{ "id": "ep3x8bp1jg", "slug": "the-champ-1931-film", "title": "The Champ (1931 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1940s", "label": "Drama films 1940s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1940s" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945: Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Champ (1931) is King Vidor's MGM melodrama starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper as a washed-up boxer and his son; it won Oscars for Beery (tied with Fredric March) and Frances Marion and was remade in 1953 and 1979.", "snippet": "The Champ (1931) is King Vidor's MGM melodrama starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper as a washed-up boxer and his son; it won Oscars for Beery (tied with Fredric March) and Frances Marion and was remade in 1953 and 1979.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1940s", "markdown": "# The Champ (1931 film)\n\n**The Champ** is a 1931 American melodrama directed by King Vidor for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, starring [Wallace Beery](https://www.edgepedia.org/wallace-beery) as a washed-up, alcoholic ex-boxing champion and [Jackie Cooper](https://www.edgepedia.org/jackie-cooper) as his adoring young son Dink. Written by Frances Marion, it was nominated for Best Picture and won two Academy Awards, for Best Actor (Beery) and Best Original Story (Marion).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) • [2](https://san.beck.org/MM/1931/Champ.html)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | World premiere Hollywood, 13 November 1931; general release 21 November 1931; 85 minutes, black and white, Western Electric sound[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) |\n| Principal cast | Wallace Beery (Andy \"Champ\" Purcell), Jackie Cooper (Dink Purcell), Irene Rich (Linda Carleton)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) |\n| Key creatives | Directed by King Vidor; written by Frances Marion; photographed by Gordon Avil; production designed by Cedric Gibbons[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) |\n| Academy Awards | Best Actor (Beery, tied with Fredric March) and Best Original Story (Marion); Vidor nominated for Best Director[3](https://digitalcollections.oscars.org/digital/api/collection/p15759coll4/id/5659/download) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) |\n| Production | Shot late August to early October 1931; racetrack scenes on the MGM back lot with establishing shots at Agua Caliente, Baja California[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/961791/behind-the-camera-the-champ) |\n| Afterlife | Reissued 1938; radio versions in 1939 and 1942; remade by MGM as *The Clown* (1953) and *The Champ* (1979)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nAndy \"Champ\" Purcell, a former boxing champion, is idolized by his young son Dink even though Andy's drinking and gambling have given the boy a childhood of cheap Tijuana hotels and pool halls. Andy tries one last comeback but alienates fight promoters when he arrives drunk at a meeting. He later wins a racehorse gambling and gives it to Dink, who names it \"Little Champ.\" At the Tijuana track, Dink meets Linda Carleton, a kind horse owner, and her wealthy husband Tony; Tony realizes Dink is the child Linda gave up when she and Andy divorced years before. After the horse falls and loses its race, a desperate Andy accepts Tony's offer of two hundred dollars to let Linda visit Dink, but he refuses Tony's demand that Linda have the boy for six months to send him to a good school.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP)\n\nIn the film's later movement, Andy loses the horse gambling and lands in jail after a drunken tirade, and concludes that Dink belongs with his mother. Dink tearfully goes to her but sneaks back at his first opportunity, filling the depressed Andy with the resolve to make good and train for the fight on which the ending turns.[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021730/plotsummary/)\n\n## Production\n\nThe Champ went into production in August 1931 and finished shooting in October, reaching theaters the following month. MGM filmed the racetrack sequences on its own back lot, capturing a handful of establishing shots at Agua Caliente in [Baja California](https://www.edgepedia.org/baja-california), Mexico, while Tijuana served as the site of other location filming.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/961791/behind-the-camera-the-champ) According to Hollywood Reporter news items, some racetrack sequences were filmed at Caliente Racetrack in Baja California, and the picture was Jackie Cooper's first for MGM.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP)\n\n**The ending was changed after a preview.** As originally written, Beery's character loses his comeback boxing match and then dies as his son weeps. Preview audiences, having gone along with the sentimental story to that point, felt cheated by the downbeat conclusion, and production chief Irving G. Thalberg ordered the final scene reshot so that Beery won the match. At the next preview the audience cheered at the end.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/961791/behind-the-camera-the-champ) The released film keeps the death: the ex-champion wins the bout and dies in the locker room with Dink at his side, a scene that became one of the picture's two signature tear-inducing moments alongside the jail scene in which Andy, drunk and incarcerated, tells the boy he is sending him to live with his mother.[6](https://www.filmsite.org/champ1931.html)\n\n**Working with the child star.** Beery was reportedly unenthusiastic about working with Cooper, sharing many adult actors' distrust of child performers; Cooper later accused the star of trying to upstage him and treating him like \"an unkempt dog,\" behavior Cooper ascribed to jealousy.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/961791/behind-the-camera-the-champ) An uncredited 1931 newspaper item preserved in the Academy library file relates that Vidor, feeling Cooper \"didn't seem to get into the spirit of the part,\" pretended to fire assistant director Red Golden, whom Cooper was fond of; after Cooper burst into tears, Vidor shot the scene he wanted and rehired Golden. Cooper's autobiography makes no mention of the incident, though it records that as a child he cared for neither Golden nor Beery.