The Life of Jimmy Dolan

1933's The Life of Jimmy Dolan, a fine movie, is a good example of how the Motion Picture Production code of July 1934 changed movies, since, for comparison, you have the 1939 remake, They Made Me a Criminal. The big difference is that the remake turns a tough story into sentimental claptrap, making sure that crime does not pay. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. doesn't get the credit he deserves as a star in the Warner Bros. repertory company, but he looks too skinny and upper class for a champion boxer. John Garfield is better cast for the part, especially with his nervous energy. But the 1933 picture is way more realistic and cynical. In the 1933 version of a boxer's life, everyone has hard times, including John Wayne, who gets carried out after trying to go the distance in a boxing contest between amateurs and a pro fighter. Production Code Administrator Breen wouldn't allow crime to pay at all, liked a white bread world and would have stopped Warner Bros. from re-releasing The Life of Jimmy Dolan. That was not a problem, because of the remake. The better movie about the boxer on the lam is the one made in 1933. Gritty movies like The Life of Jimmy Dolan vanished until after the demise of the Production Code in the early 1960s. What movies Hollywood would have made if not for rigid censorship for over 25 years is an unanswerable question. Warner Bros. pre-code sound movies indicate that older movies made before censorship have dated a lot better than much of the drivel released during the Breen censorship period.

The Life of Jimmy Dolan is a film about a boxer who gets into some trouble. Jimmy (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is a cocky, selfish, but famous boxer who has won himself a prestigious title in the sport. During a night of partying, he hauls off and punches a reporter, who falls and strikes his head on the fireplace, which kills him instantly. Dolan's friends are just as self-serving as he is, and they leave him passed out and penniless, set up as an intentional murderer. However, after a drunken high speed police chase, Dolan's manager and girlfriend are dead, causing police to believe that it was Dolan driving and that he was killed. This gives him a chance to run away, but an elderly cop (Guy Kibbee) is skeptical about Dolan's whereabouts.

Jimmy wanders to a farm away from the city, and telling the people there that his name is Jack, takes up residence. He soon has eyes for the beautiful Peggy (Loretta Young) who is under the watchful eye of her aunt (Aline MacMahon). The farm is a getaway for orphaned children (among them Mickey Rooney and Farina Hoskins), who quickly idolize Jack. They encourage him to participate in a local boxing match, which Jack greets skeptically.

Every actor is great in this film, especially character star Kibbee, whose character is appropriately sympathetic and menacing. Fairbanks is an excellent leading man; his good looks and charm make him lovable despite Dolan's selfish character.

This movie was remade with John Garfield and The Dead End Kids in 1939 as They Made Me a Criminal. This early version is better for many reasons, namely the cast, but this version is much more sentimental and less adult thanks to the choice in children. The Dead End Kids add a signature spin on the film, which enhances it greatly, but The Life of Jimmy Dolan is better overall.

I love Turner Classic Movies for programming old, less-than-classic movies like this nearly forgotten 1933 Warner Bros. chestnut. While channel surfing, I came across this one and was drawn in by the charming, natural performances of Loretta Young, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and the children. I won't rehash the plot because it's been done in other reviews. It's astonishing to see the familiar faces, sometimes unbilled, playing supporting roles in this one. I instantly recognized Aline MacMahon, Lyle Talbot, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee (excellent) and child stars Mickey Rooney, Anne Shirley and Allen "Farina" Hoskins. And then there's John Wayne in an early non-Western role as a boxer. Rooney and Hoskins were veterans by this time, effortless scene stealers who could wring tears as easily as laughs. I wasn't familiar with child actor David Durand and he's quietly charming as a crippled boy. It's amazing how satisfying a simple, beautifully-crafted movie made for pennies compared to today's CGI-laden millon-dollar blockbusters can be. I'm just grateful that the programmers at TCM refuse to allow little treasures like "The Life of Jimmy Dolan" to gather dust in a can on a vault shelf. And this was just one movie in a day filled with other early Thirties treasures from the Hollywood assembly line. Long live TCM!

"The Life of Jimmy Dolan," made in 1933, was remade later as "They Made Me a Criminal." This precode version is a good film starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Loretta Young, Guy Kibbee, Lyle Talbot, and Aline McMahon, and is notable for its early appearances by John Wayne and Mickey Rooney (who already had seven years as an actor under his belt). The underrated Fairbanks, who doesn't look like a boxer, is the champ Jimmy Dolan, who gets drunk, accidentally kills a reporter, and takes off when his manager is mistaken for him in a burning car. He ends up on a farm for sick children run by the beautiful Young, who was about 20 when this was made, and Aline MacMahon. He becomes accustomed to the life there, falls for the Young character, and when the farm needs $2,000, he considers going back into the ring.

The nice thing about precode is you're never sure how a film will end. This movie has a toughness about it but also a poignancy.

"The Life of Jimmy Dolan" joins "The Emperor's Candlesticks" and "Remember Last Night" as having longevity water somewhere on the set. Fairbanks, Jr. lived to the age of 90; Loretta Young to 87; Aline MacMahon to 92; Lyle Talbot to 94, and Mickey Rooney, approaching 90, is still with us as of this writing. So you have your "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Blood & Sand," where everyone died young, and films like this. Go figure.

