Body and Soul

Charley Davis grew up on New York's East Side. When his father is killed in a bombing he goes into boxing and rises. The more he wins in the ring the more people he loses outside it: his fiancée, his mother, his friend. In the end a fixed fight is put in front of him, and the whole picture runs toward the question of what he will do that night. The story treats boxing not as sport but as a question of ownership. The man opposite the hero is not his opponent but the man with money on him, and the real defeat happens outside the ropes. Robert Rossen directed from Abraham Polonsky's screenplay, with John Garfield in the lead. Lilli Palmer plays the fiancée and Canada Lee the former champion. The fight scenes were an innovation in themselves. Cinematographer James Wong Howe took a lightweight handheld Eyemo into the ring and moved among the fighters while an assistant on roller skates pushed him. That footage is often cited as a source for Scorsese's Raging Bull. Garfield, Polonsky and Canada Lee were blacklisted within a few years. Garfield died in 1952 at thirty-nine. Who it is for: anyone who likes film noir and boxing pictures. Who it is not for: anyone expecting fast fights. The film's weight sits in the scenes outside the ring, and its closing beat may feel too tidy to a viewer today.