Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

mmallon4 I've seen many boxing films despite having no real interest in the sport yet I find they often make for great stories. I consider The Prizefighter and the Lady to be one of the great unsung boxing films. The cinematography in the boxing arenas is gorgeous; you can feel the grit and grime of the smoke filled atmosphere. Plus are the fight scenes themselves real? They look that way. I just wish the film could have done without its pointless musical number.What strikes me most about The Prizefighter and the Lady is the intriguingly pathetic in a way love story. A woman who has fallen in love with a dunce of a jock, a man who doesn't know any better and she is fully aware of it but can't help that she has fallen for him; you really can feel the raw sexual attraction between these two. It's not your typical swooning love story and she isn't exactly ecstatic about announcing her love to her former crime boss lover who worships and adores her but is also not your typical gangster. MGM was also known for their glamorous stars yet here is Myrna Loy appearing dowdy and I suspect at times not be wearing any makeup.

MisterWhiplash Max Baer may not be a name a lot of people remember today (he didn't stick out as powerfully in the long-run of the public consciousness as Joe Louis for example, but it may depend on who you talk to). But in his time he was a very popular boxer, and he shows in The Prizefighter and the Lady that he could hold his own very well as an actor - this is significant because he is put as a co-lead with Myrna Loy, one of the great actresses of her time in Hollywood (or any time). The story is very simple, though there's some deep emotions running through: a boxer meets a woman by chance (a road accident actually, from a car Belle's in that swerves off the road). He brings her back home, she's alright, but he asks her to come and check out a fight that he'll be in. Belle does, and it's something that makes her a little uneasy possibly, but Steve Morgan is one helluva guy to keep persisting, and charmer as well, and they somehow find each other at a club where she's singing. Oh, and she's technically with some vaguely criminal element (what he does isn't entirely clear, but whatever).Somehow, very quickly, she decides to marry him. This is where the complications set in for them, since he's got a wandering eye for other ladies. I wondered why it was so quick for her to marry him, and other characters ask this question of her. She says something to the effect of looking into his eyes and seeing a kid she'd want to protect or take care of or something. It doesn't seem very credible, but I went with it. What unfolds is somewhat predictable, but not in a way that's written poorly, and certainly the acting helps: Belle catches Steve in one lie, lets him off (there's a scene where she's in bed and the way she confronts him isn't as angry but just as stern and disappointed, but willing to forgive, it may be my favorite acted scene in the movie), and then when she catches him again that's it and she leaves him. But what about the next big fight against Primo Carnera? I think that because Baer really does sell the emotions of this guy - there are times that Dyke's camera just lays on his face as he thinks of something, and it feels real, like he's not faking it - and can deliver the dialog with a great amount of believability, he's a natural for the role. That he doesn't have to stretch too far as a boxer likely helps, but with Loy there she must have helped to keep him at ease and be natural as he is as well. Other actors around them are fairly standard (Walter Huston as the Professor is fine, but not as great as one might think), but it's just a pleasure to see Loy on screen in a role where she can be naturally beautiful and sexy and deliver a good song (albeit two different times which is odd) and yet is still interesting in the climax.By the final fight it seems fairly clear what the trajectory will be, but maybe that's not a bad thing and the director and writers get a lot of good, conventional movie mileage out of the fall and rise element in just this final fight. It actually became intense, and I have to wonder if other boxing movies in decades to come (maybe even Rocky to a small extent) looked to something like The Prizefighter and the Lady as an example of how to do it. I wouldn't say it's a lost classic or anything, and there's a point midway through where the movie just stops for a ridiculous musical number (!) which is kind of fun but strange to see for how long it goes for. But if you want a sweet little movie about characters being good or disappointing to others, then this is something to check out.

blanche-2 Max Baer is the prizefighter and Myrna Loy is the lady in "The Prizefighter and the Lady," a 1933 film also starring Walter Huston and Otto Kruger. Loy plays a singer who's seeing Otto Kruger and singing in his club - she has a rich mezzo voice (courtesy of Bernice Alstock). She meets handsome Baer, who pursues her until she marries him. It's not all roses once she learns that he plays around.This is a fascinating as well as entertaining film. Loy is extremely beautiful and lovely in her role, and Huston is his usual excellent self, as is Otto Kruger. The fascinating part is Baer, the champion fighter whose character was unfairly decimated in "Cinderella Man" - I hope his family objected. Baer was an extremely colorful character out of the ring but never got over killing Frank Campbell during a fight - he put Campbell's children through college. Here he plays something closer to himself, an amiable playboy with a mean punch. His appearance in a vaudeville act is almost as impressive as his fighting. In "The Prizefighter and the Lady," as in real life, he fights Primo Carnera, as he would a year later. Carnera refused to appear in the film as originally written, where he would be knocked out. I thought Baer was big until I saw Carnera - WHOA. The screen fight is very effective.There are several real sports figures in the film besides Carnero - Jack Dempsey, who helped Baer make a comeback later on when he started telegraphing his punches, and also James Jeffries and Frank Moran. If you're a prize fighter historian, this is the movie for you.Baer went on to make other movies, in fact, he was known as a frustrated performer. His most notable appearance was in Bogart's last film, "The Harder They Fall." By then, of course, his screen persona was a little different. I don't actually agree with one of the comments about the film - I think "The Prizefighter and the Lady," despite the star performances, would have been fairly routine without him. As an added plus for baby boomers - he's Jethro's dad, after all.

Karen Green (klg19) Max Baer, Myrna Loy, and Otto Kruger deliver worthy performances in this curiosity of a film. Clearly it was made and distributed "pre-Code," as Myrna Loy's character displays a certain...moral laxity that would not have gone unpunished a few years later. Kruger's tough guy is also unusually nuanced for a gangster of this period.But the real surprise--and delight--is Baer. He acts, he sings, he dances, and he does it all as convincingly as he fights in the climactic bout. In that bout he takes on then heavyweight champ Primo Carnera. I found myself on the edge of my seat as I waited to see which of these two renowned boxers would be the one to post an on-screen loss. The resulting decision is best explained by this entry in the American Film Institute Catalog: "Professional heavyweight boxer Max Baer made his screen debut in the film. At the time of the film's production, Primo Carnera, who also made his screen debut in the picture, was the world's heavyweight boxing champion. Baer was considered the main contender for Carnera's crown, and in 1934, he defeated Carnera for the title. Variety notes that Carnera refused to be knocked out at the end of the film and agreed to the draw decision in the script only after the studio added an extra $10,000 to his $35,000 salary. Hollywood Reporter notes that Baer was 'mutilated' for the first time in his two-year boxing career when he had two teeth knocked out during a staged fight. According to the modern interview with Myrna Loy, Baer studied Carnera's boxing techniques during the filming and later used this 'scouting' information to beat Carnera. In March 1934, Daily Variety announced that the picture had been banned in Germany because Baer was Jewish." That last line is quite the kicker, isn't it? All in all, this is a film that's worth giving time to.