Champion (United Artists) (1949)

Gals Love Kirk! Kirk Douglas’ sensational rise to stardom has won the intense acclaim of the nation’s female audiences. Plan to capitalize on his popularity with the girls in one or all of these ways: 1. Invite a local girls group to organize a “Kirk Douglas Fan Club.” Get a pair of Ever- last boxing gloves to be autographed by all fan club members and mailed to Kirk Douglas in Hollywood. Get newspaper coverage on this. Offer photo of Kirk Douglas to officers of club; use stills of him from exchange set. 2. If there are any female critics on your local newspapers, plan to screen the picture for them earlier then usual. Following the screening regale the critics at a luncheon dur¬ ing which, if time and circumstances permits, a long distance telephone interview with Kirk Douglas, may possibly be effected. Post Card Here’s a post card which can he reprinted in quantity for distribution via your mail¬ ing lists or as a blotter give¬ away in beauty parlors, restau¬ rants, schools, offices. Mat (30 Interview Wives And Sweethearts! An interesting women’s page feature or radio interview could be developed by obtaining inter¬ views with wives and sweethearts of local fighters. Arrange for a luncheon, party or private screen¬ ing which girls could attend with newspaper and radio reporters. Idea of interviews would be to get the feelings of the girls as they watch a fight in which their hus¬ bands or beaux are participating. WOMEN COMMENTATORS Aim for newspaper and air breaks angled to the women by women radio commentators, news¬ paper columnists, women’s page editors, and women reporters. Ar¬ range for a special showing of the film to which this group is invited. Suggest that they editorialize on the picture from the woman’s re¬ action to prizefights, prizefighters and the romantic or marital prob¬ lems faced by the women in the lives of men dedicated to the fight profession. ft THE MAKING OF A CHAMPION: A Picture Story of the Ring Lardner Classic, Cham¬ pion," starring Kirk Douglas, with Marilyn Maxwell, Arthur Kennedy, Lola Albright and Paul Stewart. Traveling to Los Angeles by boxcar to take over a business he thinks he owns, Midge Kelly (Kirk Douglas) gets a rough deal from a couple of strangers. Minus his last ten dollars, he is thrown out with his crippled brother, Connie. They are given a lift to Kansas City by a fighter, Johnny Dunne (John Day) and his girl-friend Grace Diamond (Marilyn Maxwell). In Kansas City Midge tries to earn some money by signing on for a fight in which he is viciously mauled, and is furious when the manager gyps him out of part of the amount agreed upon. His talent for fighting catches the attention of Arthur Haley (Paul Stewart) who offers to train him, but Midges refuses and goes on to Los Angeles. In L. A. Midge finds himself cheated again. The roadside eatery which he thought he had bought from a buddy in the Navy, isn't his after all. Penniless, Connie and he go to work for the present proprietor. Both brothers fall in love with the proprietor's daughter, Emma (Ruth Roman), but she favors Midge and is forced to marry him by her suspicious father. Thinking the wedding a put-up job, Midge leaves Emma, who is bewildered and hurt, directly after the ceremony. He finds Haley and goes into vigorous training, emerging a top rank fighter. In his first championship fight he K.O.'s Johnny Dunne, and not only takes the title from him, but his scheming girl¬ friend, Grace Diamond, as well. Winning this title was against the orders of the "syndicate" who had ordered Midge to throw the fight to Dunne. Blackballed, he turns Haley out and signs up with big-shot promoter Jerome Harris (Luis Van Rooten). Grace is given the air too, and Midge now makes a big play for Harris' socialite wife, Palmer (Lola Albright). Ambitious and greedy, Midge gives Palmer up when Harris offers him the chance for high stakes and another championship bout. Connie, indignant and sick at the way Midge treats those who have been kind to him, tries to reason with him, but Midge, inflated by his own importance and indifferent to other people's hurts, knocks Connie down. Connie, still in love with Emma, brings her to Chicago to stay with his mother who is very ill. She dies before Midge can return home. Once there he agrees to give Emma a divorce so that she can marry Connie. They join him in New York while he is training for the champion¬ ship bout and he makes another play for Emma, which Emma repulses. Realizing that Midge is in bad shape, Haley, who has come back to train him, begs him to withdraw. Furious, Midge refuses. He goes into the ring against a revenge-mad opponent and gets a brutal going-over. Feeling instinctively^ - that this may be his final bout, Midge fights with all the tenacity he can summon and comes out of the ring triumphant — still the winner. ft. ■ r»* ._Use ill newspaper as a two-day serial or a single-day feature. Both strips on U.l ( C A \ Story-ln-Pictures: one mat; inc i„de S art oni y . 1X131 ' J>v Page Six