Product Details

• Actors: Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, Candy Clark, Nicholas Colasanto
• Directors: John Huston
• Writers: Leonard Gardner
• Producers: John Huston, David Dworski, Ray Stark
• Format: Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English, Spanish
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: June 22, 1994
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302874807
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #232,913 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Boxing without Don King., April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fat City [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a great grim movie. Huston did a heckuva job adapting Gardner's novel, but he started with grim material and went deeper into it. One memorable scene is when Keech manages to shake off his wine hangover and walks outside his transient hotel to try and make a new start on his life. He boldy heads out on the sidewalk, does a bit of bobbing and weaving on the curb. He's ready to turn over that new leaf but looks around at the city, and you can watch the wheels turn in his head as the he decides to go back inside. Punchdrunk. Rummy. It didn't take long to whip him this round, and all his rounds are pretty much like this. But he doesn't quit, the fight is still in him. The rage is there, but the skill and conditioning is long gone, so are his chances. They can beat him, they could kill him but they don't bother. The thing is, you can knock him down but he won't stay down, and sometimes that's all it takes. Between the white port in the alley, working the onion fields and listening to the old boxers talking about their lives, you wonder just what he's really teaching his new protege', and why either one even bothers. It's called life. It's not much but it's all we get, so take a tip from an old pro and don't stay on the canvas. Susan Tyrell does a great job, deserved her Oscar nomination, but reminded me of too many former flames perched on that barstool. Hmmm. Perhaps I'm trapped in the same...whack! Ooof,I didn't see that one coming. Life keeps hitting me with so many lefts, I'm begging for a right. If you're able to extract inspiration from a movie filled with scenes from a very tough life, watch Fat City. If you're looking for something fluffy, ain't nothin' here but a scram. Take it on the arches, pal.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 3 Stellar performances, September 26, 2005

By 

ncmoviefan (Kannapolis, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fat City (DVD)

The only reason this product isn't getting five stars from me is the lack of extras. This is a much-overlooked film from one of our greatest directors, John Huston, who managed to get stellar performances from all three leads. Stacy Keach has never been better playing a "down on his luck" ex-fighter who has fallen into the clutches of alcoholism and seems to be satified with his fate. When he finds a young fighter in the form of Jeff Bridges in one of his early "star in the making" roles, he sees the hope of redemption. However he must first overcome the life he has willingly let himself wallow in, and one of the biggest obstacles to overcome is his enabler, played to perfection by the always magnificent Susan Tyrrell. Ms. Tyrell was at her peak in this Oscar-nominted performance and is one of the cinema's truly individual and singular actresses. Her portrayal of Keach's alcoholic "girlfriend" epitomizes the despair and hopelessness of someone who has lost their way in life and tries desperately to find it in a bottle. Even Meryl Streep's Oscar-nominated performance in Ironweed can't compare to Tyrrell's depiction of one of life's outcasts "on the skids" and apparently resigned to her fate. She is by far the main reason to see Fat City and to seek out her other performances, which include another Oscar-nominated one in Another Man, Another Chance. John Huston definitely elicited 3 stellar perfomances in Fat City and for that alone this film resonates long after the end-credits. A true standout!

25 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutal Reality Brilliantly Portrayed, February 2, 2002

By 

William Hare (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fat City [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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.