The Champ

"I'm giving Dink to his mother."  Champ (Wallace Beery) is a man past his prime. He drinks too much and can't control his gambling, leaving his young son, the horribly named Dink (Jackie Cooper) to be responsible well beyond his years in taking care of him. He's a fun but…

Jesse Snoddon

I actually cried at the end. Champ is a former world-champion boxer, but now he and his kid live in poverty. Champ drinks or gambles away what little money they ever get. When the mother who left them years ago comes back rich, she wants the kid, but neither Champ nor the…

RetroHound

Director King Vidor had a knack for creating films drenched in sentimentality and manufactured nostalgia without becoming too trite or letting them slip over the edge into kitsch. The Champ is absolutely determined to make you cry, and it does an expert job of it. Jackie…

Chris Hughes

Tonally this is a bit of a mess, but everything where King Vidor peaks shows the film's greatest strengths. Every moment that Jackie Cooper shares together with Wallace Beery is very lovely, but Vidor has such a perfect eye for melodrama. It's a film that captures what…

Jaime Rebanal 🇵🇸

A more straightforward emotional family drama in the realm of Kramer vs. Kramer and other films concerned with volatile father-son relationships, The Champ functions at a more basic level, resorting to an unapologetic and plain handling of its material. It's not complicated…

legolas

Jackie Cooper's performance here is still one of, if not the best, child performance there is 🥊

Leighton Trent

This was unfortunately, an incredibly dull and boring watch for an under 90 minute long film. It kind of just slogged on, nothing was entertaining or particularly interesting. However, the story does have a lot of heart, and it does become gradually more compelling…

James

Jackie Cooper OWNS this movie. He killed me - oh my god. Pure old-school Hollywood perfection. It starts off a bit goofy - there's a looseness to it, but then Vidor turns the tables, you see how sincere the thing is, and then it starts tugging at the heartstrings and…

Robert Vaughan

Jackie Cooper is one of the greatest child actors of all time. This was the first time in my life I was rooting for a kid to get a horse.

Quintin