Finally watched the original version of The Champ some nearly 35 years after seeing the remake that starred Jon Voight and Ricky Schroder. So I knew the ending wasn't gonna be a happy one. Wallace Beery is the title character who's fallen on hard times and Jackie Cooper is the son he got custody of after splitting from his wife who's now married to a well-off man named Tony. He drinks and gambles and that causes him trouble but Dink (Cooper's character) loves him no matter what. I'll stop there and just say this was quite a touching movie, not unlike that remake I mentioned before though I haven't seen that again for a long time. That fact that Beery was only one vote shy of fellow Oscar winner Frederic March (that's what a tie was considered then) isn't surprising since he's both a little funny and touching, same for Cooper. So on that note, I recommend this version of The Champ. P.S. One time Our Ganger Cooper appears with Marcia Mae Jones here. She was in a couple of the series' shorts after Cooper left. Also, immediately after watching this on DVD, I then listened to the "Lux Radio Theater" version on the same disc that aired on 11/13/1939 with Beery reprising his role though Dink was by then played by Bobby Larson who also appeared in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington that year. Larson's near-age friend of color, Jonah, was played on the show by Matthew "Stymie" Beard, a fellow Our Ganger of Jackie's who first performed with him in the short, Teacher's Pet. Oh, and Tony there was played by Wallace's brother, Noah, father of his same-named son who's best known as James Rockford's father, Rocky, in "The Rockford Files".
The Champ
(I) (1931)
Years after watching the 1979 remake, I finally got to see the original 1931 version of The Champ
22 November 2014
Warning: Spoilers