L'Esclave aux mains d'or

"They are good for only one thing now - slugging!", Joe Bonaparte says with self-disgust, looking down at his broken hands after a middleweight prize fight at Madison Sqare Garden.

Joe had the option to be a great classical violinist, but the girl he was in love with wet his appetite for the quick buck and the American dream. "It's a big city, little people don't stand a chance", says Lorna, egging him up, playing up to his male ego. "Money's the answer". And the poor Italian immigrant kid grabs the bait, hangs up the violin and sells out.

'Golden Boy' is a piece of vintage Americana that is a bit hard to take today. Clifford Odets' controversial play was openly socialist and crammed with sudden, badly integrated political insights about "competetive civilization" and "a man hits his wife, and it's the first step towards fascism". It is all about the flip side of the American dream and gets a bit heavy-handed at times.

Lee J. Cobb is almost unbearably schmaltzy as the all-embracing, tearful Italian Papa, whereas Adolphe Menjou balances his performance carefully as the basically benign boxing promoter whose mistress is Lorna, Joe's chosen one, "just a dame from Newark" as she presents herself.

Barbara Stanwyck is more or less going through the motions as the hard-as-nails Lorna, and the real star of the picture is 21 year old newcomer William Holden, impossibly handsome and hunky, starting out with perfectly tousled curly hair. His performance is as yet immature and unfinished, but he has his moments and makes up for a shaky ride with loads of charisma, and he more than holds his own in the climactic title fight at the Garden, playing against the Chocolate Drop, "the pride of Harlem" in this race-segregated boxing haven.

'Golden Boy' is not, though, one of director Mamoulian's happier efforts. It is far too maudlin to look like anything Mamoulian ever did, it is not like him to lay it on this thick. It has none of the quirks or edge from 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' among others, but it is lushly, richly orchestrated in the vein of 19th century European music.

The acclaimed play by Clifford Odets, Golden Boy, ran for 250 performances during the 1937-1938 season on Broadway and as Columbia had now pulled itself into the big leagues of studios in Hollywood, Harry Cohn was able to bid for this much heralded property right up there with Mayer, Zanuck, and Zukor.

The problem was that the one guy who could have played it best, John Garfield, was over at another studio. Garfield was in the original cast on Broadway, but in the role of the brother-in-law Siggie that Sam Levene plays here. Eventually however Garfield did play the title role in a revival on Broadway in 1952, it was the last thing he did.

When I lived in New York, I saw a revival of Clifford Odets's Awake and Sing on stage and the left wing nostrums of the day were dated in the Reagan years of the Eighties. Golden Boy is similarly dated. Yet the performances in the film still hold up to some degree.

When Harry Cohn couldn't get Tyrone Power loaned out from 20th Century Fox, he decided to go for an unknown. Director Rouben Mamoulian while testing actresses for the sister part that eventually went to Bernice Blinn, he spotted a young actor who had just done two tiny bit parts in Paramount features feeding lines to the actress whose test it was. Mamoulian persuaded Cohn to call off the search and William Holden's career was launched.

It's legendary now how Barbara Stanwyck worked and rehearsed with Holden endlessly to make sure he scored a success in his feature film debut. Holden paid a heartfelt tribute to her at an Oscar ceremony and when she got her Lifetime Achievement Oscar she dedicated it to him.

It's legendarily unselfish of Stanwyck to do what she did in a town and industry where egos are gargantuan. Unselfish, but also practical. She knew that if he flopped in the lead the film would have gone down the toilet and it wouldn't do her career any good.

The only player from the original cast on Broadway to come to Hollywood was Lee J. Cobb. And not in the part he played on Broadway, on Broadway he was the neighbor Mr. Carp, in the film he's made up to be older as Cobb often was as Bill Holden's father. This set a pattern in his career.

Two other performances of note are Adolphe Menjou as Holden's manager and Joseph Calleia as the gangster Fusselli who buys into Holden's contract.

This story of a Depression kid who had a choice between a career in the ring and a career playing the violin had to be heavily rewritten for the screen. The adulterous relationship between the married Menjou whose wife we never see and Stanwyck was barely mentioned. And Stanwyck's own character was cleaned up quite a bit, in the original play she's more of a tramp than here.

My guess is that Golden Boy would have to be heavily rewritten if it were updated for today. The critical success, but financial failure of Ron Howard's Cinderella Man which was a true story of a heavyweight champion in the Depression found no audience today.

Though it's dated badly, the sincerity of the performances do come through and it's easy to see why William Holden became the star he was.

