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John Garfield is a fighter taken over "Body and Soul" in this 1947 Faustian drama about a man who becomes too heady with success and too greedy, eventually signing on with a crooked fight promoter. Garfield is supported here by Lilli Palmer, Anne Revere, Hazel Brooks, William Conrad, Canada Lee, and Lloyd Gough.

American filmmakers love boxing movies, and why not? It's a one on one brutal action sport that has inherent in it good drama because of what is at stake for people who most likely came from nothing and used their fists on the street. "Body and Soul" is no different in this regard, but it's one of the best of its kind. It also boasts an unusual and exceptionally talented cast.

The film is loaded with conflict for Charlie Davis (Garfield) - his mother (Revere) doesn't want him to fight; he's in love with Peg (Palmer) and wants to marry her but is talked into delaying it when he signs on with a new and corrupt promoter, Roberts (Gough).

This will be the first of Charlie's concessions and unfortunately not the last. He fights Ben (Lee), but isn't told that the man has a blood clot and he needs to coast through only a few rounds. Instead, he pulverizes Ben, causing further brain damage, and takes him on as a trainer out of guilt.

Then he's seduced by a money-hungry babe named Alice (Brooks). And on and on, until Roberts bets against him and orders him to take a dive in the championship fight he's been waiting for. (With all the films done about taking dives, anyone who bets on a fight is nuts.)

Something about this movie - maybe it's the theme song, which is one of my favorites - swept me away. It's one of Garfield' most colorful performances, and the beautiful, classy Palmer is a perfect juxtaposition not only to the streetwise Charlie but the trashy Alice.

The truly transcendent role and performance is essayed by Canada Lee, a wonderful actor who died too young and had too few opportunities in film. His performance as the volatile, ill Ben was Oscar-worthy. Like Ben Carter in "Crash Dive," the fact that Lee is black does not enter into the script at all, and he is treated as an equal.

For all the rotten stereotyping done in films at that time, there were a few scripts that defied it. Lee was blacklisted and died in 1952 (the same year that John Garfield died), at 45, almost literally of a broken heart. He left a legacy of five films and some wonderful stage work, including Orson Welles' all-black Macbeth.

Cast members Garfield, Lee, Anne Revere, Lloyd Gough, Art Smith, Shimen Ruskin, scriptwriter Abraham Polonsky and producer Bob Roberts would all find themselves blacklisted, and director Rossen would be threatened but admit to being a Communist and name names.

Magnificently photographed in black and white by James Wong Howe and with top direction, "Body and Soul" is an example of how wonderful film can be.

In many ways, 'Body and Soul' is a very typical Hollywood story. It has the 'local boy makes it big', the 'vamp and the virgin', the 'corrupt businessmen' and of course the final moral fight. However, James Wong Howe's brilliant cinematography and John Garfield's solid acting lift this movie above the norm. Every emotion is heart-felt, and the tension at the end is perfectly presented. One of the best boxing movies.

This boxing picture deals with the seedier side of the business; (is there any other?). It helps that it was written by Abraham Polonsky whose script is suitably cynical and hard-boiled. John Garfield is the pugnacious fighter easily swayed by the prospects of easy money and not adverse to taking a dive. It's a fine, hard-nosed performance. Garfield was always at his best in roles that required him to battle with his conscience.

The whole movie is well cast. The under-rated Lilli Palmer is fine as the 'nice' girl who loves him as is Hazel Brooks as the 'bad' girl who seduces him while the villains are ably taken care of by Lloyd Gough and William Conrad. Best of all there is Anne Revere as Garfield's mother. (Did Revere play everybody's mother movies?). It's another of her no-nonsense roles. Revere was one tough cookie who kept her heart of gold well-hidden. The climatic fight scene is very well staged and Robert Parrish and Frances Lyon's editing won the Oscar while James Wong Howe's cinematography adds considerably to the realism.

Body and Soul is directed by Robert Rossen and written by Abraham Polonsky. It stars John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere and William Conrad. Music is by Hugo Friedhofer and cinematography by James Wong Howe.

A talented boxer's career begins to spiral out of control when financial hunger, matters of the heart and a shady promoter begin to take a hold.

Viewing it now, Body and Soul looks to be chock full of boxing movie clichés, which of course wasn't the case back in the 40s. Such as it is with the year of release, it has been honourably inserted into the film noir pantheon. If that's worthy - and many of the noir bible writers seem to think so - is up to the individual viewer to decide, what is apparent though is this is a fine piece of film making regardless of genre or style assignment.

Charlie Davis' (Garfield in a worthy Oscar Nominated performance) descent down a crooked path is certainly noir in plot terms, and it makes for riveting viewing. The screenplay for the time is very choice and worthy, focusing as it does on corruption and violence within the sporting world. The look of the pic is that of realism, Rossen and Howe mixing elegiac beauty with fluent fight sequences (of which there aren't actually many), the monochrome sharp as a left hook.

There's no sentimentality on show, this is stripped bare to show the dark that lurks beneath the cheering crowds and sensational advertisement posters. Pic pulses with the beat of the street, the sweat is from those trying to make a living, all while anti capitalism seeps from every frame. The finale drives home a point - consistent with Rossen in general - and even though pic has a very stage bound core, the craft from all involved ensures it never hurts the dramatic worth. 7.5/10

Body and Soul was the first of several free lance productions that John Garfield did after his contract with Warner Brothers was concluded. He certainly didn't take any artistic chances because the role of Charlie Davis, the Jewish middleweight boxing champion from the Lower East Side of New York was something Garfield could identify with. He'd played a fighter in his second film, They Made Me A Criminal to great acclaim. And he'd appeared in the original production of Golden Boy though not in the lead. He'd be doing that on stage at the time of his demise in 1952.

But while Body and Soul didn't blaze any artistic trails for Garfield, it did give him a great role that earned him a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Garfield lost to Ronald Colman that year in A Double Life.

Garfield has the feel for the heart and soul of Davis because that was his background. Another reviewer suggested that the Davis character is based on the famous lightweight champion Benny Leonard who would have been a hero to a Jewish kid like Julius Garfinkle growing up first on the Lower East Side and then in the Bronx. Leonard also died around the time Body and Soul was being made and movie audiences would have known that and the film would have a special poignancy for them.

The story is told in flashback as Charlie Davis dozes off in the training room before a defense of his middleweight crown. He's in a depression about the death of someone named Ben.

Ben turns out to be Canada Lee former champion himself who was Garfield's trainer. We see how Garfield who at first listened to his mother Anne Revere not to fight, but then when father Art Smith dies, economics forces him into the ring. Garfield gets involved with two women, artist Lilli Palmer and nightclub singer Hazel Brooks.

He also gets involved with a manager who eventually turns on him in William Conrad and a sleazy promoter in Lloyd Gough. If you're a fan of boxing films I think you can figure out where this will all end up.

But the ride is a good one. Besides Garfield's nomination, Body and Soul got another Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay by Abraham Polonsky. And it won the Oscar that year for Best Film Editing. That's for the great work in that department during that final boxing match.

For fans of John Garfield, Body and Soul is a must. Besides all that there's that great Johnny Green-Edward Heyman song from the Thirties that got a revival because of this film.