Movie

Monkey on My Back

“SHOCK by SHOCK...It Jabs Like a Hopped-Up Needle!”

★ 6.8(6)19571h 34m

Monkey on My Back is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Prime Video with Ads in Canada. Availability checked 22 June 2026.

Where to watch Monkey on My Back

🇨🇦 Canada

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Good to know

Director: André de Toth
Release date: 1957-05-29
Runtime: 1h 34m
Language: English
Status: Released
Country: United States of America
Studio: Edward Small Productions

Monkey on My Back — trailer

About Monkey on My Back

Monkey on My Back is a 1957 movie in the Drama genre, directed by André de Toth, starring Cameron Mitchell, Dianne Foster and Paul Richards. It has a runtime of 1 hour 34 minutes. It holds an average rating of 6.8/10 from 6 viewers. Below you can see where to watch Monkey on My Back in Canada — across streaming, rental and purchase options — along with the full cast, trailer and viewer reviews.

Synopsis

The painfully true story of welterweight boxing champion Barney Ross is detailed in Monkey on My Back. Cameron Mitchell stars as Ross, whose meteoric ring career is interrupted when he joins the Marines at the outset of WWII. A highly decorated hero, Ross contracts malaria oversees and is given morphine to assuage the pain. By the time he returns to the states, Ross is a confirmed drug addict. Before he can rise to the top again, he must hit rock bottom and his descent into the hell of narcotics dependency is graphically illustrated (so much so that the film was almost denied a Production Code seal). Though a cured Barney Ross served as technical advisor for Monkey on My Back, he ended up suing the producers for defamation of character -- and lost.