Eddie Quaid (Tony Curtis) is a working guy whose life is far from perfect. His father, Pat Quaid (Jim Backus), is a drunk and Eddie keeps making excuses for his old man and is quite the enabler. Pat Quaid has become a lonely alcoholic since his wife died. Eddie is San Francisco grocery clerk in love with a pretty student, Julie Walsh (Pat Crowley). But one night Julie's father, Mike (Clancy Cooper), declares that the Quaids are not good enough for his daughter. Pat is jailed for a bar fight, and Eddie must raise twenty-five dollars to bail Pat out. Everyone refuses to lend him money, so Eddie enters an amateur boxing match.

Kindly detective Jim McBride (Paul Kelly) brings Pat from jail to witness Eddie win the bout. Pat once boxed under the name Packy Glennon, and encourages Eddie to try to become a champion fighter. Eddie bargains that he will fight as long as Pat quits drinking, and McBride agrees to invest in a trainer in return for a percentage of the winnings. Bernie Browne (Ernest Borgnine), an ex-fighter, agrees to teach him the ropes, initiating a tough training regimen.

Three years later, Eddie, using the name Packy Glennon, prepares to fight Al Gorski (John Daheim, as John Day) in the middleweight world championship. During the fight, Eddie knocks out Al, after which everyone rejoices except Bernie, who worries that Eddie will become as cocky as he did. At the party, Jack Lindsay (David Janssen) and Lorraine Evans (Leigh Snowden) attach themselves to Eddie, basking in his fame. When Julie arrives, she wants to heal their past wounds, but Eddie assumes she is only interested in his celebrity, and shouts that she does not deserve him. After she runs out, Pat reveals that her father recently committed suicide, and Eddie runs after Julie, catching her in the street. He apologizes, but she exhorts him to leave her alone, and later that night, Bernie chastises Eddie by reciting "uneasy is the head that wears the crown."

Soon after, Eddie is training for a re-match with Al when Pat brings Julie back, and after spending the evening together, they kiss, in love again. During the next championship fight, Eddie, who has not trained as hard as Al, is beaten badly. Afterward, Eddie publicly praises Al and agrees to another match. By the day of the fight, both Eddie and Al are in top form. Al quickly takes the lead, but suddenly Eddie snaps back into form and begins beating Al severely, until Al falls, seriously injured. Lorraine follows as Eddie hides out in a motel, and the two drink all night. Pat and McBride find him days later, passed out in his motel bed, and inform him that Al, though brain-damaged, is alive.

Eddie returns to San Francisco but there explains to Julie that he is dead inside. Bernie instructs Pat to bring Eddie to a boxing match the next night. There, Eddie almost refuses to go inside, but finally takes his seat. Before the fight begins, the referee brings out Joe Louis and, to Eddie's shock, Al. Eddie is about to sneak out when Bernie appears beside him and whispers in his ear. When Al then announces that he has forgiven Eddie and invites him into the ring, Eddie slowly joins him and they hug. Eddie recites to the crowd the Talmudic quote Bernie has just whispered to him: "A child comes into the world with hands clenched, wanting everything, and a man leaves it with his hands wide open, wanting nothing." Eddie opens his hands to the crowd, and they rise to their feet in an ovation.

A 1955 American film noir drama sport film directed by Jerry Hopper, produced by Albert Zugsmith, written by George Zuckerman, cinematography by George Robinson, starring Tony Curtis, Pat Crowley, Ernest Borgnine, Paul Kelly, Jim Backus, Lee Snowden, John Daheim, John Marley, Joe Louis, David Janssen, Carmen McRae, Barney Phillips, Joseph Vitale, and Kay Stewart. Former heavyweight champion of the world Joe Louis appears as himself.

Paul Kelly was a child actor from Brooklyn who became one of the country's busiest supporting actors, on stage and screen. Dot Mackaye, a comedic actress in the style of Lucille Ball, was "the toast of the theatrical world." Ray Raymond was a tireless song-and-dance man who traversed the country plying his trade, from Broadway to motion pictures to vaudeville houses. On April 15, 1927, Paul Kelly, a broad-shouldered six-footer, with the build of a light heavyweight boxer, knocked Raymond out cold with a vicious blow to his left eye. Raymond lapsed into a coma and never came out. He died three and a half days later.

This is an overlooked but good early movie, and definitely a boost for Curtis' career. Curtis who was in his salad days, when Curtis was Universal's beefcake star, so there are several shots of him stripped to the waist. Nothing poignant, and everything predictable. Never charmless. Flat, perhaps, but not boring. An early example of the "Rocky" genre, with plucky Curtis flexing his pectorals in this easy-to-swallow, but hard-to-remember, rags-to-riches number.