The Set-Up

Robert Wise's The Set-Up (1949) was, along with Josef von Sternberg's Macao (1952), among the very last great movies to come out of RKO. Indeed, it might be the best movie that the studio issued after Citizen Kane. Its arrival on DVD is long overdue, and the producers have made a sincere (if incomplete) effort at making it special by including a commentary track by Wise and Martin Scorsese. Wise, who is nearly 90 years old at this writing, provides a nice insightful commentary, explaining the evolution of the movie and his thinking behind it, while Scorsese actively compares the movie with various other cinematic creations -- the only flaw in these commentaries, between Wise's leisurely recollections (and expressions of satisfaction at the way various shots work), is that none of the extraordinary players, apart from Robert Ryan, get discussed at all; Wallace Ford, Audrey Totter, James Edwards, Phillip E. Pine (who looked like a young Victor Mature in those days), Percy Helton, George Tobias, Herbert Anderson, and Hal Baylor all deserve some acknowledgement of the excellence of their work. In that sense, this is a pure director's commentary, one that ignores the selection made by the director of the actors that populate the self-contained world of the movie. Scorsese waxes in awe of Wise's work, using The Set-Up as the jumping-off point and recalls using his professional contact with Boris Levin as a way of absorbing some of the best things he saw in Wise's work. There are, unfortunately, long stretches in which there is no commentary at all, and those holes should have been filled. One gets the feeling that a lot of Wise's commentary over the fight sequence was cut heavily, given the way that his remarks come back 43 minutes in, after many minutes of silence. Scorsese regales us with stories of his work on Raging Bull and how he had to treat that film completely differently from what Wise did here, and also about his childhood in Little Italy and his father's love of boxing -- why we don't hear about the editing of the fight sequences near the end and the intercutting between the fighters and the audience members screaming for blood is a mystery. Beyond that, the source print itself looks wonderful, but it ought to, as the film has long been available in crisp new 35mm prints for theatrical showings. This was one movie that RKO and its successors, Turner Entertainment and Time Warner, have taken care of. The 72-minute film has been given an extremely generous 20 chapters, all well-chosen, and the full-screen (1.33:1) image puts even the excellent late '80s laserdisc edition to shame. The only flaws there are the very low volume on the audio level (easily compensated for on your own volume control) and the absence of a trailer. The disc opens automatically to a simple menu with the commentary track as the sole bonus feature and optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles.