By – Gareth Jones

For fans of John Huston, Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, boxing movies, John Steinbeck-like stories

The New American Cinema movement in the late sixties and early seventies was not just for the new crop of American directors like Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Peter Bogdonovich.  Indeed, several Hollywood veterans were also able to create in new and exciting ways, often reinvigorating their career.  This is certainly the case with one of the grand masters John Huston.  He had directed a series of unsuccessful films in the late sixties after so many classics in the early part of his career such as The Maltese Falcon, The Asphalt Jungle, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and many others. The characters of Fat City gave Huston the opportunity to tell a story that was familiar to him and that he could challenge himself with in new ways.

That story is the tale of two boxers, one getting old at 29, Billy Tully (played to perfection by Stacy Keach) and one just beginning,18 year old Ernie Munger, (portrayed by Jeff Bridges, right after his career launching performance in The Last Picture Show).  Tully discovers Munger after he tries to return to his boxing career, one that ended tragically with a loss to a contender and also his divorce, landing him in a drunken haze.  Tully begins to think he has another chance and with the help of his old trainer Reuben (played by Nicholas Colasanto, famous as Coach on Cheers, and really his performance here is a warm up for that character) he gets the chance to fight again.  Along the way, each man also finds a love interest.  For Tully, it is fellow down on her luck drunken Ona, played by the one and only Susan Tyrell, who was nominated for an Oscar award for her incredible performance.  Sadly, her relationship with Huston was very damaging and it hurt her to such a level that she never was able to get the same roles and performances after the film. For Ernie, he hooks up with fellow teenager Faye, played by Candy Clark in her first role.  Before this Clark had just been a model, but she was a natural on the screen.  In fact, Jeff Bridges and her dated for several years after the film, in a much more positive relationship than Huston and Tyrell.

The film opens with Tully laying in bed in his dirty briefs trying to find a light for his last cigarette.  A perfect metaphor. This opening is accompanied by the Kris Kristofferson song “Help Me Make It Through the Night” which feels like it was written for this character, in spite of it coming out the year before. There is also a fantastic instrumental version of the song that opens the film showing documentary style footage of Stockton, California, the setting for the film and really a true character in the film itself with its collection of dilapidated buildings and down and out people trying to make the best of life.  The film also ends with the song creating bookend commentary that compliments the story arc perfectly.

Huston could really connect with this story as he was an amateur boxer himself in his younger years, and cast several real boxers in the film in both boxer roles and in side characters. Working with cinematographer Conrad Hall, Huston created very realistic boxing matches that precede the work of Stallone. There is one particular scene near the end with a series of freeze frames that will hit you like a ton of bricks. An astonishing technical application.

The film is based on the book by Leonard Gardner, who also wrote the script.  It reminds me tremendously of the writing of John Steinbeck, in particular Cannery Row in its respect for the people on the fringes of society just trying to survive.

Between the story, direction, the song, and the acting, Fat City is one of the best films that came out in that era and deserves to be in the same conversation of the films made by the new young guns. Huston proved that he still had some stories to tell in innovative and moving ways.