Iron Man

After the success of All Quiet On The Western Front Lew Ayres was suddenly quite the hot property for Universal Studios. Following up on that film Ayres was cast in this boxing saga about a fighter, his wife, and his manager. The roles are played by Ayres, Jean Harlow, and Robert Armstrong.

As long as Ayres follows Armstrong's instructions he's a success. And one of those instructions is to get rid of his gold digging wife Harlow. It's not jealousy working here, Armstrong can plainly see the adverse affect Harlow has on Ayres and that he's not got his head in the ring when she's around.

When she's not around Armstrong guides Ayres to the heavyweight championship. But when he does become champ, Harlow comes back to bask in his glory and also to party with Ayres and her new boy friend on the side John Miljan.

Let's just say that Ayres finds out just how badly he needs Armstrong before the film is over.

Iron Man seems to be borrowing quite liberally from the relationship that Jack Dempsey had with his then wife Estelle Taylor and his manager Doc Kearns. Kearns let it be known to all who would hear that Dempsey was a bum without him when they did part. However Armstrong truly is the brains in this duo. I'm surprised that none of the real life trio sued Universal Pictures and Carl Laemmle.

The title was used in another boxing picture that starred Jeff Chandler and Rock Hudson that Universal did 20 years later. But that film has absolutely nothing to do with this picture. Nor of course has it anything to do with the superhero Robert Downey, Jr. brought to the screen in the past few years.

Tod Browning got some really nice performances out of his star trio and the rest of the cast. Iron Man ranks right up there with a lot of other classic films on pugilism.

I know that this Tod Browning's picture will be remade twenty years later starring Jeff Chandler, but this movie is not the best about prize fighting, it's not THE SET UP or THE CHAMPION, or REQUIEM FOR A HEAVY WEIGHT or RAGING BULL.... It must be seen as a sport drama, a character study in the sport domain. Lew Ayres was here at his peak, just one year after ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. So, yes, from Tod Browning in a no Lon Chaney Sr like film, without any monster or twisted, weird plot, it is a worth watching item. It belongs to the best sports dramas, at least for the pre code era, I have ever seen, better than some Warner movies, which were too fast paced for my taste and above all for this kind of story.

IRON MAN (Universal, 1931), produced and directed by Tod Browning, stars Lew Ayres, a recent success at the time for his breakthrough performance as a German youth in the battleground of war in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Universal, 1930). While IRON Man pales in comparison from the Academy Award winning anti-war drama, it's interesting on its own merits due to its supporting players headed by the platinum blonde bombshell, Jean Harlow (in her only film for Universal), who's HELL'S ANGELS (United Artists, 1930), stirred quite attention to her bad girl personality, and Robert Armstrong, for many known for his role of Carl Denham in the iconic classic, KING KONG (RKO 1933). While Armstrong recently played a prizefighter in BE YOURSELF (United Artists, 1930) opposite Fanny Brice, this time he does better taking secondary role as prizefighter manager.

Following the unscored boxing glove punching bag image super-imposed through the title credits, the story introduces "Kid" Mason (Lew Ayres), a young boxer who just lost his championship prizefight. George Regan (Robert Armstrong), his best friend from his childhood days as well as his boxing manager, quits on him because he refused to fight the way he tells him. Mason's biggest problem is his wife, Rose (Jean Harlow), whom he deeply loves, but her affections are hardly the same especially after his most recent downfall. Rose soon walks out on him and sets for Hollywood to accomplish herself as an actress in the movies. With her out the way, Mason reunites himself with Regan, and becomes a new "Wonder Boy" of the boxing ring, fighting better than he's ever done before. All goes well until Rose, pretending to be seriously ill with the flu, connives her way back into Mason's life again. Living in a luxurious apartment surrounded by liquor bottles and Rose's rowdy friends, Mason's career as a boxer declines once more. Rose becomes responsible for breaking up her husband's friendship with Regan, and acquires a new boxing manager in Paul H. Lewis (John Miljan) for Mason, a man Rose met in Hollywood, with intentions on getting her into the movies. In the meantime as Mason gets a championship boxing match with Rattler O'Keefe (Morrie Cohen) at Madison Square Garden, Rose and Lewis go on their cheating ways, in more ways than one. Others in the cast include: Ned Sparks (Gus Riley, a gambler); Claire Whitney (Louise Lewis); Mary Doran (A show girl after Mason); Eddie Dillon (Jeff); Mildred Van Dorn (Gladys DeVere); Mike Conlon (McNeil); and Tom Kennedy (The Bartender).

