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Quandary of art and commerce, applied to pugilist and playwright and picturemaker. "Funny kid," that Joe Bonaparte, gangling and curly-topped William Holden already with a hard edge. "What's he gonna do? Play the violinski in the backyard all his life?" From fiddling to slugging, rise of the Lower East Side lad courtesy of the boxing manager (Adolphe Menjou) and his girlfriend (Barbara Stanwyck). Papa (Lee J. Cobb) has his heart broken, brother-in-law (Sam Levene) reaps the benefits, gangster (Joseph Calleia) demands a piece of the action. "You take a chance the day you're born. Why stop now?" Clifford Odets' Group Theatre recomposition of The Jazz Singer, transposed to the screen by Rouben Mamoulian with atypical self-effacement. The hotheaded rookie and "a dame from Newark," exchanging ambitions and regrets before a painted neon cityscape. "Once someone told me to go out and find fame and fortune. It's been taking up all my time." Imagistic language in gyms and alleys is the Odets forte, the hood who shares his last name with a painter of nightmares rebuffs the promoter's celestial vision: "I had a visit, too. I was in a bar and the same angel came down and ate a pretzel." A communal "Funiculì, Funiculà," Brahms interludes, eyes on the old country. ("America itself is a mirage. And Europe! Every time I read what goes on in the papers...") Mamoulian saves his fireworks for the climactic bout, shot on location at Madison Square Garden as a segregated arena illuminated by cutaways to mini-vignettes in the audience. Sensitive hands, shattered behind the bloodied gloves, "too late for music." Body and Soul, The Set-Up, Champion go on asking if the game is worth the candle. With Edward Brophy, Beatrice Blinn, William H. Strauss, Don Beddoe, Frank Jenks, and Clinton Rosemond. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |