“The Champ” is heavy on melodrama and some could argue that it milks emotions dry. I think all of that works because we never lose our investment in the two lead characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 19, 2022

Wallace Beery, one of the finest actors In Hollywood, plays the co-starring role with Jackie. It is a real treat for film fans to see the two together.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

It's one of the best talkies of the year, and if you don't get many times your money's worth out of it, you'd better see a psychiatrist.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

The Champ may be hokum. but if so it's the sort of hokum that this old world of ours loves -- and needs.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

Was there, by any slightest chance, the tiniest bit of doubt in your mind when you heard that Wally Beery and Jackie Cooper were to be co-starred, that the picture would be a wow?

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

The MGM studio forces should be congratulated for turning out a picture, so excellent an entertainment, with so powerful a moral.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

King Vidor has taken a frail, homely story and invested it with human and frequently throbbing touches.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

Perhaps The Champ is the old Stella Dallas recipe for film-making, perhaps It is overstressjd in its emotion, perhaps it is slow and even dull in the opening reels but the punch of the finish is terrific.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

A picture which might easily have become maudlin in its appeal for tears, it has been handled with a restraint that is a credit to director and players alike.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

Despite the blatant manipulation, this movie is enjoyable, just be sure to wear your rubber boots when watching, because you'll be knee deep in sap by the time you're done with it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 8, 2020

Not a "weepie" but an emotive examination of tangled milieus.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

Not in the history of talkies was weeping so profuse and so enjoyable as at this premiere of The Champ, a production which combines the amazing talents of little Jackie Cooper with the superb histrionics of big Wallace Beery.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 8, 2020

Utterly false and thoroughly convincing, The Champ is a monument to the cinema's skill in achieving second-rate perfection.

Full Review | Dec 8, 2020

...a fine premise that's employed to watchable yet entirely unspectacular effect by King Vidor...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 26, 2020

What could've come across as schmaltz hums with the belief that what we're seeing is somehow sacred and true.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | May 23, 2020

No false attitudes, excessive expressions, nor a movement or a nuance that is not nature itself. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Feb 29, 2020

It was, from beginning to end, a moving picture, and not a photographed play, with obvious miniatures, backdrops, and stage sets.

Full Review | Jun 14, 2019

This picture is a further example of clever acting saving the day, for there is little in this narrative of horse racing and pugilistic bouts that possesses much akin to originality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 31, 2012

A good picture, almost entirely by virtue of an inspired performance by a boy, Jackie Cooper.

Full Review | Jan 31, 2012

A film with a lot of heart, unafraid to bare its emotions.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 31, 2012