Fat City (1972) watch online HD

According to Stacy Keach, Sixto Rodriguez knocked him out during their fight scene and that shot appears in the film.

John Huston initially wanted Marlon Brando to play the role of Tully. When Brando informed Huston repeatedly that he needed some more time to think about it, Huston finally came to the conclusion that the star wasn't really interested and looked out for another actor until he finally cast the then relatively unknown Stacy Keach.

The only movie John Huston directed about boxing. Huston had once been a boxer himself.

John Huston originally wanted Beau Bridges to play Ernie, but the actor felt he was too old. He recommended his own brother, Jeff Bridges for the part.

In a 30th October 1984 taping of 'Family Feud', Richard Dawson commented that 'Fat City' was his favorite movie and that he was disappointed that it hadn't been re-released.

Under the then-extant rules, Stacy Keach should have been awarded Best Actor honors from the New York Film Critics Circle for his portrayal of Tully, as it required only a plurality of the vote. Keach was the top vote-getter for Best Actor. 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. 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 Der Pate (1972) However, Brando could not gain a majority either. A compromise candidate, Laurence Olivier in Mord mit kleinen Fehlern (1972) eventually was awarded Best Actor honors.

Paul Le Mat auditioned for a role. While he wasn't picked, his audition did get the attention of casting agent Fred Roos, which led to Le Mat getting the part of John Milner in American Graffiti (1973).

Director John Huston decided to direct this film after he read the 'Fat City' (1969) novel on which the film is based by writer Leonard Gardner. The movie's producer Ray Stark had given Huston the novel.

Director John Huston has said of this film: "I believed very much in the film but would have been happy if it was well received by a selective audience" and "Personally, I admire the down-and-outers depicted in the film, people who have the heroism to take it on the chin in life as well as in the ring."

Director John Huston once commented that he went to Lincoln Heights High School because of the excellent boxing program there despite the fact that it was in a rougher part of the city. Huston said: "I remember there was a place called Madison Square Gardens and it was on Central Avenue, which was a black community. They used to make up posters for the fights [and] make up weights. The fighters would go round the night of the fight and pick out names...If you had red hair, you'd be Red O'Reilly, something like that. I remember fighting there one night under two different names!."

The film is included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" edited by Steven Schneider.

At the start of the scene when Ernie (Jeff Bridges) and Faye (Candy Clark) discuss pregnancy and marriage in the car, the intro to Bread's "If", a hit ballad that climbed to no. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1971, starts up on the car radio. Ernie then irritably switches stations a couple of times before settling on the original station again, so the rest of "If" plays out under their dialogue.

Debut theatrical feature film of actress Candy Clark and actors Curtis Cokes, Ruben Navarro, Billy Walker, and Sixto Rodriguez.

Curtis Cokes, who played Earl, was in real life a world welterweight boxing champion, but did not portray a boxer in the movie.

A few of director John Huston's old boxer mates from his old boxing days were cast by him in the movie in bit parts and supporting roles.

The film has been notable for its use of the 1970 country music ballad "Help Me Make It Through the Night" sung by Kris Kristofferson and which is heard during both the start and end of the movie. The movie features instrumental arrangements of the song and is the picture's signature theme song. When studying at Oxford University, Kristofferson actually won a Blue university sport award for boxing.

Of the film's photography, according to the book 'Sports in the Movies' (1982) by Ronald Bergman, "most of the light is artificial light in bars and above the ring." The picture is featured as an example in the art of cinematography documentary 'Visions of Light' (1992).

First theatrical feature film that director John Huston directed entirely in America since 'The Misfits' (1961) which was an interval of about eleven years.

The meaning and relevance of the film and source novel's 'Fat City' title is, according to a 29th August 1969 LIFE magazine interview by Michael Durham with the film's source novelist Leonard Gardner, as follows: "Lots of people have asked me about the title of my book. It's part of Negro slang. When you say you want to go to 'Fat City', it means you want the good life. I got the idea for the title after seeing a photograph of a tenement in an exhibit in San Francisco. 'Fat City' was scrawled in chalk on a wall. The title is ironic: 'Fat City' is a crazy goal no one is ever going to reach."

