There Ain't No Justice

This British quota quickie stars Jimmy Hanley as a young guy who turns to boxing to make some money. Of course he doesn't realize he's signed a contract with a crooked manager.

He's trying to help his parents (Mary Clare, Edward Rigby) and his sister (Phyllis Stanley) who's desperate to get married (to Michael Wilding) but needs money to set up housekeeping. But Hanley is so green he doesn't understand the crookedness and that he's being set up to make a name for himself only to be forced (by contract) to take a fall in a big match while the manager places bets on the other boxer. The fix is in.

The manager has also set his floozie (Nan Hopkins) on Hanley to lead him astray and get him away from his girlfriend (Jill Furse). But the heat is really turned up when Wilding steals the payroll where Phyllis Stanley works and so Hanley decides to accept the big match he's supposed to throw .... but he ain't gonna throw it.

A real slam bang finale is a highlight as Hanley determines to win the bout while the manager brings in a gang of thugs to break up the arena and stop the fight. Hanley is terrific. He was a major juvenile star in British films of the 1930s and 40s. Too bad he seems to be largely forgotten now.

Only 5/10 this time I'm afraid but at least London Live t.v. showed today a "new" Ealing film which they haven't transmitted before.Lately they have been repeating them rather frequently in their 2-4p.m. Mon.- Fri. slot in the London area.Even for Jimmy Hanley it seemed an early film but as the other user aptly commented, he did not have the physique of a professional boxer even for a flyweight.Surely Ealing casting dept. could have cast a more suitable and believable rugged actor in the lead role.

The only other actors I recognised were Edward Chapman (a deacon in "Gone to Earth" 1949) and Norman Wisdom's Mr Grimsdale and Mary Clare (the baroness in "The Lady Vanishes 1938") and (a landlady Mrs Wallis in "A Girl Must Live" 1939).Classy Michael Wilding, 27 at the time, had difficulty acting down playing a spiv so much so that I wondered when Anna Neagle his female lead in many 1940s films was going to appear!Perhaps the miscasting by Ealing was due to contractual obligations.

The screen play was rather weak with cardboard characters

Jimmy Hanley is only making two pounds a week as an apprentice in a garage. Progress is slow, and he hopes to marry Jill Furse, so he turns professional boxer. Trainer Mike Johnson is honest, but they sign a contract with sketchy Edward Chapman.

If you've seen boxing movies, you've seen this before, with a predatory dame played by Nan Hopkins, and family obligations that eventually will force him to agree to throw a fight. Will he change his mind?

It's a little more overt in the blurred line between honest boxing and dishonest, and the youngster seem a lot younger than they usually do in American examples of the genre. Mutz Greenbaum shoots the interior of the square ring cannily, sometimes in extreme closeup so you can't see anything clearly, and sometimes from the back of one of the fighters, ditto. But while Hanley shows a lot of charm, it's another case of if you've seen one, you've seen them all.

This is the first direct-oral effort of Pen Tennyson,who was a protégé of Alfred Hitchcock.Unfortunately he only made 3 films as a director as he was killed in an air crash in the war. This film was made at Ealing and would appear to be an "expose" of the fight game in this country.Its leading man,Jimmy Hanley played the role of slightly simple minded leads throughout his career with certain variations.It has to be said that when he is in the ring he looks more like a raging calf than a raging bull.His physique is rather flabby and so he is not very believable as a boxer. There are a lot of familiar faces in this film including a very young Michael Wilding who looks a bit like a spiv.His girlfriend works in a milk bar which became all the rage in the 1930s. It has to be said that the story is fairly routine and predictable,although nonetheless entertaining.However Hanley has none of the raw energy of James Cagney or John Garfield so the film has none of the raw edge of its American counterpoints.So worth a look but don't expect anything like a Warners opus.