moments to qualify this as pleasant, if not uproarious, fare. There is some hilarity involving Mikes' dotty, senile mother (Mary Ellen O'Neill, "Galaxy of Terror"), but this material seems to exist in a different movie altogether. Conway also concocted the story and wrote the screenplay, with co-star John Myhers ("Willard"), and he and Knotts are in typically fine form. Wayne stands out among the supporting cast, which also consists of Cisse Cameron ("Space Mutiny") as Mikes' mistreated moll, child actor George Nutting (in one of only two movie roles for him) as orphaned kid Timmy, and Irwin Keyes ("House of 1000 Corpses") as Mikes' henchman.

The Bags method of fighting is certainly good for some laughs. He mostly just runs around trying to avoid the fists of his opponent, until connecting with a supposedly superior right hook which he doesn't know is NOT that effective.

All in all, a decent comedy, geared towards a family audience and mostly avoiding too much unpleasantness.

Seven out of 10.