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Pretty Good

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

The boss of Enterprise Studios was Garfield himself, and he it was who seconded Rossen to the directorial helm of this production. It turned out to be one of the best films of his career and one of the best three or four boxing films ever made. Shot in 55 days. Domestic gross: A very profitable $3,034,014.39.COMMENT: There is an excellent book by Ronald Bergan called Sports in the Movies (Proteus, New York, 1982). Bergan says quite correctly that more movies have been made about boxing than any other sport. The reason for this popularity is simply that everyone likes a winner - especially a winner who overcomes numerous obstacles - and boxing offers more obstacles than anything else. It's not just the skill and training required to be proficient at the sport, nor the real likelihood of bodily injuries, but the fact that the game is the preserve of racketeers and gangsters. To quote Bergan: "Money, money, money is what makes the boxing world go round. The boxer is... manipulated by others for profit... Money is the leitmotif of Body and Soul in which John Garfield is 'not just a kid who can fight. He's money'."As the kid, Garfield certainly gives one of the most impressive performances of his life. It's a role he was born to play - and he doesn't cower behind a stand-in for the fight sequences either. That's him taking the punishment and dishing it out. The realism of the ring has rarely rung more true.Polonsky has denied that the role was especially tailored for Garfield, but Charlie Davis has all the chip-on-the-shoulder cynicism, the driving ambition to claw his way to the top at any cost, the almost psychotic determination to be morally ruthless warring with vestiges of decency, the guilt and fear-ridden confusion, - in fact all the characteristic personality traits that Garfield was able to imbue with such sympathetic yet fascinating credibility. The actor threw himself into the part with an energy and an enthusiasm that simply electrifies the screen. It's a demonstration of the power and vigor behind a force that doesn't drive clean because of the character's doubts and vacillations, his all too-human passions and weaknesses.Garfield is often identified as the first of the screen's rebels. This is true. What isn't usually realized is that he started by playing a rebel who is passive - cynical, yes, but already defeated. As his career progressed, the rebel becomes more active - still cynical, worldly-wise and disillusioned, but now compulsively self-willed to pay any price for success. Think of it: Four Daughters through to The Postman Always Rings Twice and Body and Soul. Garfield's career declined because he abandoned this image in favor of the committedly good guys of Gentleman's Agreement and We Were Strangers.Surrounded by a fine supporting cast (Pevney is especially chilling as the gangster) and aided by some of the most skillful technicians in Hollywood, Garfield has indeed made Body and Soul "the apex of his career". (Quoting from Rebels: The Rebel Hero in Films by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein, Citadel Press, New Jersey, 1971).OTHER VIEWS: It's a striking commentary on Hollywood and its waste of talent that Garfield . . . should have had to wait so long and impersonate so many ruinously rep¬etitious types before he could realize his full capabilities. Archer Winsten in The New York Post.Garfield received only two award nominations in his entire career - both of which he lost. He was not even proposed for The Postman Always Rings Twice. Where's the justice in that? Garfield was undoubtedly the most socially committed actor to appear in Hollywood. To quote Polonsky: "They killed him for it". (Hollywood Voices edited by Andrew Sarris, published by Seeker & Warburg, London, 1971).(Garfield was nominated as Supporting Actor in Four Daughters, but lost the count to Walter Brennan in Kentucky).

No movie actor inflects lines from the script better than John Garfield. That plus a flawlessly staccato delivery that cuts through dialogue like a buzz saw, distinguish his tough guy performances. These abilities are on superb display in this boxing melodrama, one of the liveliest on that sinister sport. The best parts are those dealing with the struggle for Davis's (Garfield) soul, with Lloyd Goff's super-slick fight fixer as Satan. It's the classic contest pitting money against virtue, and while Davis is quick to grasp the rules of the ring, he's slow to understand the price he is paying. Not exactly cutting-edge material, but slickly and memorably done. The weakest parts are a seemingly miscast Lilli Palmer, a shade too refined to be believable, and Ann Revere's hair that looks like a flour-spraying crop duster gave it a quick pass. The film contains one truly memorable scene, when the washed-up black fighter, Canada Lee, at last confronts his tormentors. It's an emotion packed opportunity that really reaches gut-level. I guess the reason so many from cast and crew were later blacklisted is because of the film's communist inspired message – namely, that money is not the most important value in life. Good thing those investigators never got around to the religious community.

Body and Soul (1947) *** (out of 4) John Garfield plays a poor kid from the slums who starts boxing and soon rises to the top where the only place to go is down. This is a highly impressive film that manages to be quite effective even though the story isn't anything original. It's easy to see the influence this film had on Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull and I'd say the Scorsese picture follows this one quite closely. There are also a few more sequences, which were borrowed in Rocky. The most impressive thing about this movie are the boxing scenes, which are the most realistic and violent of any early boxing film I've seen. I'd say they've only been topped by the Scorsese film. Garfield is terrific as usual and really sells his character's many different feelings. Garfield perfectly captures the out of control scenes but he's also very good in the more tender moments involving a used up black boxer. The supporting cast is also very good with Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, William Conrad and Joseph Pevney turning in fine work. The films one weakness is that it drags before the start of the final act but there's still plenty here to enjoy.

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."