Whiplash

Boring boxing melodrama. I don't want to call it a film noir because it doesn't have any film noir style, in my opinion. Dane Clark plays a moody painter who falls in love with a woman (Alexis Smith) who buys one of his paintings. She skips out on him so he follows her to New York, where he discovers she is married to evil cripple Zachary Scott. Then things get weird as Clark decides to become a boxer for Scott. His motivation for this was cloudy, to say the least. He decides to box under the name Mike Angelo (get it -- Michaelangelo -- because he's a painter, you see). From here, a movie with wobbly knees is knocked down for the count. The cast is unimpressive but not terrible. Clark is pretty unlikable in a role tailor-made for John Garfield. Smith is forgettable. Eve Arden is great when she's around, which isn't much. Pretty standard stuff. No surprises.

Good, tough noir with an excellent cast. Watching the film it becomes obvious that it was planned for Joan Crawford so closely does Alexis Smith's character follow the Crawford 40's blueprint. Dane Clark's tortured painter turned boxer was surely likewise designed with John Garfield in mind as it adheres to his screen persona as well. For whatever reason those A-listers either passed or were unavailable and the film moved over to the B unit and this cast. As good as the leads are they were considered up and comers at the time and definitely represented the second string at Warners.

Back to the film it is sharply shot with effective use of the shadowy black and white photography. Zachary Scott adds another hissable villain to his vast array, Eve Arden pops up from time to time, once in an outfit that looks like she took the cloth off her kitchen table and fashioned it into an ensemble, to add her special brand of spice to the proceedings and many of Warners stock company, Alan Hale, S.Z. Sakall etc. fill out the cast. While the direction is adequate someone who was more of a stylist, for example Michael Curtiz, could have sharpened some slack edges and made the film really cook. Still as is its certainly worth investing the ninety minutes that it runs.

I couldn't get past the preposterous meet-cute opening premise: that unsuccessful artist Dane Clark was so morally outraged by the purchase of one of his paintings (his first sale!) by Alexis Smith, that he goes to her place to refund her money. I mean, what struggling painter does that? Much less enter her home unbidden to snoop around. Van Gogh lopping off an ear makes more sense.

Still, nice to see Zachary Scott doing what he does best, playing a dapper heel, albeit a slightly psychotic one with no wheelchair brakes.

Plus S. Z. Sakall, comfortably Casablanca cast as a restaurant owner. It gives you a sense of what Rick's Place must have been like after Bogie split for Brazzaville and left Carl the Waiter in charge.

Mike (Dane Clark) is a nice guy who loves to paint. One day, he meets Laurie and they fall in love. However, Laurie is an odd one...hot one minute, cold the next. And, soon, without warning, she simply disappears. Not surprisingly, Mike is a mess and spends a lot of time looking for her. His search leads him back east and he eventually learns that she's the wife of a hood. Rex (Zachary Scott) is a rich, menacing sort of guy who seems, at times, like a cat playing with mice. So, when he offers to train Mike and make him a champion boxer, you know that somehow it's all part of Rex's machinations...and you wonder WHAT he has in mind for his wife and Mike.

This film has some wonderful and snappy noir-style dialog. So much of what Rex says seems to be oozing with menace and the writers did a nice job of this one. It also helped that although this was more of a 'second-stringer' sort of movie with the lesser stars at Warner, they all are simply terrific. My only complaint, and it's a problem in most boxing films, is that the matches are unrealistic...with WAY too many punches being thrown and landed throughout the fights. Still, a hard-hitting film with lots to recommned it.

By the way, I was originally going to give this one an 8. However, the ending turned out to be so cool and satisfying, it earned an extra point. WOW...what a finale!

Boxing film. But it takes a long time to get there. At the beginning, Mike (Dane Clark) tell the kids how he used to a fighter, and then we're in flashback. We see how he was an artist when he met Laurie (Alexis Smith). He gets in a brawl, and is talked into earning big money as a boxer. Fun co-stars... SZ Sakall Cuddles was in every single b&w film in the 1940s, along with Alan Hale Senior. Hale was Dad of The Skipper, on Gilligan's Island. Eve Arden and Zack Scott were both so awesome in Mildred Pierce. A couple of fun numbers done at the Pelican Club; a ballad "sung" by Laurie, and a fun bit by "a vocal group", according to imdb; it's a shame they aren't credited in the cast list or the Soundtrack page, as of today. It looks like they changed the lyrics from A Girl to The Guy when it's sung by a female group. The story is good enough, but it never really takes off. The first five minutes the film really jumps around, so i hope you don't get seasick. Directed by Lewis Seiler. Started in silents, making shorts. This one is okay. Not a lot of chemistry, but the story is sound.