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
"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