John Huston's pictures are humane. All he had was sympathy and respect for those men and women born losers, survivors, ordinary people with struggles, sacrifices, constant boredom, values, cares, hopes, little but fruitful victories, plus scattered and rare but strong connections between them, that help to make it through each day. Here was accomplished another masterful allegory of life through boxing. Poetry with no need of words.

My favourite John Huston film with amazing performances by Keach and Susan Tyrrell. Jeff Bridges is great as well. Depressing, but somewhat inspiring as well. Taken from imdb: Under the then-extant rules, Keach should have been awarded Best Actor honors from the New York Film Critics Circle for his portrayal of Tully in Fat City (1972), as it required only a plurality of the vote and Keach was the top vote-getter in the category. At the time, the NYCC was second in prestige only to the Academy Awards (and some actors and filmmakers considered it a superior honor) and was a major influence on subsequent Oscar nominations. (In the 1976 presidential election year, director Robert Altman characterized the NYFCC Awards as the 'New York primary' leading up to the Oscar 'election,' where the Golden Globes was the 'California primary.') A vocal faction of the NYFCC, dismayed by the rather low percentage of votes that would have given Keach the award, successfully demanded a rule change so that the winner would have to obtain a majority. In subsequent balloting, Keach failed to win a majority of the vote, and he lost ground to his main rival, Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972). However, Brando could not gain a majority either, and a compromise candidate, Laurence Olivier in Sleuth (1972), eventually was awarded Best Actor honors. Both Brando, who eventually won the Oscar for his come-back triumph as Don Corleone in the classic gangster picture, and Olivier were nominated for the Academy Award, but Keach was not.