Body and Soul (1947)

This was John Garfield's first picture after leaving Warner Brothers and some say it was his best performance ever, with an Academy Award nomination for the effort. I thought Garfield was good, and his boxing scenes came across as fairly realistic. The host of Turner Classics, Ben Mankiewicz, mentioned that cinematographer James Wong Howe used some cutting edge filming techniques given the era - he strapped a camera to his chest and rolled around the ring on roller skates!I thought the film had a rough similarity to 1937's "Dead End", a non-boxing film that had a lot of the Warner Brothers trademarks that seeped over into this movie. Garfield's character Charley Davis came out of poverty and resorted to the only means of making a living he could by taking up the fight game. Charley's mother (Anne Revere) reminded me of Bogie's Mom in "Dead End" (Marjorie Main), in that both were basically humorless and less than understanding of their son's chosen profession. Actually Bogart didn't have a profession in his film, he was a street punk named Baby Face Martin. Both stories took place on New York's East Side.I always get a kick out of how quickly some of these boxing stories bring along the central character in their rise to the top; Davis manages twenty one fights in his first year in the ring and is set to battle for the championship, but only if he hooks up with crooked promoter Roberts (Lloyd Gough). And for only fifty per cent of his purses too! You have to wonder how crooked it really was behind the scenes of the boxing game because most good movies at least touched on it. Just check out "Raging Bull" for a real life example.Well, before Charley comes to his senses as a human being, he goes through a period of womanizing, drinking and gambling, and doesn't get his wake up call until the death of his trainer Ben (Canada Lee). Just prior, Ben chastens Charley for his association with Roberts and comments on an upcoming title defense by asking "Did you sell the fight, Charley"? One thing you might have to overlook during the title match against Marlowe (Artie Dorrell) is a palpable weight difference between the two fighters. Marlowe actually looked skinny to me as the contender, side by side it looked like Davis outweighed him by at least a weight class.Say, there was a great line uttered by Charley's manager Quinn (William Conrad) in the scene when he was arguing with the boxer's call girl Alice (Hazel Brooks). Alice was basically letting him know he was no prize package in the looks department, and his comeback was a beaut - "You could use a new paint job yourself". I'll have to remember that one.

"Body And Soul" is widely recognised as the first boxing movie to focus sharply on the corrupt nature of the fight game and the unethical practices of the people who run it. The ways in which a fighter gets exploited by gangsters and gambling interests are depicted very convincingly and the negative effects that sudden success can have on a young boxer are also portrayed in a style which is both powerful and authentic.The events that take place during the fighter's rise from obscurity to world championship level involve a great deal of intrigue, intensity and drama and no doubt, this is exactly what inspired so many other filmmakers to produce similar types of movies which frequently featured many of the same situations that are seen in "Body And Soul".Charley Davis (John Garfield) is a fighter from New York's lower East Side who's determined to escape the impoverished circumstances that he and his mother find themselves in after his father is accidentally killed when the speakeasy next to his candy store is bombed. Ignoring his mother's wishes, Charley decides to pursue a career in boxing.Charley's best friend Shorty Polaski (Joseph Pevney)had become his manager after convincing local trainer Quinn (William Conrad) to take Charley on and soon after, Quinn arranges a series of fights in which Charley is so successful that he attracts the attention of a gangster called Roberts (Lloyd Gough) who's the most powerful figure in the boxing business in New York. Roberts promises Charley a title fight but the cost is high as Roberts demands a 50% cut of Charley's earnings and the effective sidelining of Shorty.Roberts arranges a fixed fight for Charley against the ageing middleweight champion Ben Chaplin (Canada Lee) who has a blood clot on his brain. Charley is told nothing about his opponent's condition and after a punishing contest during which Ben takes a large number of blows to the head, his manager understandably feels double crossed by Roberts.Shorty is appalled when he discovers the circumstances surrounding the fight and after telling Charley what he knows, resigns. Tragically, he then gets beaten up by one of Roberts' henchmen and still groggy after his beating, staggers into the street where he gets run down and killed by a car.Peg (Lilli Palmer) had been Charley's loyal girlfriend since his earliest involvement in the fight game but after seeing what had happened to Shorty and becoming concerned about Roberts' activities, decided that she could no longer continue their relationship unless Charley decided to give up boxing. Predictably, Charley refused and then broke off their engagement.As Charley's success in the ring continues, he gambles heavily, becomes increasingly indebted to Roberts and starts seeing an acquisitive nightclub singer called Alice (Hazel Brooks). After an extended period as the champ, Charley is scheduled to fight a young contender in a fixed match which he's instructed to lose and to use his payment of $60,000 to bet against himself. How he deals with this situation proves to have significant consequences, not only for him, but also for Ben (who becomes his trainer) and Peg who starts to see a future for them together if Charley does finally give up boxing.The boxing sequences in "Body And Soul" were expertly filmed with hand held cameras being used to augment the work of the main camera crew and Francis D Lyon and Robert Parrish's contributions were recognised when they won the Oscar for "Best Film Editing". John Garfield's performance won him an Oscar nomination for "Best Actor" and Abraham Polonsky also received an Oscar nomination for his marvellous screenplay.John Garfield gives a top class performance as the naive fighter who's seduced by the promise of wealth into a corrupt business where, in order to hit the big time, he has to make a Faustian deal which costs him his lifelong friendship with Shorty and damages his relationships with Peg and his mother. Lilli Palmer is excellent as the warm hearted Peg who's more intelligent than Charley and also has higher ethical standards. The supporting performances are also very good with Canada Lee making a particularly strong impression.

There are fight movies - and then there are movies that fight back...I'd seen Golden Boy (1939), The Setup (1949), Champion (1949), The Harder They Fall (1956), and much later, Rocky (1976), followed by Raging Bull (1980) – and all of them only a few years after each was released (except Golden Boy). Somehow, however, I'd missed Body and Soul all these years. I missed it so many times on TV I lost count...Well, now that I caught it on late night TV, finally, I can say unequivocally I liked all the above better, except for Golden Boy and Rocky.The story and film, however, are still top notch and stand the test of time, in my opinion. Not because it's a good movie about the fight business – which it is – but because it is, of them all, the only one that uses the story as a blatant metaphor for the sham of the American Dream (although Bogie's effort in The Harder They Fall touches upon that idea).The story is straight-forward: Garfield does Garfield playing Davis, the amateur boxer who gains the eye of a professional coach, Quinn (William Conrad) who gradually brings his protégé along to the professional circuit and thence under the influence of those who control the business, notably the sleazy Roberts (Lloyd Goff). Thereafter, Davis is but a mere puppet for the Mob: doing his thing in the ring and making only 50% for his efforts.Naturally, Davis's girl, Peg (Lili Palmer), his buddy, Shorty (Joseph Pevney), his mother Anna (Anne Revere) and others all try to dissuade Davis from staying in the business which is rotten to the core, as everyone knows. But he makes it to the top: Champion of the World! And, he's got all the trappings of success: fast cars, fast women, fast booze, fast times – the sweet life, or so he thinks. So why give up what he's worked so hard to achieve? As Davis moans to Peg, who's urging him to retire, "But I'm the Champ!". And Peg replies, "No, Roberts is the Champ..." She could have said, "No, you're the Chump!" but that might have been a bit too much self-reflective angst for audiences of that day...Nevertheless, throughout the story, Davis is made to look like a prize chump as he keeps ignoring how he's being treated by the Roberts of the world, all of who are bleeding him white (no pun intended) – and, in the finale, to the point of forcing Davis to take a dive in his last bout and retire rich. Does he do it or does he redeem his honor? I'll let you see the movie...Garfield does a solid job in the role of Davis, but I was more impressed with Pevney's role as Shorty: as Davis's alter ego, he does an admirable turn without being maudlin or sanctimonious. The direction from Robert Rossen and filming from James Wong Howe are very good, as is the editing from Robert Parrish, as you would expect anyway.I'm glad I got around to this one, as I do recommend it. But, I still prefer Champion as my all time favorite.

I looked at this as simply a good story, a solid drama that happened to have the sport of boxing figure into it. "Boxing movies." if people insist on labeling this under that category, were particularly popular around the time of this film. Many of them had similar stories about a good guy being told to take a dive or else. Yes, that was in here, too, but it wasn't anywhere near the central part of the story. This film was more of an earlier "Raging Bull"-type tale in that it concentrated on the friends, family, freeloaders, criminals and women surrounding the main male character. This was more of a story about a decent man who gets carried away with success and with the power and money that goes with it. As good as the lead actor, John Garfield, was in here - and he was good - I was more intrigued with the supporting characters. Lilly Palmer looked and sounded the part of a refined sweet, pretty French girl (whatever that means) and was a good contrast to the uneducated and quick tempered brute (Garfield). As in so many stories, she wasn't fully appreciated by her man until the end. Anne Revere, as Garfield's mom (she seemed to always play the lead character's mother in 1940s films) was fascinating as she always was and kudos to Joseph Peveny as "Shorty" and Lloyd Gough a "Roberts." Both added a lot to the film. Wlliam Conrad and Hazel Brooks added some great film noir-- type dialog, berating each other once in a while.These actors, and the photography of James Wong Howe, make this a cut above most if not all the so-called "boxing films."