Support Trailers From Hell with a donation to help us reduce ads and keep creating the content you love! Donate Now
Trailers
From Hell.com

Body and Soul

by Glenn Erickson Dec 14, 2024

Abraham Polonsky and Robert Rossen’s ringside classic is a key film noir and a key social issue film; John Garfield and Lilli Palmer make big impressions with the aid of Anne Revere, Canada Lee, Lloyd Gough, William Conrad and Joseph Pevney. James Wong Howe brought a new, raw look to his cinematography of a boxing match; Garfield has his defining role as an outsider who refuses to bow to corruption: What are you going to do, kill me?  Everybody dies.”  The show has a high number of actors and crew later blacklisted by the HUAC witch hunters. Alan K. Rode tells all the connected stories in his excellent commentary.


Body and Soul
Blu-ray
KL Studio Classics
1947 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 104 min. / Street Date October 1, 2024 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere, William Conrad, Joseph Pevney, Lloyd Gough, Canada Lee, Virginia Gregg, Sid Melton.
Cinematography: James Wong Howe
Art Director: Nathan Juran
Supervising film editor: Francis D. Lyon
Film Editor: Robert Parrish, assistant Michael Luciano
Montages: Gunther von Fritsch
Wardrobe Designer: Marion Herwood Keyes
Original Music: Hugo Friedhofer
Assistant director: Robert Aldrich
Screenplay Written by Abraham Polonsky
Produced by Bob Roberts
Directed by
Robert Rossen

American politics was always rough, but the blacklist era was especially ugly, and exceptionally punishing on liberals that tried to exercise their rights. Hollywood was attacked not because it constituted a real menace, but because the town’s writers, directors and actors were soft targets for opportunists eager to build careers as Red hunters.

All kinds of filmmakers were affected — all except stars and directors too popular to be effectively smeared. Liberal creatives gravitated to like-minded talent, which is why the newly-founded Enterprise Productions drew many names that would later be blacklisted. Body and Soul was the unlucky startup studio’s only real box office hit. It stars John Garfield, the actor most severely impacted by the witch hunts. He was hounded and badgered to an early death from a heart attack, just a few years later. The film’s main credits read like a grave marker for blacklisted film talent, many of whom would be banished from the screen just a few years later.

 

Movies with social messages do not normally make for great entertainment, but writer Abraham Polonsky and director Robert Rosson’s film is a major exception. That Hollywood could make such a show ought to have been celebrated as a victory for political expression in America — few European filmmakers could exercise such freedom of speech. Polonsky and Rossen, both Marxists and anti-fascists, made their reputations with this picture.

Body and Soul is also one of the best movies ever about boxing. The subgenre’s combination of sport, brutality, sex and money has always been hard to beat. Polonsky’s screenplay tops its human story with a statement about business corruption. Seeing a way to make big money, an ambitious young boxer defies his mother’s wishes and steps into the ring. With success comes status, easy women and disillusion. Things can wind up in triumph or tragedy, as the formula leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Body and Soul uses its boxing story to criticize capitalism, specifically the idea that the profit principle reduces people to a commodity that can be bought and sold.

 

Charley Davis (John Garfield) is the unemployed son of an immigrant who runs a candy shop (Art Smith). When the father is killed in an explosion from the speakeasy next door, Charley forbids his mother (Ann Revere) to take charity and trains as a prizefighter. His best buddy Shorty (Joseph Pevney) becomes his manager. Local promoter Quinn (William Conrad) introduces Charley to promoter Roberts (Lloyd Gough), who is quick to get the boy fighting. Charley begins to earn money, but Shorty doesn’t like the setup: hoods control who fights and who does not — and sometimes who will win. Roberts splits up shares of Charley’s purses while Charley takes all the risk. Charley’s new arrogance disturbs his mother and his devoted girlfriend Peg (Lilli Palmer). Roberts managed older boxer Ben Chaplin (Canada Lee) until an injury forced his retirement. Roberts wants to put Ben back in the ring, even though a bad punch would kill the man.

Body and Soul arrived soon after the watershed liberal sentiment classic  The Best Years of Our Lives, which drew conservative ire for suggesting that returning veterans were ill-treated, especially by the banking industry. The story of a boxer’s rise to the championship is so expertly written and directed that the author’s politics never seem imposed — in the boxing game one would expect to see boxers cheated and abused. Audiences were caught up in the excitement of the fight sequences, which broke the rules for studio filmmaking. James Wong Howe shot some of the Big Fight handheld, sometimes on roller skates. Howe also overexposed the scenes in the ring to better resemble the sweaty, overheated look of news film. Although Martin Scorsese received kudos for recreating the style in his 1980 Raging Bull, Howe’s look had been imitated many times previously.

 

Abraham Polonsky’s swift-moving show offers jokes and wit to balance its deep-dish moralizing. Charley is brash but honest. He sees fighting as his way to get above the cruelty that killed his father. When his mother protests that it would be better that he shoot himself than fight for money, Charley’s response is fast and bitter: “You need money to buy a gun!” His impulsiveness attracts promoter Quinn and also the beautiful Peg, who works as a fashion artist. She compares Charley to a tiger and supports his decision to do what he wants to do. Only later does she condemn Charley’s reckless willingness to join in the corruption.

With Peg gone, the gold-digging playgirl Alice (Hazel Brooks) moves in on Charley. But his real enemy is the venal Roberts, who risks little and rakes in the bulk of the profits. We see Roberts’ cold tactics first-hand. Fights are rigged to maximize his yield. Boxers that become incapacitated are quickly discarded, yet Roberts will coax an at-risk boxer like Ben to keep fighting, tossing off his responsibility with an offhand dismissal:  “Everybody dies.”

