clanciai The fantastic feat of this film is to turn an ordinary story delving into the gutter depths of the lousiest of sports, boxing, and its established system of corruption, into a drama of the highest class and universal interest. The credits are many, first of course to the team of the writer and the director, Abraham Polonsky and Robert Rossen, while the writer perhaps here is number one. He was only able to make a few outstanding films noir in Hollywood before he was blacklisted and chased out of the country, hindered from making any more films for next to 20 years, turning him very bitter against America and Hollywood - what a waste! The actors are all at their best and more than outstanding, especially Lilli Palmer at her most beautiful with the loveliest eyes ever seen on the screen, John Garfield as the simple but more than straight-forward boxer, Anne Revere as the mother who sees everything through, Hazel Brooks as the irresistible temptation, a downright bombshell of beauty, the unforgettable Canada Lee as the fellow honest boxer who gets all the beatings, and all the others, most of them crooks, and most of them blacklisted like Polonsky - all except Robert Rossen, who was one of the few that, like Elia Kazan, got away by cooperating with the infamous inquisition. But the strongest weight of the movie lies with the architectural composition - it all towers up towards the final boxing match, which the audience throughout the movie learns to have ever greater expectations of, with ever more troublesome complications in the way for John Garfield and his friends and family, one of them even getting killed, the definite turning point of the drama for the worse. When the finale of the boxing match finally comes you are not disappointed - it's a thriller in itself. And strange enough, this totally noir film comes out safe on the other side, which you had every good reason to expect least of all.

James Hitchcock Charley Davis, a young working-class Jewish New Yorker, takes up a career in boxing, a sport for which he proves to have a talent. After a series of victories he rises steadily through the ranks and is eventually rewarded with a shot at the championship. He wins, but success, and the wealth that comes with it, lead to deterioration in his character. He becomes estranged from his mother and his girlfriend Peg, finds himself a mistress, and becomes involved with a shady promoter named Roberts, who has links with the underworld. Roberts arranges for Charley to defend his title against a challenger named Jack Marlowe, but then orders him to throw the fight; the promising but less experienced Marlowe is the underdog so Roberts and his cronies stand to make a lot of money by betting on him. "Body and Soul" has a lot in common with "Champion", another boxing film from the late forties, which tells a broadly similar story. That film too dealt with the rise of a boxing champion who goes off the rails, becomes alienated from his loved ones and allows himself to be drawn into the web of gambling-inspired corruption which afflicted the sport at this period. In both films the hero sees his final fight as a chance to regain his lost self-respect. "Champion" was made two years later, so it was no doubt heavily indebted to the earlier movie. Of the two films I would prefer "Champion"; John Garfield certainly gives a good performance here as Charley, but Kirk Douglas gives a truly great one, one of the best of his career, in the later film. The ending of "Champion" also has a tragic power greater than the more optimistic conclusion of "Body and Soul". Some of the minor characters here are less good; I felt that the German-born British actress Lilli Palmer was miscast as Peg, who is supposed to be an all-American girl-next-door type, and the rather contrived explanation of her accent by reference to a European education was not convincing. ("Devotion", a biopic of the Bronte sisters from around this period, used a similar device to explain why Charlotte's British husband Arthur Nicholls was speaking with a heavy German accent). Nevertheless, there are some interesting things about this movie. There is a genuinely tragic character in Ben Chaplin, Charley's predecessor as champion and later his friend, who is forced by Roberts to fight when medically unfit to do so, and suffers the consequences. Chaplin is played by the black actor Canada Lee, and this was a surprisingly major role for a black character at a time when Hollywood operated an unofficial colour bar and black actors were generally confined to minor roles. The dramatic fight sequences, especially during Charley's final bout with Marlowe, are well done; they are said to have influenced the fight scenes in Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull". Like a number of other boxing pictures, including "Champion" and "Raging Bull", "Body and Soul" is about more than the sport itself. It is also a parable about the power of money and success to corrupt and a human story about a man's struggle to retain his integrity in the face of temptation. As such it works very well- taut, fast-paced and well put together. 7/10

blanche-2 John Garfield is a fighter taken over "Body and Soul" in this 1947 Faustian drama about a man who becomes too heady with success and too greedy, eventually signing on with a crooked fight promoter. Garfield is supported here by Lilli Palmer, Anne Revere, Hazel Brooks, William Conrad, Canada Lee and Lloyd Gough.American filmmakers love boxing movies, and why not? It's a one on one brutal action sport that has inherent in it good drama because of what is at stake for people who most likely came from nothing and used their fists on the street. "Body and Soul" is no different in this regard, but it's one of the best of its kind. It also boasts an unusual and exceptionally talented cast.The film is loaded with conflict for Charlie Davis (Garfield) - his mother (Revere) doesn't want him to fight; he's in love with Peg (Palmer) and wants to marry her but is talked into delaying it when he signs on with a new and corrupt promoter, Roberts (Gough). This will be the first of Charlie's concessions and unfortunately not the last. He fights Ben (Lee), but isn't told that the man has a blood clot and he needs to coast through only a few rounds. Instead, he pulverizes Ben, causing further brain damage, and takes him on as a trainer out of guilt. Then he's seduced by a money-hungry babe named Alice (Brooks). And on and on, until Roberts bets against him and orders him to take a dive in the championship fight he's been waiting for. (With all the films done about taking dives, anyone who bets on a fight is nuts.) Something about this movie - maybe it's the theme song, which is one of my favorites - swept me away. It's one of Garfield' most colorful performances, and the beautiful, classy Palmer is a perfect juxtaposition not only to the streetwise Charlie but the trashy Alice.The truly transcendent role and performance is essayed by Canada Lee, a wonderful actor who died too young and had too few opportunities in film. His performance as the volatile, ill Ben was Oscar-worthy. Like Ben Carter in "Crash Dive," the fact that Lee is black does not enter into the script at all, and he is treated as an equal. For all the rotten stereotyping done in films at that time, there were a few scripts that defied it. Lee was blacklisted and died in 1952 (the same year that John Garfield died), at 45, almost literally of a broken heart. He left a legacy of five films and some wonderful stage work, including Orson Welles' all-black Macbeth. Cast members Garfield, Lee, Anne Revere, Lloyd Gough, Art Smith, Shimen Ruskin, scriptwriter Abraham Polonsky and producer Bob Roberts would all find themselves blacklisted, and director Rossen would be threatened but admit to being a Communist and name names.Magnificently photographed in black and white by James Wong Howe and with top direction, "Body and Soul" is an example of how wonderful film can be.

kayaker36 The great lightweight champion of the 1920's Benny Leonard (true name: Benjamin Leiner) was the model for Charley Davis. Leonard's closeness to his mother was played up in the sporting press of the time. She wanted her son to play the violin, not box. Leonard reminded her in telegrams after each victory that he was "bringing home the bacon"--earning far more with his fists than he ever could as a fiddler. Sadly, Leonard lost all his money in the stock market crash and was forced to make an ill- advised comeback. When he retired as a boxer for keeps, he was given referee work. After officiating at six bouts on a hot New York night, Leonard suffered a heart attack and died in the ring.By today's standards this picture is oversentimental, lacking in subtlety and full of clichés. What hoists it is the gritty intensity of John Garfield. Due in large part to his early death, John Garfield's movies enjoy a cult following which time has not diminished. Garfield's pictures, even back in the 'thirties, often included black actors. This was unusual for the time, marking him out as politically liberal and perhaps helping make him a target for congressional red-baiters.