Fat City

Director John Huston really achieves an authentic, lived-in feel with his 1972 film FAT CITY.  Every interior and exterior reeks of ten cent living.  Leonard Gardner, who adapted his 1969 novel of the same name, set this downbeat story in the skid row of Stockton, California, and while many of the original locations were gone by the time Huston was shooting, what is visible is a perfect milieu for characters that can only be described as broken.  Irreparable, maybe.   I read that the area was later bulldozed for city redevelopment.  For new places, places in which people like Billy Tully and Oma Lee Greer would never be welcome, or feel at home.

Tully (Stacy Keach) is a boxer who hasn't been in the ring in some time.  Alcohol tends to distract.  There was a severance with his manager, Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto).  He lost a wife along the way.  For work he is out in the fields picking fruit, but despite his malaise the desire to fight is still within, and further stoken when he happens upon Ernie (Jeff Bridges), a young upstart he recognizes as having a rare talent with his gloves.  He encourages the boy to hook up with Ruben, and eventually finds his own way back.

Ernie's girlfriend Faye (Candy Clark) is pregnant, and he's unsure he's ready to settle down.  Tully begins a relationship with pathetic, defensive barfly Oma (Susan Tyrell), whose boyfriend is in jail.  Both couplings are presented honestly, without even a hint of cheap sentiment.  Keach and Tyrell have several lengthy, blisteringly realistic moments together, torn from the pages of life, no matter the social strata.  The performances are all fine.  Colasanto, best known for his role as "Coach" on Cheers (and who also appeared in another boxing movie called RAGING BULL), was so right.  Former boxer Huston, whose film is easily one of the best of his late period, guides everyone perfectly.

FAT CITY is a boxing movie, at least nominally, but like any great film, it's about the souls, the moments outside the arena.  This is not a movie about scrappy heroes or come from behind close shaves.  It's about the downtrodden who missed out on the so-called American Dream.  But Billy still has hopes and dreams, even as he drifts further away from any sense of hope.  This is one of the bleakest, and most clear eyed takes on the marginalized I've seen.  Billy's final speech is as ironic as it is heartbreaking.