The Champ (1931)
Jackie Cooper, I hope you eventually sought therapy and/or revenge for how Hollywood treated you!!!
Get your chin up.
The Champ (1931) - watched 8/22/24
Director: King Vidor
Writer: Frances Marion
Starring: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates
Available to watch? To rent or buy
First Time Watch? Yes
I badly want to use this opportunity to talk about Frances Marion, the prolific writer of The Champ. Frances Marion penned over 325 scripts in her lifetime, and became the first writer (let alone the first female writer) to win two Academy Awards for screenwriting—her first was in 1930 for The Big House (Best Adaptation) and her second came for The Champ in 1932 (Best Original).
My dilemma in writing about Frances Marion now, today, is that I wanted to learn more about her before writing about her all willy-nilly, by both reading Cari Beauchamp’s book Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, and by reading Marion’s own book, Off With Their Heads!: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood. Both books are currently in limbo in my local public library’s system, but the newsletter must go on! So here’s a Cliff’s Notes version of what I want to say about Frances Marion—at some point I’ll revisit her and her extraordinary life once those books come in, and hopefully I can write about her in a way that does her justice.
I find it so interesting, and at times difficult to reconcile, that today it’s difficult for women writers to break through in the film industry, yet one of the most influential screenwriters of the early film era was a woman. Taken under the wing of Marie Dressler, Marion started out in Hollywood as an actress, and made fast friends with other well-known actresses at the time, including Mary Pickford. But it wasn’t until she met and worked with Lois Weber that she discovered she far preferred working behind the camera. Eventually she went on to write scripts exclusively for Mary Pickford, and the duo built a fanbase that made them both bankable commodities well into the 1920s. Her last collaboration with Pickford was also the actress’s final film, 1933’s Secrets.
After that point, Marion became frustrated with Hollywood, particularly as the studio system took shape and stifled her creativity. Opportunities for Marion dwindled, and the work that she did contribute would often go uncredited, or have her credit shared with male colleagues, as Hollywood distanced itself from the work of women creatives altogether.
And it’s like… why??? These women were making you money, you weirdos!
After her film career effectively came to an end in the 1940s, Marion continued writing novels and plays. In 1937, she also notably wrote the guide How to Write and Sell Film Stories, considered one of the first instructional screenwriting pieces. With the trajectory of her career, and through her friendships and professional alliances with other women, Frances Marion knew the importance of imparting knowledge and influencing future generations of creatives. It’s too bad Hollywood didn’t continue to embrace and nourish her talent, or the talents of many other creative women at the time. Imagine how many other great films by women filmmakers we could have had, were it not for the male egos that dominated the studio system at the time.
For what it’s worth, Frances Marion, to me, you will always be famous.
Go on, get that lip up before you lose it.
Andy “Champ” Purcell (Wallace Beery) is a down-on-his-luck former heavyweight boxing champion, living with his son, Dink (Jackie Cooper) in Tijuana, Mexico. Champ is in the middle of training, trying to get back into the boxing ring. Dink is optimistic and encouraging of his father, despite Champ’s rampant alcoholism, the consequences of which Dink is constantly exposed to. Being Champ’s only family member, the young boy is often the one having to remind Champ not to drink too much, and he’s always left cleaning up after his father when he does. In spite of these issues, Dink looks up to his father and thinks the world of him. Likewise, Champ is a loving, if troubled and misguided father to Dink.
In addition to his alcoholism, Champ is addicted to gambling. He wins big one night and buys a horse for Dink that he’s been promising to him. Dink names the horse “Little Champ” and the two train the horse to race. Unbeknownst to Champ and Dink, Dink’s estranged mother, Linda (Irene Rich) is in attendance at Little Champ’s first race, with her wealthy husband, Tony (Hale Hamilton). Tony makes an arrangement with Champ to have Dink meet Linda for the first time (I’m sorry if this sentence makes no sense—these names are just so silly).
Dink meets up with Linda at her lavish estate, and while he understands and accepts that she’s his mother in a logical sense, he doesn’t feel any emotion toward her, and is largely unresponsive to her attempts to bond. He’s just kinda into all the cool candy and gum and cigarettes left around the house in little stash boxes that he doesn’t hesitate to take. It really kind of rules that Dink ends up leaving Linda’s house with pockets full of candy and cigs. That’s king shit, right there.
Despite Dink’s total lack of feeling toward her, Linda feels compelled to take custody of Dink to give him a better education and ultimately a better, more well-adjusted life. Tony approaches Champ in the middle of a night of gambling to propose allowing him to take Dink back to Linda. He refuses, but when he ends up losing Little Dink in a bet, he crawls back to Linda and asks her for money to buy the horse back. She does so, but dumbass Champ just ends up gambling the money away. In a drunken, angry stupor, Champ ends up getting into a brawl and hauled off to jail—Dink and his friends all witness seeing Champ getting arrested, which humiliates and disappoints Dink, but he’s still attached to the Champ. He visits Champ in jail, and in an absolutely devastating scene, Champ rejects him, telling Dink that he doesn’t want him anymore.
