Punch and Jody

Punch and Jody (1974)

** (out of 4)

Made-for-TV drama centers on circus performer Punch (Glenn Ford) who gets a visit from an old friend telling him that the wife who left him years earlier has been killed in a car wreck. She then informs him that when the wife left she was secretly pregnant and now the daughter (Pam Griffin) wants to spend some time with the father she never knew. The two hit the road for what's supposed to just be a week to see if something can blossom between them. PUNCH AND JODY wastes two very good performances in a film that's just one cliché after another and by the time you hit the ten-minute mark you know every step the picture is going to take. The predictable aspect of the story is just so strong that even the great performances can't make you forget that you can see what all is coming. Obviously everything is just leading up to one big finale but the problem is that everything before this is just so familiar to anyone who has seen a movie that there's just no energy or life here to keep it working. As I said, both Ford and Griffin are excellent in their roles. Ford really took me by surprise because it seems this here would be the type of picture that a distinguished actor would sleepwalk through. Instead he really gives it his all and delivers a very memorable performance because not for a second did I not buy him in this role and he really did make you feel as if you were watching someone who had spent their life in the circus. Griffin is also excellent in her role and the chemistry she has with Ford is what keeps this movie from completely falling off the tracks.

Glenn Ford stars as Punch, a guy who is in charge of a broken down circus. However, his lifestyle is thrown for a loop when he learns he is a father. It seems his ex-wife was pregnant when they divorced years ago and she never told him he had a daughter, Jody. But now that the ex-wife is dead, he now has a girl to raise and their personalities are very different. Not surprisingly, he's not fond of the idea but agrees to take her for a week to see how things go and so she tags along with the circus.

"Punch and Jody" is a schmaltzy, predictable family movie. Some might like this...I just found it all very tough to believe and silly. Not one of Ford's best made for TV films, that's for sure.

Punch and Jody is a made for TV film that had it caught on, might have resulted in another television series for Glenn Ford. In the seventies Ford had a couple of TV series, Cade's County and The Family Holvak. Punch and Jody might have resulted in yet another. My suspicion is that the cost of filming a circus was too prohibitive.

That's a pity because Ford and Pam Griffin who played his teenage daughter had a nice easygoing chemistry. Co-starring with Ford was one of his movie leading ladies Ruth Roman, the circus boss lady owner who came across a whole lot like Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke. She and Ford also meshed well together.

This circus is not exactly Ringling Brothers. It's a small show, playing the tank towns of red state America. Ford is a jack of all trades in the show, we see him as a clown, as a fortune telling swami, even dealing with troublesome tigers. He's doing more in this show than Charlton Heston did under his slightly larger big top in The Greatest Show On Earth.

So it comes as a surprise to him to learn he has a daughter that his ex-wife never bothered to tell him about. The ex-wife has died and the young lady, a product of finishing schools is now Ford's charge. It looks like they're going to take a bit of getting used to each other.

Punch and Jody had promise as a television series, but I guess circuses were not in vogue during the seventies.