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The Set-Up

(1949)

Robert Wise directs a lean middleweight of noir, 72 real-time minutes without an ounce of fat, or at least not until the final repeated line. The setting is Paradise City, which, in case you wouldn't have guessed, is an ironic name--think Potterville in the world into which Harry Bailey was never born. Audrey Totter plays Julie, a good woman married to a good man but a bad pug (Robert Ryan). The fix is in, and Stoker's supposed to be going down, but he's such a loser on his own merits that his manager and trainer don't bother to tell him. The fact that you can guess what comes next doesn't make it any less a gem.