Dink goes to live with Linda and Tony. On the train ride to his new home, Linda attempts to assume a maternal role to Dink, but he’s still unresponsive and awkward around her. He ends up sneaking off the train and makes it back to Tijuana (Like… how??) to his father, now out of jail and getting ready for an important fight.
The night of the fight arrives, and Linda and Tony are there to show their support, which is either very healthy or very weird, nothing in between. The fight is important not just for Champ’s career and livelihood, but winning the fight means winning back Little Champ, and ultimately making Dink happy. The fight… does not go well for Champ, but he eventually pulls through and wins the match. After the fight, Champ brings the horse over to Dink, but then collapses shortly thereafter, cutting the celebrations short.
Champ is carried into his dressing room, and Dink follows him in. It’s very quickly determined that Champ will not survive his injuries long—he tells Dink to keep his chin up, then delivers the heartbreaking line “I won the fight, didn’t I, Dink?” Then, he’s gone. Dink is inconsolable—everyone in the room tries to console him, but he rejects each person, one by one, crying, “I want the Champ!” over and over. It’s honestly… so much. Linda shows up at the door to the dressing room—now all he’s got, Dink runs into her arms, crying out “Mother!” She embraces Dink and consoles him, then carries him away.
I could grow up to be somebody, somebody like you.
Once again, a Jackie Cooper performance has completely shattered me. Apparently directors just loved torturing the poor kid to get a more convincing performance out of him—for The Champ, the story goes that King Vidor apparently told Cooper that he was firing a crew member that he had bonded with in order to trigger him to cry. Jackie Cooper, I am so sorry the adults in your life were such awful pieces of shit to you.
The chemistry between Cooper as Dink and Wallace Beery as the Champ was sparkling and heartfelt and special. Even though you know, as the spectator, that the Champ isn’t the best caretaker for Dink, you root for him to do better. Dink’s love for his father has you convinced that there is no one else he could really have a better life with, or feel more love from. Cooper and Beery would work together on a few more films, despite the fact that Beery vowed never to work with Cooper again, and showed a general distaste for working with child actors. Beery was generally, uh, Not a Good Person, so in THIS house it’s team Jackie Cooper all day every day. Had I been writing this newsletter on a typewriter in 1931, I would have urged my subscribers to protect him at all costs.
The Champ ended up winning two Academy Awards—one for Best Actor (Wallace Beery) and one for Best Original Story (Frances Marion). Beery’s being an irredeemable asshole unfortunately doesn’t discount his acting skills—and we will see this happen over and over in Hollywood as the worst dudes imaginable are continually given their flowers. I wish I could say Wallace Beery was a bad actor and gave a terrible performance in The Champ, but unfortunately I’m bad at lying. His performance is very convincing and effective! It never once crossed my mind that he could have had anything but soaring, everlasting love in his heart for sweet little Dink!
I also found Frances Marion’s writing here to be powerful, even more so than what she gave us with The Big House. While there were certain aspects of The Big House that didn’t work for me, I was all-in on the story of The Champ, and the script also gave us some incredible lines of dialogue that are still lodged in my brain, several days after having watched it. The final scene is so poignant and powerful, and couldn’t be achieved if either of these elements, the script and the acting, weren’t in peak form.
It’s possible that I’m rating The Champ higher than I normally would based solely on the fact that, out of the last several films I’ve watched for this project, this is the first one to make me feel something other than boredom and/or rage. Even Bad Girl, while I liked it fine enough, didn’t really move me one way or another, which is almost worse than hating it. It’s too early to tell if The Champ should have been the best picture winner, but I certainly think it was a worthy contender.
I won the fight, didn’t I, Dink?
Quick Facts:
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, won 2
Best Picture
Best Director (King Vidor)
Best Actor (Wallace Beery, won)
Best Original Story (Frances Marion, won)
Wallace Beery actually got one less vote than Fredric March (for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) in the 1931/1932 Academy Awards voting for best actor, but the rules at the time considered anyone with one or two votes less than the leader as being in a tie. So both got Academy Awards.
Wallace Beery, in addition to his previously detailed poor behavior, apparently thought Jackie Cooper “stole” too many scenes in this film, and afterward had a clause added to his MGM contract stipulating that no juvenile performer would be allowed a close-up in his films. What a big baby bitch.
The original ending had the Champ lose his final match before his death. Audiences at the time thought this was way too big of a bummer, with no payoff, so scenes were re-shot to have the Champ win his last fight.
Stray Observations:
87 minutes! Incredible. Love it already.
Unrelated to the movie really, but the thumbnail on Apple is actually from the 1979 Jon Voigt version. I think this is stupid & it sucks.
Jackie Cooper 🥹🥹🥹
I need to watch a Jackie Cooper movie that’s way more upbeat, I can’t handle him acting out trauma anymore!! He’s too good at it & it hurts my heart!
When Dink stuffs his pockets with gum, candy, and cigarettes… awesome. What a king.
The relationship between the Champ and Dink is really sweet… when it’s not extremely toxic.
How exactly did Dink get back to Tijuana from San Diego by himself??? hOW??
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Next Up: Five Star Final (1931)