Spirit of Youth

Greetings & Salutations! While we see the story of the great African-American legend, we are provided really side splitting comedy relief by Mantan Moreland (1902-1973), also an African-American legend in himself. Who can forget Mantan in "Next Time I Marry" (1938), also known as "Trailer Romance," as well as in "Tell No Tales" (1939), or in "There's That Woman Again" (1939). Or in "Irish Luck", also known as "Amateur Detective" in 1939. This years marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mantan Moreland, in Monroe, Louisiana on September 3rd, 1902, perhaps a long awaited star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is due?

Years ago, I watched The Joe Louis Story, a fictionalized version of the famous boxer's life. Now, I've just seen Spirit of Youth which starred Joe himself playing Joe Thomas-a fictionalized version of him. As an actor, he's a good boxer is the best I can do to praise him. Maybe it's good he doesn't have so many lines. Fine supporting work from Mantan Moreland, Joe's friend who's amusing in the beginning and hilarious near the end. Clarence Muse does his dramatic chops as Joe's manager as well as sing a number he himself wrote. I was most fascinated by Edna Mae Harris as Mary, Joe's childhood girlfriend and Mae Turner as Flora, the so-called bad girl singer. To tell the truth, the boxing scenes aren't so exciting but they do the job whenever possible. The movie is padded with some songs and an awesome dancing sequence involving The Big Apple Dancers. So on that note, I recommend Spirit of Youth.

Unfortunately, this is a bad boxing movie. The only interesting thing is that Joe Louis himself plays the leading role, a black boxer from rural Alabama named Joe Thomas, whose story is based in his own real life. Though, I cannot help but add that Joe Louis was an awful actor. The single interesting scene in the whole film is the musical and dancing one, in which Joe just watches, and that is 100% unnecessary to the story. Even the boxing fights are terribly performed; they do not look real. Being old is not an excuse, as nice "The champ" was released seven years before and excellent "Amazing Jim" would be released just four years afterwards. It is quite disappointing start watching something you expect to be special and, a few minutes later, you're already waiting impatiently for its end.

With the minimal dialog that Joe Louis is given in a production starring himself you'd hardly believe that he's in Bartlett's Quotations twice. But the man who said 'we're on God's side' and 'he can run but he can't hide' has little to say in Spirit Of Youth. That's because his managers John Roxborough and Julian Black knew that as an actor Joe Louis was a great heavyweight champion.

This film was part of a money making scheme that Roxborough and Black set up for Louis and note in the credits they cut themselves in for a piece of the action as 'technical advisers'. When Spirit Of Youth came out Louis had been heavyweight champion for a year and he was a hot property that his handlers looked to exploit and the black cinema of the time was one way to do it.

Louis plays Joe Thomas, a black sharecropper kid from Alabama who goes north to Detroit as thousands did in those days to get a job and make some real money. He finds he has talent in his fists and works hard to become heavyweight champion. In other words, someone like Joe Louis.

Short lived poverty row studio Grand National picked up the distribution of this film giving it an access to mainstream markets that most black productions didn't have. Spirit Of Youth also had in the cast Clarence Muse and Mantan Moreland who did appear in lots of mainstream films and were familiar to white audiences.

Muse is a character modeled on John Roxborough and Moreland plays his corner man much as Jack Blackburn was in real life. Blackburn however was a former boxer himself so Louis would never have to come to his rescue as he does with Moreland. In scenes with both Muse and Moreland Joe's deficiencies as a thespian are painfully apparent.

As for the plot he's a clean living kid with talents as pugilist who gets led astray by bad girl Mae Turner, but is pulled back on the straight and narrow by Edna Mae Harris.

Joe Louis was a great heavyweight and a great man from the last century, pity he did not a get film to go with it. After his career was over there was a Joe Louis Story film done with Coley Wallace in the lead. In production values not much better than this, but at least an actor was in the lead.

Still it made the money it was supposed to and that was its object. No one here thought they were creating great cinematic art.

Spirit of Youth (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Boxing legend Joe Louis plays a boxer named Joe Thomas in this film, which was clearly meant to be a biography.

SPIRIT OF YOUTH is like a lot of the race pictures from this era. It's got an extremely low-budget and this here causes there to be countless technical issues with the film. At times it's poorly shot and there's no doubt that they were working with very little money as the entire film has a rather rushed and cheap feel to it.

With that said, this here is certainly an entertaining movie on a number of levels with the biggest being the fact that you get to see Louis during his prime. If you're expecting a good performance from him then you'll be disappointed because he's actually rather bad as an actor. He's usually just given one line at most and the reading is downright horrible but I don't think too many people will be that harsh on him. After all, the fun is just getting to see the man himself in the role.

The supporting cast includes a nice performance by Clarence Muse as well as a good supporting bit for Mantan Moreland who pretty much plays the sidekick. Several of the supporting performances are hit and miss but there's nothing here so bad that it's going to take away any entertainment value from the film itself.

As I said, SPIRIT OF YOUTH isn't that pretty to look at but it's a fun film and it's at least nice to see Louis.