I really enjoyed it. There's lots of good stuff to it, photographic effects, expression, humor, drama.
The whole fight scene was really great. Very intense and nice.
But like I said the other day the woman the main character was fighting for wasn't any good. So when it came time for the "happy ending" and she ended up with her husband, it felt very empty. As in "Why would he want this tramp for a wife?" Even though I believe in forgiveness and all that. But there wasn't really any explanation as to why she turned from the seducer back to her husband. She just did.
I was looking at a site that's a Hitchcock wiki, and they have an article from back when the film was made, in the 1920s. I wanted to feature part of it that made this same kind of point about the woman:
The champion lays siege to his sparring-partner's wife, who seems to be in danger of yielding to him for no more charming reason than that he is a champion. One-Round Jack thereupon realizes that what is expected of him is that he shall himself rise to championship rank and fight for his woman. Why he thought it worth while, Heaven knows ; though she is our heroine, the lady seems to be an avaricious and silly minx from whose erratic affections a man might well have been glad to be free. However, a "fight for a woman" was considered necessary, and One-Round Jack obligingly went into training for a grand climax at the Albert Hall. (c) The Times (22/Nov/1927)That's really good, and so true. This is definitely a flawed movie in that regard. Her "erratic affections a man might well have been glad to be free." LOL. And "Why he thought it worth while, Heaven knows." True!
Still, it's a fine film for lots of other reasons. I like all the other fighters, including prominently a black guy. It's nice to see him treated well and with a lot of camaraderie. There is one "N-word" reference to him in one of the titles, but I get the impression, sort of like Mark Twain or Joseph Conrad, that they didn't really mean anything terrible by the usage.
