The King in the Ring

When most people think of the King and the fistic arts, they think of fat 70's Elvis and his bizarre, drugged-out kung fu fascination. And understandably so - all that stuff about him keeping the Memphis Mafia up at all hours of the night so they could spar with him in his Graceland dojo is hilarious and weird.

But before the King was a beer-bellied martial artist, he was the star of about a thousand terrible movies. One of those was Kid Galahad, a 1962 musical remake of a 1937 boxing picture that starred the terrifying trio of Bogey, Bette Davis and Edward G. Robinson.

The Elvis version doesn't have near that kind of silver screen royalty to offer, although it does have Charles Bronson as a gruff trainer (who delivers the best line of the movie about two minutes into it - "There ain't nothing worse than a suspicious dame first thing in the morning" - truer words have never been spoken), Ed Asner in a bit part, the one and only Mushy Callahan doing a cameo turn as a referee, and of course, Old Blood and Guts himself, a.k.a... the King. Elvis plays a young G.I. just out of the Army who shows up at a boxing retreat in his hometown looking for work as a mechanic. He takes a job as a sparring partner instead, and lo and behold, the kid can fight, in the true cinematic Rocky style no less - he can't defend himself to save his life, takes a horrible beating in there, but his chin is made of granite and he can bang like a wrecking ball. Soon after the revelatory sparring session, he comes to the aid of a sharp-tongued damsel in distress and she hits him with a tart, "thanks Galahad," in front of the gym's clientele. A star is born.

From there the plot twists and turns in meandering fashion - there's gambling, mob heavies packing heat, corruption in the fight world, vintage car restoration, pre-sexual-revolution sexual mores, an unexpectedly graphic "they took my thumb Charlie" scene (Bronson gets his hands broken because he won't help the mob get Galahad to throw a fight), hand-holding, church-going romance and, of course, a lot of gratuitous singing. All the boxers like to get together at night, as boxers often do at training camp, to sing together on the front porch. In this regard, Kid Galahad proves to be more than just a discovery with his fists.

But enough chitchat - let's get down to brass tacks. The King is not bad in the ring, not bad at all. He was trained for the role by the great Al Silvani, who at one time or another trained Jake LaMotta, Fritzie Zivic, Henry Armstrong, Carmen Basilio and about a million others. But Elvis clearly gave Silvani some decent raw material to work with. He moves well, which was to be expected with Elvis. In fact, I'm always struck when watching Elvis movies at his innate gracefulness when he's doing the most mundane things. The guy had rhythm, no doubt. He also looks like he had a natural straight right hand. There's a good training scene with Bronson where he's punishing the pads with one right after another that seemed to have legitimate pop (he's wearing a sleeveless turtleneck at the time, which kind of diminishes the air of ferocity, but only slightly). At first I thought his left was a complete disaster, but then I saw it was just a ploy. In the beginning of the movie he throws the jab in this spastic convulsion that looks more like an abbreviated right cross borne of a childhood palsy. But by the end of the movie he's snapping a respectable jab, and that's the idea - he's learning. One of his old sparring partners and singing buddies meets up with him and says, "where'd you get that jab, Galahad?"

You do see the beginnings of the beefy Elvis in his face in this movie, but he looks slender and passable as a boxer in the fight scenes. The final showdown pits Kid Galahad against one Ramon "Sugarboy" Romero. Kid Galahad vs. Sugarboy Romero... tell me, No Masians, doesn't that sound like a bout you'd want to see? It's actually such a respectable ring donnybrook that I'm not even going to spoil it for you and tell you who wins. I'll just tell you this to wet your whistle: KO in the 3rd.
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This post is part of our ongoing partnership with The Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival which runs from April 25 to May 26 right here in NYC.