Surprisingly directed by Tod Browning, best known for unique melodramas as Lon Chaney in THE UNKNOWN (1927) and Bela Lugosi as DRACULA (1931), IRON MAN is quite ordinary, with little of his ideal structures carried onto this production. Aside from notable camera tracking over a gathering of people seated at a long dinner table, the duration of the story relies more by the acting by its performers. The boxing sequences, which usually are highlights, are mostly brief with camera capture usually in long shots. Although credited at 73 minutes, the available print runs at 68, indicating some tightening through its jump cuts. Aside from Harlow's unfaithful wife portrayal as she did in HELL'S ANGELS, Armstrong gets his running gag line several times whenever he sees Ayres' Mason half-naked by telling him, "Put your clothes on ... you want to get pneumonia?"

While IRON MAN s typical boxing-ring story taken from novel by W.R. Burnett, IRON MAN was remade again, first as SOME BLONDES ARE DANGEROUS (1937) with William Gargan, and again as IRON MAN (1951) starring Jeff Chandler. The IRON MAN title would later be used for an entirely different story in a 2008 motion picture starring Robert Downey Jr. playing a Marvel comic action figure rather than a boxer.

Unseen on commercial television for decades, especially when last broadcast on New York City's WOR, Channel 9 in 1965, IRON MAN was never distributed to home video nor (to date) presented on cable TV. This, along with GOLDIE (Fox, 1931), are thus far to be the most rarely shown/revived Jean Harlow feature productions from her pre-MGM days (1932-1937). This original IRON MAN gets by on its own merits more for its casting than for its golden glove punches. (**1/2 boxing gloves)

When you enter into a film, you are accepting a world. You are accepting whatever God and physics and mythology that the filmmaker has created. Within that world, wheels turn and things happen.

All too often we think the movie is about those happenings. We focus on characters and the emotions they convey. But the deeper influence of a film is in how the world works.

Over time, movie watchers develop a sensitivity to this and make choices about which worlds resonate or not.

I have decided to boycott Glazier/Howard films because they are convinced that we like a world where some bad things happen as if they were rainstorms, but the entire cosmos is infused with a happy sweetness.

If you watch film deeply, this can ruin your whole day, with great expenditures of psychic energy in buying back your individuality. So instead of seeing "Cinderella Man" which is in the theaters now, I sought another boxing movie instead.

Sure, we have "Raging Bull" which is an exercise in visualizing a brutal personality. And we have "Rocky" which is sort of cold war ode to nationalism. But I chose this because it is by a director whose world I respect.

Tod Browning's world is a complex one, not catagorizable in terms of a single type of God or fate, depending on how you think. He himself comes from a circus world with some elements of risk, some of heavy fate, and others of practiced comedy tied to honor.

I credit Browning with laying the groundwork that allowed noir to take hold in the 30s, probably the strongest influence in film. So this film is about a contender, several actually. And it IS a contender, but unlike Howard's cardboard guy, this fellow has a wife that destroys the first layer of his world in order to expose and reinforce the larger world.

In the story, that's the world of honor and striving and self assurance. In the world of film, it is the world of self awareness and the link of fate to the game.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

For a boxing movie, there really isn't a lot of boxing in the movie, perhaps ten minutes total. Apparently the original ran 73 minutes and the version I saw on Youtube ran 68 minutes. I suspect the missing five minutes were boxing scenes.

This may be a blessing as Lew Ayres is certainly too handsome and collegiate looking for a boxer. Without muscles, he certainly does not physically resemble any contemporary boxers.

However, the reason to watch this story is not the boxing, but to watch a strong tale of friendship between a coach and an athlete and the selfish, sinful woman who disrupts it.

The acting is terrific. Robert Armstrong had only been starring in movies since 1928 when this was made in 1931, yet this was his 20th starring role. This was two years before his career making performances in "King Kong," and "Son of Kong," but it is easy to see why he was chosen for the lead in those movies. He gives a rock solid, believable performance here.

Lew Ayres is a bit uneven at the beginning, but eventually grows into the part. He was 23 years old and only in his fifth starring role, with the first being the classic anti-war film "All Quiet on the Western Front." It seems that Ayres was trying to develop a tough guy image after the romantic image he portrayed in that first film. My guess is that it was the studio's decision. It worked with song and dance man James Cagney, but not with Ayres. Still, he's a great actor and is easy to watch throughout.

I was surprised at how well Jean Harlow did. We should remember that she was only 21 and this was only her fourth starring role. She is quite despicable in the movie, but that was her part. She plays it with intensity and believably. I think reviewers here are criticizing her unfairly, because she doesn't show much of her comic or sexy siren side here. However, that is not the role. She is a jaded, mean, despicable woman and she plays it straight.

Again, this is a good dramatic piece and those looking for a sports movie or light comedy (although it does have moments of humor) will be disappointed. Those looking for sharp direction from Tod Browning and wonderful performances from three great actors will enjoy the movie.