I don't remember the name of the journalist who spoke this statement, but I want to say a big amen to that, as my saddest movie involves all these three factors, I know they might sound a little too male-oriented but I'm pretty sure it at least touched upon two branches of this trinity for female audiences, can't women also respond to the sight of a little grief-stricken boy inconsolably crying over the loss of his father, and making grown-up men weep as well?

I want to open this review by saying that "The Champ" holds a very special place in my heart, if only because it might be the first live-action movie I remember seeing as a (6-year old) kid, and for some strange reason, of all the scenes from the film, I was more impacted by the sight of blood, a disturbing novelty for my kiddies' eyes (the sparring partner, the horse's injury and the scary sight of Billy's opponent shouting at him). 4 years later, I saw it and every one was bawling in the TV room, everyone but me, mostly amused by these reactions. The Youtube clips many years later finally had their effect, but even then I knew I had to experience the whole film to measure up the extent of its emotionality.

So I did and I can't believe someone who despises the overuse of superlatives like me would indulge himself to such a clichéd statement but this is indeed the saddest movie ever, with the climactic locker-room scene as the most defining moment. Adapted from a 1931 movie directed by King Vidor, "The Champ", is about a father-and-son relationship, an extraordinary sacred link between Billy Flynn (Jon Voight),an ex-Heavyweight Boxing Champion who reconverted in horse-training, and his 8-year old blond-haired angel-faced son: T.J. (Ricky Shroeder). To say that T.J. loves his father would be a huge understatement; he literally worships him to the point of calling him 'Champ' instead of 'Dad'. I can recall considering my father a true model when I was a kid, I can easily respond to the sight of a kid who admires his father the way T.J. does, especially since this adoration is the build-up that cements the final scene's emotionality.

A few words about Ricky Schroeder's performance: it's absolutely refreshing to see a child acting like a real one, not too mature or annoying, Ricky Shroeder delivers in "The Champ" one of the finest pieces of child acting ever, on the same vein than Jackie Coogan in "The Kid", any kids' performance pale in comparison to little Ricky that year and I can't believe his performance was overlooked by the Academy Awards (while he was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Male Newcomer). The irony is that the same year, an even younger kid was nominated for a similar role; it was Justin Henry as Billy in "Kramer vs. Kramer". I guess Henry was favored in regard of the film's commercial success and the fact that his character was more 'complex', but let's face it, even Justin Henry wouldn't claim to have made millions of people all over the world cry like Ricky did.

The parallel with "Kramer vs. Kramer" can be extended to the father and boy's situation. The mother Annie (Faye Dunaway) left, Billy had the custody and every thing went fine, despite some financial and gambling problems, until Annie showed up again and expressed her desire to take part again in her son's life, her son who thinks his mother died. The film takes then the emotional start with the most simple plot premise and it only avoid cliché's annoyances thanks to the beautiful performance of Ricky Schroeder. Indeed, every single moment work and it almost seems like the adult actors did their best to match Ricky's incredible acting, and I believe that Jon Voight deserved more accolades for his performance.

The film contains some of the most emotional moments you'll ever see, reaching a first pinnacle with three powerful scenes in a row: a heart-breaking father-and-son conversation in jail, T.J. learning that Annie is not a "little angel in the sky" and his outburst of enraged cries when she can't even say that she loves 'Champ', and then the reunion with Billy, hell even the happier moments are unbelievably sad, with little T.J. and his father swimming on the beach (mirroring a previous scene with Annie). It's so effective that I dare even the most skeptical movie viewers to label this film as manipulative. Franco Ziffereli's directing is relatively sober and the music not too over-emotional, so if anything is manipulative, then it has to be a little 8-year old actor's performance, would you believe he'd have this intention?

To conclude, I sincerely don't think any film would have as a powerful emotional impact as "The Champ"'s final scene. Sticking with my own conviction, I even googled the title of the film and the words 'saddest ever' and to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that some scientists after many studies found out that the film could be considered as the saddest ever from the way people were immediately responding to its most emotional scenes (notably the final one). Many readers mentioned titles such as "Bambi", "Brian's Song", "Schindler's List", "Terms of Endearment" or "Grave of the Fireflies" but I think they missed the point of the study which was less about giving a title than determining the most likely film to induce one particular reaction among the majority, in that case: crying.