Notable for being William Holden's debut (he was just 21 and looks almost like a schoolboy!), this dated melodrama was adapted from a popular play by Clifford Odets dealing with a young man conflicted about which path to take in his life: a respected artistic career playing the violin and the more alluring celebrity (which also reaps instant monetary rewards) as a prizefighter. His Italian immigrant father (Lee J. Cobb, whose mannered performance has been especially criticized) obviously wants the boy to follow his musical instincts, but the pull of the ring is too great – more so because through it he meets and falls for Barbara Stanwyck, actually his manager (Adolphe Menjou)'s fiancée. Though initially acting under the latter's instructions, she eventually tries to dissuade him from fighting, particularly when gangster Joseph Calleia (another fine showcase for the Maltese character actor) takes Holden under his wing. The climax sees the hero winning the championship bout but at the cost of his black opponent's life and his own left hand; with the help of Stanwyck (realizing she really loves the boxer, Menjou relinquishes her) the "Golden Boy" stands up to his new boss – interestingly, Calleia lets him off rather too easily here when compared to similar films of later vintage! The film is pretty good (with equally solid support from Sam Levene as Holden's struggling cab driver brother-in-law) though betraying its stage origins by relegating the boxing matches to only a brief montage until the not very imaginatively handled finale; in hindsight, it's curious to find this cinematically lacking given the involvement of Mamoulian and his reputation as one of the most creative directors of the early Talkie era!

Clifford Odets' play about a musician turned boxer was a natural for Hollywood, which has always loved boxing movies. Perhaps subliminally, Odets was inspired by the Fannie Hurst "Humoresque," first made into a film in 1920.

When "Golden Boy" was done in 1938 as a production of the Group Theater, John Garfield hoped to play the role of Joe Bonaparte and was disappointed when the lead went instead to Luther Adler, with Garfield relegated to the role of Siggie.

Garfield rectified this in 1952 when he played the lead on Broadway and also had his chance to play a boxer in "Body and Soul" and a violinist in "Humoresque." Tony Curtis is another who did the part of Joe as a young actor before going to Hollywood.

There are two ways of casting this role - the Garfield way - the streetwise fighter who happens to be a gifted violinist, or the reverse - the gentle violinist who just happens to be a gifted fighter. The latter is more interesting, as the audience is then able to see how the fight world changes an artistic soul.

Columbia took this route and chose 27-year-old Richard Carlson for the role, but he was appearing on Broadway at the time. After testing nearly everyone, the studio put 21-year-old William Holden in the role. His was a new face and a pretty one - he certainly didn't look like a fighter.

A part like this for someone who had two uncredited film appearances had to have been like winning Scarlett O'Hara and just as daunting; were it not been for the help and intervention of Barbara Stanwyck, who played Lorna (originally done on stage by Frances Farmer) Holden would have been fired.

The theme of following your heart, so often explored by Eugene O'Neill, is another overriding theme in this story, with the character of Joe Bonaparte torn between his love for playing the violin and the appeal of making money as a fighter and being somebody.

Joe comes from an immigrant family who all live together - seen so often in films from the '30s and '40s -- again, "Humoresque" comes to mind. This immediately dates the film and puts it right into its period.

The other thing that dates it is the over the top performance of Lee J. Cobb as Joe's dad. Cobb was in the original play on Broadway but as another character; he would repeat his role as the father in the Garfield production. Undoubtedly this characterization worked better on stage and definitely worked better for a '30s audience.

William Holden gives a tender performance as Joe, an artist at heart who falls for his manager's girlfriend. Like Glenn Ford, he had one of those faces that changed so totally that he isn't even recognizable as William Holden in this film - even his voice is different.

He's young, beautiful, with an unlined face and a higher voice. His performance opened up light leading man roles for him. It wasn't until 1950 that he had his second breakthrough film, "Sunset Boulevard" - which vaulted him into superstardom. That William Holden was virile, rugged, and handsome. It's an amazing transformation.

Stanwyck is perfect as Lorna Moon - tough, sexy, and a marshmallow underneath. Her chemistry with Holden is excellent. He never forgot how much she helped him, and sent her roses each time she started a new film.

"Golden Boy" was turned into a Broadway musical as well - there's something enduring about the story of a man's struggle to find his true destiny. This is as good an example of that struggle as you'll find anywhere.

In this adaptation of the famous Odets play, a young man must choose between music and boxing. In his star-making role, Holden looks impossibly young, and turns in a surprisingly strong performance, given his inexperience. Stanwyck is quite good in a typical role of a tough broad with a soft heart. She helped Holden overcome his jitters and the two developed a legendary friendship during the filming. Cobb, only seven years older than Holden, is schmaltzy but touching as the latter's father. Levene is wonderful as Holden's brother-in-law. Menjou overacts. Mamoulian is at his best when depicting the family life of the Bonapartes. The fight scenes are brief but effective.