The Set-Up

“I want a man … not a human punching bag!”

Stoker (Robert Ryan) is an aging boxer on the bottom of a small-time card, and his manager Tiny (George Tobias) has already taken a gangster's money to see him lose. Nobody tells Stoker, who still believes tonight's fight can go his way. Robert Wise keeps the night moving from the ring to the crowd to the rooms where Julie (Audrey Totter) waits, a marriage worn down to what each of them can still bear to say.