The promoter cuts Shorty from the team, leaving nobody to look out for Charley’s interests. Charley wins the championship title but soon goes soft. In a telling move, Peg leaves Charley and stays with his mother. They await his return to reason, like heroines in a Greek play.

The messages in Body and Soul do not feel imposed on the material. Nor does the film expect us to consider that ‘the whole system’ may be corrupt, as does Abraham Polonsky and John Garfield’s follow-up picture  Force of Evil, which persuasively equates organized crime and big business. In both movies, Garfield’s hero chooses to fight back. It all winds up with Charley’s bold rebellion, when he refuses to throw the big fight. In this story the cliché works like gangbusters.

 

Body and Soul was a big hit. It doesn’t draw political conclusions as much as it promotes moral values and social responsibility. The other two classic postwar boxing pictures, both from 1949, take pains to avoid a larger political statement. Robert Wise’s The Set-Up focuses on the dilemma of an aging boxer (Robert Ryan) trying to make a comeback, with all the odds stacked against him. The ‘evil’ is all centered on one crooked manager; the sad world of boxing ‘just is’ and cannot be helped. The screenplay for Carl Foreman & Mark Robson’s Champion is almost a rebuttal to Body and Soul. Star Kirk Douglas earned an Oscar nomination as a charismatic but amoral boxer. He comes up against the same kind of corruption, but every bad thing that happens to him is his own damn fault. The Stanley Kramer production claims to be a torrid exposé of the fight game, but never makes a statement beyond the personal level.

The title credits for Body and Soul are packed with class-A Hollywood talent, starting with the celebrated cameraman James Wong Howe. Film editor Robert Parrish, art director Nathan Juran and assistant director Robert Aldrich would all become noted directors. Director Gunther von Fritsch ( The Curse of the Cat People) assembled the film’s excellent montages. But a number of participants in Rossen’s picture would later be knocked out of movie work by the witch hunts. Along with the writer and director, the stars Garfield, Anne Revere    and Canada Lee    were later denounced as Communists or fellow travelers in the publication  Red Channels and blocked from employment.

Abraham Polonsky wasn’t allowed to renew his passport. Robert Rossen recanted on his second appearance before the HUAC committee and was one of the few allowed to continue working. Others were outed by peers trying to save their own careers. Actor Art Smith was betrayed by his colleague from the New York theater, Elia Kazan. Smith’s name disappeared from screens in 1952, his career effectively ended. Lloyd Gough’s name is misspelled in the titles as ‘Goff.’  Howard Hughes later saw to it that Gough was removed from the cast list of Rancho Notorious, even though he had a main role. Gough’s career was going well, but Notorious would be his last feature film appearance for a full 25 years.  *

 


The KL Studio Classics Blu-ray of  Body and Soul is another remastered film noir that was first released by Olive Films, back in 2012. Kino’s package copy gives more detail, noting a ‘2021 HD master by Paramount Pictures, from a 4K scan.’ Robert Rossen’s classic is in great shape for both image and audio. James Wong Howe’s lighting is dramatic without selling too many ‘noir’ extremes. His pallid, documentary-like images for the boxing scenes stand out strongly in the new encoding.

Kino includes some trailers, but the main event in the package is a new commentary by Alan K. Rode, who wastes no time dispensing relevant background information on Body and Soul.  He starts with the formation of Enterprise Productions, explaining that John Garfield wasn’t one of its owners, just a contractee. Enterprise was located at a rental lot now known as Raleigh Studios, just a few blocks from CineSavant Central.

Alan devotes a lot of time to John Garfield’s life and career, and has good insights for almost every other face we see, like the always-good, multi-talented Lilli Palmer.    He charts the trials and troubles endured by the Body and Soul filmmakers and actors that were soon to collide with the HUAC witch hunts. We also learn that the main musical theme is a  popular song from 1930, that gives the film its title.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson


Body and Soul
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary by Alan K. Rode
Trailers.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case in card sleeve
Reviewed:
December 11, 2024
(7243body)

*  Hughes reportedly proposed to re-shoot the credits for scores of earlier RKO pictures, to remove the names of “known subversives.”  The cost of doing so probably curbed that idea.CINESAVANT

Visit CineSavant’s Main Column Page
Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail:
cinesavant@gmail.com

Text © Copyright 2024 Glenn Erickson

About Glenn Erickson

Screen Shot 2015-08-24 at 6.51.08 PM

Glenn Erickson left a small town for UCLA film school, where his spooky student movie about a haunted window landed him a job on the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS effects crew. He’s a writer and a film editor experienced in features, TV commercials, Cannon movie trailers, special montages and disc docus. But he’s most proud of finding the lost ending for a famous film noir, that few people knew was missing. Glenn is grateful for Trailers From Hell’s generous offer of a guest reviewing haven for CineSavant.

4.3 6 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
4 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Chas Speed

I bought this a while ago and was very impressed by Kino’s Blu-ray. It was a big improvement over past releases.

Straker

Of course Joe Pevney later became a prolific director as well.

Tony

The line “Everybody does” is spoken by Charlie not Roberts in the confrontation about throwing a fight:

Charlie: Get yourself a new boy. I retire.
Roberts: What makes you think you can get away with this?
Davis: What are you gonna do? Kill me? Everybody dies.

Last edited 1 month ago by Tony
4
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x