The film's source 'Fat City' (1969) book by source novelist Leonard Gardner is the first and only ever published novel written by him.

Actresses Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt auditioned for this film.

The movie was nominated for one Academy Award in 1973 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Susan Tyrrell but lost out to Eileen Heckart for 'Butterflies Are Free' (1973).

The film features actress Susan Tyrrell's only ever Oscar nominated performance which was in the Academy Award category of Best Actress in a Supporting Role for playing the character of Oma.

The nick-name of Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto) was "Rube".

Director John Huston himself had been during his younger years for a short time an amateur semi-professional boxing champion in Los Angeles, California.

The film's and source novel's 'Fat City' title had been a nick-name for Stockton in California where both the movie and source book are both set.

All of the skid row setting featured in the film's source 1969 novel by Leonard Gardner was demolished during the 1965-1969 West End Redevelopment in Stockton, California.

The skid row scenes were shot in the environs and outer fringes of the demolished original skid row region of Stockton, California. This region was also re-developed about a year after 'Fat City' had completed filming in order to make way for the Crosstown Freeway / Ort Lofthus Freeway.

The picture featured a number of real-life current and former boxers and/or boxing champions in the cast. They included: Art Aragon, Curtis Cokes, Álvaro López, Wayne Mahan, and Ruben Navarro.

At about the age of sixteen the film's director John Huston had seen the classic historic Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Ángel Firpo fight on 14th September 1923 at the Polo Grounds in New York City. Huston reportedly once commented that it made terrific theater.

The film's director John Huston said that this movie was "about the spiritual process of the defeated and the futility and indestructibility of hope."

According to a March 1971 edition of show-business trade paper 'Daily Variety' the Columbia Pictures and the film's producer Ray Stark had made a deal for this studio to make and release this picture.

Final theatrical feature film of lightweight boxing champion Art Aragon who portrayed the character of Babe. Aragon had appeared in a number of film and television productions since the early 1950s and continued to appear in some television shows right up until around 1980.

Álvaro López, who appears uncredited in the film as Rosales, was actually a local boxer from Stockton in California, where this picture was filmed.

Boxer Álvaro López later appeared about a dozen years later in a similarly titled picture called 'Fear City' (1984) where he played Rio's Manager and was also that later movie's boxing coordinator.

Actor Al Silvani, who appeared uncredited in the film as the referee at the Tully-Lucero Fight, later appeared in three 'Rocky' pictures - 'Rocky' (1976), 'Rocky II' (1979), and 'Rocky III' (1982). Silvani also later appeared in Clint Eastwood's bare-knuckle fight film comedy 'Every Which Way But Loose' (1978) and such boxing movies as 'Dempsey' (1983), 'Goldie and the Boxer' (1979), 'The All-American Boy' (1973), and 'Goldie and the Boxer Go to Hollywood' (1981).

Besides 'Fat City', which was an early nick-name for the city of Stockton where the film and its source novel was both set and filmed, other early nick-names for Stockton included Mudville and Weberville, as well as California's Sunrise Seaport. Moreover, Stockton was originally going to have the place name of Tuleburg.

The movie was promoted on American movie posters upon its stateside theatrical release as being the surprise hit of that year's Cannes Film Festival.

Stacy Keach for this film in 1972 was awarded in a tie with Marlon Brando for 'The Godfather' (1972) the Best Actor award from the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards.

The picture was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix de l'UCC award by the Belgian Film Critics Association in 1974.

The film was made and first released about three years after its source novel of the same name by author Leonard Gardner had been first published in 1969. Gardner also penned the screenplay for the picture.

Reportedly, after a showing of this movie, champion boxer Muhammad Ali apparently said to the film's director John Huston: "Man that's for real, that's me talking up there."

Debut theatrical feature film of real life boxing champs Curtis Cokes and Ruben Navarro who portrayed Earl and Fuentes respectively.

According to a September 1969 edition of show-business trade paper 'Variety' the production of this picture was attached to the United Artists movie studio as its distributor. The movie later instead became a production of the Columbia Pictures studio.

Actor Jeff Bridges and director John Huston would later collaborate on 'Winter Kills' (1979) about seven years later but in this later movie Huston was not the director but an actor and the two cast members portrayed father and son.