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At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Paul Newman spent his first five years of acting in episodes of various TV series – none of which were noteworthy. His first big screen role was in "The Silver Chalice," a 1954 film that bombed at the box office. Interestingly, Newman won the Golden Globe award that year as the most promising male newcomer. The next year in his life was spent back in the TV dramas. Then came a break with his role as Rocky Graziano (nee, Thomas Rocco Barbella) in this 1956 biopic. The movie is based on Graziano's autobiography by the same title, "Somebody Up There Likes Me." Newman gives a superb performance. I agree with a couple of other reviewers, that this is one of the best boxing movies ever made. Newman showed his acting talents in playing the complex character of the troubled Barbella, growing up during the depression years in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He nailed the accent perfectly. The movie was a smash hit, and all the cast did superbly well in their roles. Pier Angeli played his wife, Norma Unger, daughter of Jewish German immigrants. Eileen Heckart played his mother and Harold Stone played Nick, his dad. Other notable roles were Everett Soane as his trainer, Irving Cohen; and Sal Mineo as a friend from the streets, Romolo. The fight scenes seem realistic. The film, like the book, pulls no punches (what better pun considering the subject?) in portraying Rocky's rocky (oops, another natural, no?) background. The supporting cast all are very good. I don't know how much Graziano gave to this in his book, but it would have been nice to see a little more with Army Sgt. John Hyland at Leavenworth military prison. Rocky actually spent nine months there and was dishonorably discharged from the Army for going AWOL after he punched and knocked out a captain. In the movie, Hyland took Rocky under wing to condition him for a fighting career when he got out. But nothing is shown of this. During Rocky's 1947 World Middleweight title fight toward the end of the film, the camera switches to scenes of family and other folks listening in on the radio. In a few scenes, the camera shows Hyland in civilian clothing listening in a bar with other men. This man likely played a more important role in Graziano's life (and depicted thus in his autobiography) than the movie shows. Apparently, Tony Zale was originally cast to play himself in this film. But when Newman got rough while sparring with him before the filming began, Zale knocked Newman out. So, Court Shepard replaced Zale for the film's final fight scene.Graziano's life had a happy ending, as does the movie. He lost the title the very next year to Zale (1948), but continued boxing for four more years. He won 20 of his next 21 fights, most by knockouts or TKOs, and had one draw. Then, on April 16, 1952, he again fought for the Middleweight title, but was knocked out halfway through the third round by Sugar Ray Robinson. I'm pretty sure I watched that fight on TV with my dad when we lived at Ft. Riley, Kansas, where he was serving in the Army.Graziano had one more fight five months later and he lost the 10-round bout in a unanimous decision. After that, he hung up his gloves. In 1971, he was elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame. He was a very popular celebrity and appeared as a guest on various TV programs and shows. He made TV commercials and built a local pizza chain In New York – Rocky Graziano's Pizza Ring. Rocky and Norma were married nearly 47 years when he died at age 71 on May 22, 1990. His funeral Mass took place in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. This is an excellent film about a troubled kid from the streets of New York who used his fists inside the ring to turn his life around. The movie won two Oscars and was nominated for a third.

Rocky Graziano (Paul Newman) has to fights his drunken violent father as a kid and grows up to be a petty criminal. He is sent to prison where he violently resists. When he is finally released, he is immediately drafted by the Army for WWII. He goes AWOL and starts boxing. He is sentenced to Leavenworth where he continues to box. On the outside world, he continues to box, stays clean, gets married and has a family. He loses a title fight with Tony Zale. Then he gets into trouble with his past coming to haunt him.Originally set to be played by James Dean before his death, newcomer Paul Newman shows good promise. The movie is standard biopic. The acting is solid. However for a boxing movie, the boxing action is still not the best. It's old fashion intercut with other things in a montage. The most memorable hits come from the father hitting little Rocky early in the movie. This is much better as a character study and Newman shows his charms.

