This near-perfect Errol Flynn movie became a timeless classic the moment it hit television. The story of boxer Jim Corbett stands as a prime example of studio-based filmmking that knows what the audience likes. It’s so good we don’t mind the thick Irish humor, and we’re forced to shed a tear for Ward Bond, too. Alexis Smith and Flynn have terrific chemistry together, and Jack Carson offers able support. Raoul Walsh could be proud of this one.

Gentleman Jim
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1942 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 104 min. / Available at MovieZyng / Street Date December 12, 2023 / 21.99
Starring: Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, John Loder, William Frawley, Minor Watson, Ward Bond, Madeleine Lebeau, Rhys Williams, Arthur Shields, James Flavin, Tor Johnson, Mike Mazurki.
Cinematography: Sidney Hickox
Art Director: Ted Smith
Film Editor: Jack Killifer
Original Music: Heinz Roemheld
Fight Choreographer: Mushy Callahan
Montages: Don Siegel
Screenplay by Vincent Lawrence, Horace McCoy
Produced by Robert Buckner
Directed by Raoul Walsh

Hollywood’s golden-era stars were as much personalities as they were actors, and the studios used their bigger-than-life personae as a short cut to audience identification. People once went to see whatever their favorite stars were in — the story wasn’t always the draw. That’s why scores of excellent actors found themselves in secondary roles … like, say John Lund or Barry Sullivan … because another ‘almost Clark Gable’ wasn’t needed. If a star was really big, like Bette Davis or Marilyn Monroe, a studio might have an actress or two on the payroll suitable for similar roles, with the thought of keeping the big star in line.

A major heartthrob for the women and a role model for men, Errol Flynn was as super as a star could get. Audiences accepted him as dashing, cultured, mischievous — but he succeed as much when not wearing a period costume or a uniform. He wasn’t an Everyman, ordinary guy type. In Gentleman Jim Flynn found a character that was a perfect fit, that presents him at his most attractive.

Gentleman Jim is the fictionalized story of a boxer who was once a household name; if people today know who James Corbett and John L. Sullivan were, it’s likely because of this movie. It’s a sports movie, but much more than that. Raoul Walsh directs smartly, but not with the stopwatch-intensity of Michael Curtiz. For Errol Flynn the added breathing space is a good thing. It’s hard to find a show with a cast that works together as well as this one.

An almost perfect movie.

The credited screenwriters Horace McCoy and Vincent Lawrence make the story of James Corbett into classic Americana. Lowly but ambitious San Francisco bank teller James Corbett (Errol Flynn) comes from a rambunctious Irish family. Father Pat (Alan Hale) runs a stable and his brothers are longshoremen, but Jim aspires to join the upscale Nob Hill crowd. He flatters the society belle Victoria Ware (Alexis Smith) to crash the fancy Olympic Sports Club and meet Vicki’s millionaire father Buck (Minor Watson). A quick bout with trainer Harry Watson (Rhys Williams), and Jim’s path to prizefighting already seems set. But he’s such an obvious ‘climber’ that the club sets up a bout with a pro, just to put him in his place.

Corbett surprises them all by winning and continuing to win. Victoria wants to see him humbled, not realizing that he’s won her heart as well. Jim picks up a manager (William Frawley) and starts his climb to the top, where awaits the champion of the world, the one and only celebrity showboat John L. Sullivan (Ward Bond).

1942 was a nervous year, but it’s a safe bet that this picture helped audiences forget about the war for a couple of hours. Hollywood regularly tapped the 1890s for quaint stories untroubled by ‘modern’ problems, and the lessons taught here are very reassuring:

1) — America may be divided across economic lines, but there are no limits on those with talent, ambition and a positive spirit. 2) — Wealthy people came from rough beginnings, just like you. 3) — Everybody loves a winner.

Gentleman Jim is one of Errol Flynn’s most entertaining films, and the one that most flatters his public image. James Corbett’s open vanity and  social climbing aren’t typical for manly heroes, but Flynn’s utter charm disarms objections. It’s impressive that the screenplay doesn’t make Corbett look good by surrounding him with enemies — everybody loves and admires Jim, even those that criticize him.