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP)\n\n## Reception and Academy Awards\n\nThe film was a critical and commercial success. A contemporary [Chicago Tribune](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-tribune) review conceded that \"The Champ may be hokum, but if so it's the sort of hokum that this old world of ours loves, and needs,\" and the Boston Globe called Beery \"one of the finest actors in Hollywood.\"[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030142-champ) A later scholarly survey of Hollywood sports films describes it as tapping into Depression-era anxieties around poverty, masculinity, and fatherhood, and credits its success with demonstrating the commercial power of sports melodrama.[8](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17430437.2026.2668285)\n\nAt the 5th Academy Awards, covering pictures released in Los Angeles between August 1, 1931 and July 31, 1932, the film won Best Actor for Wallace Beery and Best Original Story for Frances Marion.[3](https://digitalcollections.oscars.org/digital/api/collection/p15759coll4/id/5659/download) Beery's award involved an unusual result: according to a Hollywood Reporter news item, he received one fewer vote than Fredric March for Paramount's *Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde*, but still received the Oscar because of a recently instituted Academy rule that any result within two votes would be considered a tie.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) Vidor was nominated for Best Director and lost to Frank Borzage for Fox's *Bad Girl*.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP)\n\nThe premiere drew national attention: Vice-President [Charles Curtis](https://www.edgepedia.org/charles-curtis) attended the world premiere at Graumann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and an uncredited December 1931 newspaper item reported that Cooper, riding his popularity from the film, was to place his footprints in cement at Graumann's.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP)\n\n## Legacy and remakes\n\n*The Champ* was the first screen pairing of Beery and Cooper; after its success they co-starred in three more MGM films, *The Bowery* (1933), *Treasure Island* (1934), and *O'Shaughnessy's Boy* (1935).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) MGM reissued the film in 1938, and Beery recreated his performance for Lux Radio Theatre on NBC in November 1939 and again on June 29, 1942, co-starring with Josephine Hutchinson.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP)\n\nMGM remade the story twice. Robert Z. Leonard's *The Clown* (1953), starring [Red Skelton](https://www.edgepedia.org/red-skelton) and [Tim Considine](https://www.edgepedia.org/tim-considine), moved the title character from the boxing ring to show business, making him a down-on-his-luck comedian. [Franco Zeffirelli](https://www.edgepedia.org/franco-zeffirelli)'s *The Champ* (1979), starring Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway, and Ricky Schroder, retained many plot elements of the 1931 film and expanded the mother's role.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP) • [9](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/04/04/the-champ-punchy-with-pathos/1ac4a3af-ab0e-46fe-8d6b-8f95917ac1ca/) Reviewers of the 1979 version repeatedly measured it against Vidor's original; Time's Frank Rich wrote that Vidor's \"emotional restraint prevented a sugary story from caramelizing,\" while the remake reached for louder effects.[10](https://time.com/archive/6854188/cinema-tear-jerks/) Today the 1931 film is often remembered as the original behind the 1979 remake, and as the best-known Oscar-winning role of Beery's career and one of the most important roles of Cooper's.[11](https://www.filmsgraded.com/reviews/2018/02/zchamp1.htm)\n\n## References\n\n1. [The Champ (1931), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4022-THE-CHAMP)\n2. [The Champ (1931), review, San Beck's Golden Age of Movies](https://san.beck.org/MM/1931/Champ.html)\n3. [Academy Awards records, Fifth Year (1931–1932), Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences digital collections](https://digitalcollections.oscars.org/digital/api/collection/p15759coll4/id/5659/download)\n4. [Behind the Camera: The Champ, by Frank Miller, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/961791/behind-the-camera-the-champ)\n5. [The Champ (1931) plot summaries, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021730/plotsummary/)\n6. [The Champ (1931), Filmsite, by Tim Dirks](https://www.filmsite.org/champ1931.html)\n7. [The Champ (1931), critics reviews, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1030142-champ)\n8. [The civilising mission of Hollywood sports films, 1920s–2020s, Sport in History](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17430437.2026.2668285)\n9. ['The Champ': Punchy With Pathos, The Washington Post, April 3, 1979](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/04/04/the-champ-punchy-with-pathos/1ac4a3af-ab0e-46fe-8d6b-8f95917ac1ca/)\n10. [Cinema: Tear Jerks, Time, April 9, 1979](https://time.com/archive/6854188/cinema-tear-jerks/)\n11. [The Champ (1931) review, filmsgraded.com](https://www.filmsgraded.com/reviews/2018/02/zchamp1.htm)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1940s*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-champ-1931-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-champ-1931-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Champ (1931 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-champ-1931-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Champ (1931 film)](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-champ-1931-film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-champ-1931-film](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-champ-1931-film). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Champ (1931 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-champ-1931-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Champ is King Vidor's MGM melodrama starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper as a washed-up boxer and his son; it won Oscars for Beery and Frances Marion and was remade in 1953 and 1979." }