No need to recap the plot.Frankly, the movie made me yearn for the days of John Garfield and his epic struggles to escape the slums, (Body and Soul {1947}, Humoresque (1946), for example. No Garfield-like shading here. Instead, Newman's Graziano acts like he's on super-charge the whole time, yelling his lines, rushing frantically to and fro, while mannerisms abound as though the shadow of James Dean still looms large. This may be the only time in his marvelous career that the usually restrained actor goes way over the top. I don't know what the real Graziano was like, but I doubt he was this antic version of the Energizer Bunny.Then too, boxing movies have always been prone to falsifying the action. After all, staples of real matches such as jabbing, defense, and feeling out your opponent take up valuable screen time and are not very exciting. So even the best boxing films, such as The Set-Up (1949), are prone to substitute artless clubbing for artful punching. Here, the gap is in real evidence.The movie itself is routine, at best. Clichés abound, but there are several notable performances—Stone as the fearsome father; Heckart as the long-suffering mom; and the always reliable Everitt Sloane. Also, the movie benefits from the many New York City locations, along with some well-done studio street scenes.Though popularly received at the time (1956) when the name Graziano was still widely known, on second viewing the shortcomings are unfortunately all too apparent. Fortunately, however, actor Newman appears to have learned his lesson, which was after all, only his second feature-length film.

I find it amazing that for a sport I truly abhor that there are so many great movies about professional fighting-from "Golden Boy", "The Set-Up", "Body and Soul" and "Champion" to "The Harder They Fall" and the much later classic "Rocky", these movies delve into the psychology of the men who turn usually from the violence of the streets to end up getting paid for it. The young Paul Newman is a unique choice to be cast as the young Italian street thug who spends time in prison, gets dishonorably discharged while in basic training for World War II, yet ends up the prize-fighting champion of the world. This story of one man's rise over adversity has been told so many times, but this one avoids being manipulative in trying to win our sympathy for him. Initially, there is no sympathy for him as you see his horrendous series of street crimes, but what will win you over is his desire to change his situation, and ultimately himself. Newman, still looking far from Italian in his Chico Marx hairstyle, manages to be convincing, so eventually you forget about his famous blonde hair and blue eyes. Still in the infancy of his film career, Newman was cast in several "thug" roles ("The Desperate Hours" on Broadway and "The Helen Morgan Story" for example) before switching to troubled romantic heroes.Harold J. Stone and Eileen Heckart are outstanding as his troubled parents who seem so far apart that you instantly understand why Rocky has turned out the way he is. Stone, being cold throughout most of the film as the embittered father who was forced to give up his own career as a boxer, is first seen brutalizing the young Rocky (Terry Rangno) who breaks a shop window with boxing gloves in it, after which the cop chasing him gives up, claiming that the boy'll end up on death row at Sing Sing anyway. Heckart's mama is so grasping in a loving manner that when she finally tells Rocky that she's prepared to disown him, it is almost heartbreaking. In a year full of four outstanding movie performances, stage legend Heckart shows why she could steal every scene she ever played. Recognized for an Oscar Nomination for that year's "The Bad Seed", her grieving mother in that could be sister to this character, yet her supportive friend in "Miracle in the Rain" and the earthy waitress in "Bus Stop" show her incredible range. Heckart could take the most pathetic actors and make them identifiable.Young Sal Mineo manages to look the same throughout the film (which takes place obviously over a long period of time) but his intensity is tremendous. The gritty cinematography captures the rough lower east side, and the violence of that neighborhood (overlooked in the fun but unrealistic "Bowery Boys" movies) gives the movie a "film noir" edge. The fight scenes are truly intense and show the brutality of the sport, as well as the outrageous fans who clamor for more carnage as the blows continue to get harder and the desperation of the fighters explode. As the young wife who struggles with her own conflicting feelings towards Rocky's profession, Pier Angeli has the difficult task of taking her character past the obvious direction. She manages to instill her with a variety of strengths, weaknesses and most importantly, the love and caring that Rocky needs to feel. An important scene between Angeli and Heckart is the key to stressing how she rises above a potentially one dimensional meaningless role.Director Robert Wise, who so brilliantly directed the prize-fighting "B" feature "The Set-Up", increases the intensity here. There are many elements utilized in his treatment of tough teen New Yorkers that would be evident in his film version of the musical masterpiece "West Side Story".