THE LIFE OF JIMMY DOLAN (Warner Brothers, 1933), directed by Archie L. Mayo, is not so much a life story in a biographical sense as Warners' later production of THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA (1937), but one about a boxer, unable to clear himself of a murder charge, hiding from the law. Taken from the play by Bertram Milhauser and Beulah Marie Dix, and starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in a role tailor made for contract players as James Cagney or Richard Barthelmess, the movie assigns him opposite Loretta Young for the seventh and final time. Of their frequent pairing during their Warner years (1929-1933), this not only was their most televised on commercial television (notably on WPHL, Channel 17, in Philadelphia, where I first saw this film in 1973-74) but possibly their finest screen collaboration thus far.

With more Fairbanks than Young, the film, lifting the opening underscore from the classic prison drama, I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932) for its first half of the opening credits, begins with Jimmy Dolan (Fairbanks Jr.) in the boxing ring winning his fight in the seventh round, earning his title as new world champion. Dolan, with a reputation of living the clean life ("no booze, no women") is next seen in his Riverside Drive New York City apartment drunk with his equally drunken baby-talking girlfriend, Goldie West (Shirley Grey) by his manager, "Doc" Wood (Lyle Talbot), and guests, Budgie (Fifi Dorsay) and Charlie Magee (George Meeker). When Magee turns out to be a reporter with enough information to write against Dolan, Dolan socks Magee as he passes out himself on the couch. With the reporter dead from head injury in the process, "Doc" and Goldie leave Budgie to assume the blame and drive the unconscious Jimmy to his upstate training camp where they leave him at his cottage. Taking both Jimmy's watch and Goldie with him, Doc drives away, leading the couple into a fatal car accident. The next morning, Jimmy awakens to find his name in a newspaper linked to his own death and a murder charge of a reporter. After Herman Malvin (Arthur Hohl), his lawyer friend, takes his savings for attorney's fee and leaving him with $250 to his name, Jimmy, now under the guise of Jack Dougherty, avoids recognition by traveling alone and "afraid." After being chased off a freight train in Salt Lake City's Pleasant Valley, "Jack" walks long distances until stumbling upon a home for crippled children where he's taken in by its founders, Peggy (Loretta Young) and her aunt, Mrs. Moore (Aline MacMahon). As Jimmy finds a newfound life, Detective John Phlazer (Guy Kibbee), known to all as "Screwy" for a long ago incident for unwittingly sending an innocent man to his execution, believes Jimmy Dolan is very much alive. To prove his theory, he takes a month off from the force to locate Jimmy's whereabouts and bring him to justice. Things prove complicated as Jack finds Phlazer closing in on him and not wanting to arouse suspicion on Peggy.

Well done in both boxing and "man on the run" departments, THE LIFE OF JIMMY DOLAN is as entertaining as it is underrated. In fact, it's remake, THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL (Warners, 1939) starring John Garfield, Gloria Dickson and Claude Rains in the Fairbanks, Young and Kibbee roles, through its frequent TV revivals and availability to home video and DVD, is better known. While Garfield was ideally suited in the role originated by slightly miscast Fairbanks, THE LIFE OF JIMMY DOLAN succeeds through its interesting list of players, especially future film stars in smaller roles as Mickey Rooney, Anne Shirley, Edward Arnold and the legendary John Wayne. Wayne's two brief scenes as Smith, a married man wanting to earn extra money of $500 per round in the ring to "box the ears off" King Cobra (Sammy Stein), comes as a bigger surprise considering how Wayne has appeared in numerous leading roles, particularly westerns, since his initial starring role in THE BIG TRAIL (Fox, 1930). Not actually a special guest appearance, but does come off that way. Fairbanks' performance, on the other hand, ranks a forerunner to the future screen rebels as John Garfield, James Dean or Marlon Brando, one with little or no friends and trusting no one. Considering his association with a crooked manager (Talbot) and lawyer (Hohl) indicates his reasoning. He does, however, find friendship and loyalty amongst the women (Young and MacMahon) and the orphaned children (Rooney, Shirley, David Durand and Allan "Farina" Hoskins) who grow fond of him and goes against his philosophy ("Anyone who does anything for anybody else is a "sucker") by trying to raise $2,000 to keep the ranch from closing.

Aside from the fine chemistry between Fairbanks and the beautiful Loretta Young, Guy Kibbee as the cigar smoking detective wearing thick glasses, comes off second best. Aline MacMahon assumes another wide range of characteristic roles, this time a middle-aged woman speaking with a Scottish accent. Basically a straight dramatic story, there's one amusing moment involving Fairbanks' attempt in milking a cow, a routine right out of vaudeville later handled famously by comedians as The Three Stooges and/or Abbott and Costello. Quite typical for its time using "Beyond the Blue Horizon" underscoring for a the train station sequence.

And so goes the life of Jimmy Dolan. Never distributed to home video, this and other Warner Brothers productons can be seen whenever shown on Turner Classic Movies cable channel. (*** boxing gloves)