This was John Garfield's first picture after leaving Warner Brothers and some say it was his best performance ever, with an Academy Award nomination for the effort. I thought Garfield was good, and his boxing scenes came across as fairly realistic. The host of Turner Classics, Ben Mankiewicz, mentioned that cinematographer James Wong Howe used some cutting edge filming techniques given the era - he strapped a camera to his chest and rolled around the ring on roller skates!

I thought the film had a rough similarity to 1937's "Dead End", a non-boxing film that had a lot of the Warner Brothers trademarks that seeped over into this movie. Garfield's character Charley Davis came out of poverty and resorted to the only means of making a living he could by taking up the fight game. Charley's mother (Anne Revere) reminded me of Bogie's Mom in "Dead End" (Marjorie Main),in that both were basically humorless and less than understanding of their son's chosen profession. Actually Bogart didn't have a profession in his film, he was a street punk named Baby Face Martin. Both stories took place on New York's East Side.

I always get a kick out of how quickly some of these boxing stories bring along the central character in their rise to the top; Davis manages twenty one fights in his first year in the ring and is set to battle for the championship, but only if he hooks up with crooked promoter Roberts (Lloyd Gough). And for only fifty per cent of his purses too! You have to wonder how crooked it really was behind the scenes of the boxing game because most good movies at least touched on it. Just check out "Raging Bull" for a real life example.

Well, before Charley comes to his senses as a human being, he goes through a period of womanizing, drinking and gambling, and doesn't get his wake up call until the death of his trainer Ben (Canada Lee). Just prior, Ben chastens Charley for his association with Roberts and comments on an upcoming title defense by asking "Did you sell the fight, Charley"? One thing you might have to overlook during the title match against Marlowe (Artie Dorrell) is a palpable weight difference between the two fighters. Marlowe actually looked skinny to me as the contender, side by side it looked like Davis outweighed him by at least a weight class.

Say, there was a great line uttered by Charley's manager Quinn (William Conrad) in the scene when he was arguing with the boxer's call girl Alice (Hazel Brooks). Alice was basically letting him know he was no prize package in the looks department, and his comeback was a beaut - "You could use a new paint job yourself". I'll have to remember that one.

Robert Rossen's look at the unbridled pursuit of wealth and prestige casts John Garfield as a man who goes into boxing, only to see his egotism cause tragedies for those around him. It's worth noting that a number of the people involved in the production later got blacklisted. No doubt HUAC saw the movie's condemnation of greed as anti-American (and the Bill O'Reilly types probably STILL think so). Garfield, once a popular actor, saw his career ruined and remains mostly forgotten today.

On its own, "Body and Soul" is a gritty focus on the underworld of boxing. It's close to a film noir, with sultry women and sleazy thugs. But more than anything it's a good movie. Watch it and see if you don't feel as if you're walking on eggshells.

PS: William Conrad (Quinn) later narrated "Rocky and Bullwinkle". Crew member Robert Aldrich later directed "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Longest Yard", while crew member Nathan Juran later directed "Attack of the 50-ft Woman" and "Jack the Giant Killer".

Body and Soul was the first of several free lance productions that John Garfield did after his contract with Warner Brothers was concluded. He certainly didn't take any artistic chances because the role of Charlie Davis, the Jewish middleweight boxing champion from the Lower East Side of New York was something Garfield could identify with. He'd played a fighter in his second film, They Made Me A Criminal to great acclaim. And he'd appeared in the original production of Golden Boy though not in the lead. He'd be doing that on stage at the time of his demise in 1952.

But while Body and Soul didn't blaze any artistic trails for Garfield, it did give him a great role that earned him a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Garfield lost to Ronald Colman that year in A Double Life.

Garfield has the feel for the heart and soul of Davis because that was his background. Another reviewer suggested that the Davis character is based on the famous lightweight champion Benny Leonard who would have been a hero to a Jewish kid like Julius Garfinkle growing up first on the Lower East Side and then in the Bronx. Leonard also died around the time Body and Soul was being made and movie audiences would have known that and the film would have a special poignancy for them.

The story is told in flashback as Charlie Davis dozes off in the training room before a defense of his middleweight crown. He's in a depression about the death of someone named Ben.

Ben turns out to be Canada Lee former champion himself who was Garfield's trainer. We see how Garfield who at first listened to his mother Anne Revere not to fight, but then when father Art Smith dies, economics forces him into the ring. Garfield gets involved with two women, artist Lilli Palmer and nightclub singer Hazel Brooks.

He also gets involved with a manager who eventually turns on him in William Conrad and a sleazy promoter in Lloyd Gough. If you're a fan of boxing films I think you can figure out where this will all end up.

But the ride is a good one. Besides Garfield's nomination, Body and Soul got another Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay by Abraham Polonsky. And it won the Oscar that year for Best Film Editing. That's for the great work in that department during that final boxing match.

For fans of John Garfield, Body and Soul is a must. Besides all that there's that great Johnny Green-Edward Heyman song from the Thirties that got a revival because of this film.