I remember my father told me that after watching the film in the theater, everyone was weeping and sneezing, he recommended the film to his toughest friends challenging them not to cry, but at the end, they were all bawling like little girls. Like it or not, it deserves the title of 'emotional masterpiece' and I don't think any rational critic will convince me to give it a 'reasonable' rating.

Unlike many of the critics who saw this movie and hated it, obviously these so called "film critics" must be jaded wanna be filmmakers who never made it, and have not truly found the meaning of film-making to date. Sorry for them. This motion picture is what makes cinema so great. It is the extremely emotional content and story, not the mere technicalities or flaws that makes this movie great. I saw this film 25 years ago and I remember a theaters completely in tears. I saw this movie again just recently on HBO and as hard as you tried, it was impossible to hold back tears, specially at the end. I don't know who these movie critics are nor where they come from, but they certainly have much to learn from this film.

I'll never forget seeing this classic tear-jerker in the theater when it was first released, and seem to recall the theme song sung, at least over the closing credits. It was even on the movie soundtrack album but with an indication that it had been cut at the last moment. I believe then that I must have seen a sneak preview of the film because 40 years later, it is still prevalent in my head. That song, plus the David Grusin theme, have me weeping from the moment I hear them. if music in a film is a sign of manipulation of emotions, then I must be the biggest sap because certain scores like this one remain in the soul years after hearing it on screen. However, and it's defense, the score is entirely appropriate for the movie, stirring every mood that takes over during the film's two-hour running time.

Certainly, the old chestnut was considered sentimental in 1931 when it was made with Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper, and today, clips from that film appear in montages of the best scenes in cinema history. The remake came at a key time in Jon Voight's career, having just won an Oscar shortly before the release. Faye Dunaway was at the top of her game as one of the top five leading ladies in film, and if indeed she was "Mommie Dearest" just two years later, here, she's playing a mother who perhaps loves far too much.

The shining light of this film is Ricky Schroder, a talented little kid if there ever was one, but upstaged that year at the Academy Awards by "Kramer vs Kramer's" Justin Henry. There was talk midway through 1979 that Schroeder was a sinch for an Oscar nomination, but somehow by the end of the year, that had been completely overturned. I find him much better and more believable and less cloying than Jackie Cooper in the original and while Henry is certainly memorable in the Oscar-winning best film of that year, it is Schroeder whom I remember more 40 years later outside of "Kramer vs Kramer's" ice cream scene.

There are so many key scenes here that will bring you to tears of both Joy and sadness, particularly when Voight presents Schroeder with his beloved horse she's a lady, shortly afterwards when the horses injured and Dunaway realizes who the little boy shoot early encounter was, and of course the classic reunion scene between Voight and Schroeder after he has learned that Dunaway is his mother. The mixture of pathos and comedy are not overshadowed by either the horse racing or boxing scenes, with Jack Warden taking over where Burgess Meredith had left off in "Rocky" as his trainer. Critics who complained that Dunaway seemed to be attempting to seduce her son obviously saw something that I did not, and I felt that even as a secondary character, she brought out something truly special in the role of Annie.

In supporting roles, this film has too many to mention, but Joan Blondell's appearance is so appropriate because haven't been one of the busiest leading ladies in the early 1930s, she had starred in many films like this at Warner Brothers. In certain ways, Blundell seems to be an older version of many of those characters, just featuring a different name. She has more screen time fortunately than she had in "Grease" the previous year and as usual provides a big heart in addition to gentle humor.

Arthur Hill is touching as Dunaway as loyal husband, and the warm smile of Mary Jo Catlett as a friend of Voight's is also enough to make you smile. my issue with this 40 years later is that I do not have enough Kleenex handy and recommended that you buy at least two boxes because you may just use all of them. Director Franco zeffirelli uses every trick in the book to get the audience involved, and even with cynical critics having dismissed it, it truly holds a place in cinema history that sometimes, remakes can hold up even better than the original. Elisha Cook Jr., another vet, is also a standout in his few scenes as another one of Voight's cronies.