Flesh and Fury

No other sport has given rise to as many superior movies as our most barbaric one, prizefighting. Joseph Pevney's Flesh and Fury may fall short of superior, but it's well above average and shows its principal actors in the most flattering light: Tony Curtis does proud in one of his first starring roles, while Jan Sterling contributes possibly her finest performance.

Curtis (in the pouty fulsomeness of his young manhood) boxes for $25 purses when he catches the eye of Sterling, a bloodthirsty and avaricious ringside habitué. The only catch is that Curtis is deaf and dumb, but that suits Sterling just swell - his disability makes him more vulnerable to her control. She pushes his career forward too fast for the liking of his manager (Wallace Ford), but Curtis seems all but unstoppable.

Enter Mona Freeman, reporter from Panorama magazine, to do a feature on the hearing-impaired welterweight. It's her kind of story; her father, a wealthy Long Island architect, was deaf, too, so she learned how to sign - a skill Curtis has let lapse as it calls attention to his shortcoming. But exposed to a world of greater possibilities, Curtis undergoes an operation that restores his hearing.

There's the inevitable canker, however. Curtis' self-assurance in the ring came in part from his obliviousness to the din of the crowd. What's more, the pretentious babble he hears at a party in Freeman's posh mansion convinces him that he has more in common with the strident Sterling than with the privileged Freeman (the William Alland/Bernard Gordon script shows a firm grasp of class frictions). He decides to return to boxing, even though his doctor has warned him that he risks losing his newly regained hearing....

Joesph Pevney remains an overlooked director. He started out as an actor (he debuted in Nocturne as the peripatetic piano player) but soon moved behind the camera, helming a number of offbeat and compulsively watchable movies in and around the noir cycle: Shakedown, Iron Man, Meet Danny Wilson, Female on the Beach, The Midnight Story. In the late '50s, he made the move to television, directing a number of classic series. Not everybody who ended up working for the small screen did so because of mediocrity; some, like Pevney, were in demand because of their solid track record - because of movies like Flesh and Fury.

In one of his roles on the way up Tony Curtis played a deaf mute killer without a line of dialog in Johnny Stool Pigeon. Someone at Universal must have remembered that performance when Flesh And Fury was cast. Tony Curtis shows some real acting chops in this one conveying all kinds of emotions with very few words.

Curtis plays a deaf mute boxer who was doing club dates to earn some dollars. One night after flattening an opponent he makes two acquaintances. One is fight manager Wallace Ford who signs him up, The other is brassy dame Jan Sterling who takes over all kind of other management of him. He may be a deaf mute, but he's Tony Curtis.

But Curtis is introduced to a different world when magazine writer Mona Freeman comes to his camp. She's from real society and Curtis gets a taste of thar, but he's terrified of not being able to fit in.

Curtis and Freeman do well, but Jan Sterling is the one you'll remember from Flesh And Fury. She gets one well deserved comeuppance in the end. Kudos also go to Wallace Ford for his work as the sympathetic and square boxing manager.

Flesh And Fury is a must for fans of Tony Curtis and Jan Sterling.

I admit upfront I'm prejudiced because I worked for Tony Curtis, but he gives a terrific performance in Flesh and Fury from 1952.

Curtis plays a young prizefighter, Paul Callan, a deaf mute. He has a lot of talent - spotted in amateur fights immediately by a gold-digging blond, Sonya Bartow (Jan Sterling), attracted by not only his striking looks but his ability to make money.

Sonya demands that Paul's manager Jack (Wallace Ford) bring him along as a pro quickly. Jack is hesitant, due to a fatal mistake with another young fighter.

When a journalist, Ann Hollis (Mona Freeman) begins a magazine article about Paul, he finds her kindness and acceptance of him attractive, as her father was deaf. She uses sign language with him - he finally reveals he can sign, but doesn't because people look down on him. They have a love of sailing in common, and she invites him out on her boat. Sonya's tentacles go up.

Ann has Paul consult with a specialist who feels he can restore part of his hearing. Paul takes off to have the surgery and participate in a program to teach him to speak.

On returning to the real world, he finds the things people say disturbing, falls out with Sonya, and his rhythm and concentration as a fighter have disappeared. But he wants to go through with the championship fight. Furious, Sonya has everyone bet on his opponent to win.

As others have said, this isn't a noir, but it is a very good drama with strong performances. Curtis' face and manner are expressive, and his characterization of Paul as a vulnerable, shy, and sweet young man is wonderful. Jan Sterling is a powerhouse - even tougher and grittier than in Ace in the Hole!

Curtis was initially ill-served at Universal, but all their starlets had to use the Jon Hall-Maria Montez sets and make period/adventure pictures on the way up. By fighting for better roles and stretching himself, he became a truly fine actor as did many of their contract players.

I want to close by stating that Tony was a delightful, charming man who survived a tough childhood of poverty and antisemitism. He worked hard and supported his parents, his institutionalized brother, wives and children, with whom he was extremely generous. He built a synagogue in Hungary in honor of his parents, administered now by Jamie Lee Curtis. And he got clean and sober and stayed that way.

Like all of us he had his faults. But knowing him was different from reading out of context, exaggerated stories in the press. I found that true in hundreds of celebrity interviews I did.

Amateur boxer Paul Callan (Tony Curtis) is deaf. He falls for Sonya Bartow (Jan Sterling) but she's a selfish gold-digger and he has no money. Retired manager Jack 'Pop' Richardson (Wallace Ford) signs him up. Sonya has him wrapped around her little finger until the arrival of sweet magazine writer Ann Hollis (Mona Freeman) who is looking to write a story about him. She actually knows sign language due to her successful deaf father.

Curtis delivers an interesting performance even when he's not saying anything. His deaf and shy character limits his acting early on but he is able express a lot with his face. As for the boxing, there is a good amount of energy although the realism is held back with the use of some close-ups to fake the punches. This is a really nice boxing and love triangle movie with a super star in the making.

Yes, there is a "bad" blonde babe in this film who exploits the innocent pugilist main character, but otherwise this story falls more squarely in the realm of melodrama than film noir. Still worth a look, especially for the mid-50s milieu of the grimy boxing palaces that would be apotheosized thirty years later in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull.

(EDIT, Feb '22): When I wrote the above the film still had "Film Noir" included on the main page as a genre' tag for the film. It has since been removed. And no, I didn't request the change...evidently somebody else agreed with me.