The Ring is a 1952 Film Noir Sports Story film directed by Kurt Neumann and based off a novel by Irvin Shulman. Starring Lalo Rios, Rita Moreno and Jack Elam.
The movie centers around a Mexican-American youth by the name of Tomas Cantanios (Lalo Rios) who becomes a Boxer after being picked up by a Boxing manager who had an eye for talent after seeing him get into a street fight with a few racists, he gives Tomas a shot in the ring under the name Tommy Kansas to the chagrin of his father and his girlfriend Lucy (Rita Moreno) . Tomas boxes to get his family out of poverty, to prove himself in White America, and more importantly for own self-importance.
While it isn't the first Boxing movie to be made, The Ring is the earliest films to explore the struggles of Mexicans and Chicanos living in white society in The '50s.
Not to be confuse with the Boxing movie of the same name The Ring (1927) or the Japanese horror film franchise The Ring.
Tropes:
- Bittersweet Ending: Tomas loses in humiliating fashion in the main card fight that would've made him big, and promises to quit Boxing forever. However he finds a happy ending in his unemployed father finally getting the chance to run a successful business stand with the money he made from Boxing and managing to reconcile with Lucy after coming to blows the entire movie.
- Gay Bar Reveal: The Champion's manager threatens his opponent's manager for his failure in getting his boxer ready for the main event about revealing an ambiguous detail about him going to a bar with another man.
- Hope Spot: After some renewed hope in making something for himself Tomas promises his coaches he will listen to their every direction from then on and trains harder than ever. When it's finally time for his next fight he is suddenly placed as the main card's challenger as a last minute substitute and gets knocked out.
- Poor, Predictable Rock: Tomas' Boxing style consists of swinging and swarming hooks and drowning his opponents with punches with barely any defense of his own. His rough style won him early fights and fans but his coach warns him multiple times to fight smart or else he will lose against intelligent and more experienced opponents later down the line which is exactly what happens and Tomas does not get any better.
- Pride Before a Fall: After winning 8 fights, Tomas impatiently demands his managers for a chance to make it big. In the undercard fight he was waiting for he gets his ass handed to him in an unanimous decision. It gets worse for him from then on.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The white policeman who treats Tomas and his Mexican friends respectfully and forces the racist Beverly Hill restaurant to take their order after refusing the serve the boys. He even sticks around to make sure they get their food and tells them not to give a big tip for lousy service. Tomas' friends seem to think he only treated them well because Tomas was a local celebrity.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Tomas begins losing his fights when his street fighting style stops working against better boxers and refusing more defensively and intelligently. In the last fight both sides agrees for the champion to take it easy on Tomas the first couple rounds and for both fighters to put on a show for the crowd, but when Tomas desires to fight on his own terms with his usual style, the champion quickly knocks him out.
- Token Minority: An African-American boxer named Chocolate Ganz hands Tomas his first loss after he requests to fight in a Semi-match too early.