The beautiful Alexis Smith could have been a Gibson Girl. She was frequently ill-cast, and sometimes dismissed as cold, but her elegance is ideal for this role. Victoria Ware has dignity. Her interactions with Corbett retain a period restraint — when Jim steals a kiss at a dance, we take it as a serious faux pas. The writing keeps the Jim-Victoria relationship superficially hostile, when we know a big thaw will eventually arrive. (Odd note — Smith’s gorgeous smiles and smirks consistently make us think of Jodie Foster.)

San Francisco money is all New Money.

The script works overtime to soften the class/economic divide. Victoria’s almost-fiancé Carlton De Witt (John Loder) is a real gentleman. He remains fair-minded even when Vicki demonstrates her interest in the Irish upstart. The script avoids most of the expected patronizing attitude toward independent women, but not all. Vickie apparently doesn’t realize that she wants a man that’s brash and slightly rough. At the finish she says something about women not thinking out problems, but making decisions by instinct.

“The Corbetts are at it again!”

The knockabout Irish humor is Gentleman Jim’s least appealing aspect, yet it betters some of John Ford’s boozy excesses. Alan Hale and Dorothy Vaughan are sweet and feisty, and Jim’s brothers (Pat Flaherty & James Flavin, uncredited) carry off some very funny roughneck action at the dinner table. Jack Carson is Jim’s pal Walter Lowrie, a role that becomes less important as Jim’s career rises. But it’s telling that Corbett has his own sense of rough loyalty. He turns his back on the sports club when Walter is ejected from a dance (for fairly good reason). Jim may bring a gentleman’s manners to boxing, but the Olympic Club only wants him back when he wins big.

Jim Corbett is outwardly conceited, but the movie insists that he’s a swell guy. We want a hero, and they can’t all be humble galoots like John Wayne and Gary Cooper. It again is a reflection of Errol Flynn’s public image. The rumors that circulated about Flynn’s sexual misdeeds only added to his glory. If Flynn were trying to function in our age of media scrutiny, he’d have to change his act or get set to be scorned, rightly or wrongly, as a serial molester of underaged girls. But we still prefer the vision promoted by Flynn’s movie image — that he really was the gentleman we see on the screen.

The Errol Flynn charm incorporates a major ‘wink at the audience’ factor. Flynn frequently acknowledges that he too thinks he’s a privileged scamp who’s not above being the butt of a joke now and then. In one fight Jim has to climb out of San Francisco Bay, when a foe knocks him clean off a boxing ring set up on a barge. Jim pauses on the ladder to spit out the water he’s swallowed, as might the cartoon character Popeye.  ^*

Organized boxing must have LOVED Gentleman Jim, with its notion that Jim Corbett raised both the sport’s status and ethical standards. Yes, nothing corrupt or dishonest about 20th century boxing, that’s for sure. Although the movie makes no outright patriotic pitch, as does Warners’ Yankee Doodle Dandy of the same year, it certainly presents an American ideal, telling the viewer that, yes, his country is worth fighting for.  Corbett does pose with a flag or two. He’s a genuine Captain America.

It’s a great movie for Ward Bond, who gives John L. Sullivan a broad but honest bombast — this Sullivan loves being a celebrity, and has the illusion that he can’t be beaten. Is the championship bout staged too broadly?  Bond is directed to fight like a drunken moose, and doesn’t seem to have a chance of winning. Did the real Sullivan go down like that?

Other must-mention actors include William Frawley as the crusty, straight-shooting manager who picks up Corbett in Salt Lake City. Rhys Williams brings the boxing cred from his ‘Dai Bando’ character in How Green Was My Valley. The show has only 12 credited actors. The dozens that go unbilled include several with major speaking parts.

“I can lick any man in the world!”

We have a feeling that the movie was a smooth shoot without major problems, but that its makers didn’t know that it would become a long-lasting favorite. Raoul Walsh’s official autobiography could have been ghost-written, as it is mostly a collection of quick celebrity anecdotes. His only specific memory of this show is a complaint about a union protest. Warners’ scenery shop erected a painted backdrop to represent a boxing audience, but the extras held up production until a bigger crowd was hired instead.

Before moving on to the next movie, Walsh simply quotes the text of the post-championship scene, the entire touching exchange between Corbett and the former champ Sullivan. It’s likely Ward Bond’s best film role.

The show doesn’t seem to have been nominated for any awards at all … did the industry have more prestigious films to promote, or did the Academy consider Errol Flynn’s movies to be unworthy of such attention?  Gentleman Jim is as entertaining as anything Hollywood ever produced.

The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of Gentleman Jim is the answer to collectors wondering when the Warner Archive Collection would get back to releasing classic pix with the WB pantheon of stars. The WAC follwed it up with William Keighley’s The Prince and the Pauper, another more conventional Errol Flynn winner.

The remastering job couldn’t be bettered. The rich images by Stanley Hickox were apparently all made on interior sound stages; when long shots show buildings in the distance, sometimes the art director uses an awning or other obstruction to block what would be the sight of the sound stage rafters.

The show’s montages are creative, especially a pre-fight to post-fight transition that uses rear projection to transform a barroom photo into a moving picture. Future director Don Siegel is credited for the montage work. We’re told that he directed the sequences, as well as edited them.

We memorized old TV presentations, and when Jim finally came to home video, were surprised to see a ‘new’ scene or two that had been routinely snipped to make room for more TV commercials. But they kept in the scene of Ward Bond’s Sullivan chopping a log in a stage show. The WAC includes an up front attorney-approved text disclaimer, clearly because the scene includes a stage clown in blackface. We like that better than a text disclaimer saying that ‘scenes were removed.’

On a large monitor the fight scenes look very large-scale; Walsh uses plenty of long shots. The close-in editing in the fights is phenomenal, with fast action cuts between blows being exchanged and Corbett’s fancy footwork. TCM once invited some boxing experts in to critique what were usually very fake boxing scenes in movies. They praised Gentleman Jim’s attention to a few obsolete details from the 1880s, and noted the exaggerated punching on view. The fights in this show are never boring.

The WAC includes three cartoons from 1942, detailed below, which we think are HD remasters. Also on board is a radio show version; we’re told that even big contract stars happily did those because it meant more money directly into their pockets. The original trailer does not look remastered.

The WAC uses an original poster. Almost all the advertising materials use star portraits, with no reference to boxing or a period setting!

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Gentleman Jim
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Cartoon The Dover Boys at Pimiento University (1942) Chuck Jones
Cartoon Foney Fables (1942) Friz Freleng
Cartoon Hobby Horse-Laffs (1942, in B&W) Norm McCabe
Screen Guild Playhouse radio broadcast with Errol Flynn and Alexis Smith
Original Theatrical Trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: February 8, 2024
(7075jim)

^*  I’m far from caught up on Errol Flynn lore, but working for TCM as an editor I was able to see all the background film coverage of a big-event MGM day (1947?) where the entire roster of Metro’s contract players and currently-filming stars came by for a luncheon, and a sit-down for a mass photograph of everybody under Louis B. Mayer’s thumb All the Stars Under Heaven. One angle showed the stars being introduced one by one. They walked out of a kind of tunnel, took their bow, and proceeded to the dais. George Feltenstein’s producer told me that, although Flynn was filming an MGM movie at the time, he wasn’t invited because he was giving the front office trouble.

But Flynn crashed the luncheon / photo shoot, and just inserted himself in line (next to Greer Garson?). The Emcee had to do some quick thinking when the wrong person walked out and waved with a big smile. Only a BIG star could get away with this kind of thing.  Flynn’s luncheon crash explains exactly his appeal — we want Errol to be a conceited bad boy who gets away with things. Look at that winning smile — who could say no to that guy?

Final product for this review was provided free by The Warner Archive Collection.

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

Text © Copyright 2024 Glenn Erickson