Quality overcomes the obviousness of this Abraham Polonsky script. By that I mean that this is a story we have seen many times before, a story about fame and money bringing corruption along with it. But Abraham has taken this genre trope and crafted a story that transcends these trappings and gives us characters we care about and a plot that keeps us invested, even though it is fairly obvious where it is headed. This is no easy feat and even some of the best screenwriters out there have stumbled when attempting it.
Body and Soul is about a man, Charley Davis (John Garfield), who goes against his mother’s wishes and becomes a boxer. As his star begins to rise he is introduced to an unethical promoter, Roberts (Lloyd Gough), who uses Charley to earn extra money on the side, gambling on the outcome of the fights. This starts out initially by allowing fights to go the distance when Charley could have easily won earlier. But eventually Charley is asked to take a dive. While Charley resists that idea, the money offered him is just too much to pass over. All the while, Roberts is tempting Charley with a number of other vices, not just money and fame.
There is a bit of social commentary here, particularly about the gambling rackets and how shady characters manipulate the odds in order to make it big. Charley is presented as a nice guy, willing to use his physical power to defend those who cannot. This helps us be on his side even as temptation sets in and he is being led astray. It also helps us to see this side of him so that his change of heart in the final act is believable. We don’t, however, believe that his actions in the finale will not have consequences but that is left mostly to a non-existent sequel.
This film soars whenever it is in the ring. These boxing matches are raw and brutal, shot in such a way as to really showcase how hard and violent boxing can be. This is not stylized and cinematic the way a film like Rocky portrays it but more rough and tumble, with punches swinging and missing just as often as they are making contact. It doesn’t shy away from the blood and bruising but it also can’t depict violence on a level a more recent film can. But that doesn’t make it any less effective. Instead, because of the way it is shot and the way John Garfield is playing it, we feel those hits.
We feel the heart even more, though. Lilli Palmer is playing the love interest, Peg Born, and she stays by Charley even as he starts making poor decisions. We see the hurt and the frustration through her eyes as well as in the eyes of his mother, Anna (Anne Revere), when he explains to her that he is intentionally going to lose a fight. Even though Peg disagrees with his choice, she is there to watch the fight and cheer him on, hoping he will ultimately make the right decision.
Body and Soul isn’t breaking any new ground. But it is getting us to care about these characters despite the familiar story. John Garfield is doing the lion’s share of that with his sympathetic performance but he is helped immensely by Lilli Palmer who is simply a delight to watch here. Everything just works with this one, making for one of the most entertaining, and heartwarming stories about right and wrong to release that year. It would eventually go on to earn three Academy Award nominations, including one for John Garfield. 1947 - 104 minutes
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