As a fan of jazz standards, I have appreciated a great many renditions of “Body and Soul”. It is no surprise the tune is threaded through the score of 1947 boxing noir Body and Soul.
James Garfield stars as a man destined for a career as a pugilist, much to the chagrin of mother Anne Revere. She had hoped he would make something of himself without resorting to the violence of the ring. What makes up his mind is his disgust at this mother possibly accepting charity for support after the death of father Art Smith. Soon, Garfield is losing the morals instilled in him by Revere, and even throwing fights for kickbacks.
He also forgets about Lilli Palmer, the girl he intended to marry. He doesn’t see her for a whole year while he is in one bout after another around the country. In a way, his face becomes something akin to how a passport accumulates stamps from the places in which its holder has visited. Palmer points to each scar and he tells her which city he incurred that particular one.
Temptation arrives in the form of Hazel Brooks. Initially, she’s the arm candy of William Conrad, who is Garfield’s manager. I find it interesting she is so openly a gold digger, which is how she comes to latch onto Garfield. Get a load of this exchange between she and Conrad, after she has ditched him for his client: : “I don’t care where his heart is, only the money. And you’re getting old.” “So are you. You look like you could use a new paint job.”
When we first see her, it is in the present as, per a staple of noir, the first two acts of the movie will all be in flashback. Before that flashback, we see Garfield desperate for company and so he seeks Brooks out at the club where she’s singing. Unlike most films of this kind, the club hardly has anybody in it, and there is scant applause at the end of her number.
That is a fair representation of the loneliness which permeates this picture. The very first images in the film are a heavy bag hanging from a tree limb at night, casting a long shadow as it gently sways apparent cause. A tracking shot closes in on Garfield as he startles awake.
Driving into the city, he first goes to his mother’s apartment, but she is rather cold. It turns out Palmer has been living with her, and he also can’t bear to see the sight of Garfield. We do not know yet why he has received this reception from either woman.
It is only in that flashback we see the monster he becomes, pushing away everybody who is close to him. Perhaps the cruelest treatment is that given to Joseph Peveny, his best friend who had tirelessly worked to help him in his career. Another person I hated to see abused was Canada Lee, as a boxer Garfield nearly kills in a bout because he doesn’t know the man sustained a nearly fatal injury in his last fight. That Conrad agreed to keep that information from Garfield reflects poorly on him. But Lee survives, and Garfield takes him on as his trainer.
Lee had been boxing for gangster Lloyd Gough and he holds the man responsible for his near-death. Garfield is also now being managed by Gough, initially only so he could get into tournament bouts in NYC. But he is soon complicit in throwing fights, something that break the last straw with both Revere and Palmer.
Revere, a long-time character actor, really shines in this picture. I love blatantly she dislikes Gough on first sight. She is also coolly receptive to Brooks, who tells her Garfield is going to make his mother rich: Revere: “I’m beautiful. Why would I want to be rich?” I’m not sure anybody has seen Revere in a film and thought she was physically beautiful, but she shows there is more kinds of beauty in the world than just at the surface. Another great line the script gives her is when her son says she can finally live in a decent place, and she replies with great affrontery, “I live in a decent place.”
Odd, but what usually interests me the least in any movie about the sweet science is the actual boxing. But the bouts we see are genuinely exciting. There is almost a documentary feel to the last fight, one where he is expected to take a fall in the fifteenth round. The tension is unbearable as it becomes increasingly uncertain whether he will take a dive. If he doesn’t, he will likely lose his life.
Please indulge me some random observations. First, I always wonder how windows end up interior walls of apartments, such as in Revere’s. If it was a house, I would assume the room beyond the window was an extension, but nobody would extend an apartment building. Second, I wanted to see more of Palmer’s sculptor roommate, Virginia Gregg. Something I found fascinating about this character in her very brief time on screen is she looks like somebody from the 80’s or 90’s was just dropped into a more from a half century prior. Lastly, I was fascinated by a very brief moment where a poster blowing off a wall is reversed, making it appear an anthropomorphic piece of paper jumps up onto a wall.
Body and Soul is top-tier noir, and I will even concede it is one of the best boxing pictures I have seen. I would be astonished if this wasn’t yet another influence on Raging Bull. It has great, but unassuming photography by James Wong Howe. It has sparkling dialogue, such as Palmer’s reply to Garfield’s plainly stated intension to be a success: “You mean you want others to think you are a success.” This picture is a success, one where the most a man thinks he can loses in his fights is the damage to his body, when the real damage is what he is doing to his soul.
Dir: Robert Rossen
Starring John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray