-Devdutt Trivedi
Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul (1947) is certainly the most important boxing film of the Golden Era of Hollywood alongside Robert Wise’s The Set-Up made two years later. The film is a precursor and influence to such later films as Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1983) and the Rocky series (1976-1985). The film shares with these later films, its approach to boxing as being a physiological act which is mainly affected by the transforming psychology of the main character in the events around the boxing sequences. In this way Robert Rossen’s film predate Scorsese’s use of catharsis that lies between content and action that would become Scorsese’s trademark character construction most importantly in his films with Robert De Niro.
The film began as an idea that its leading star, John Garfield had around the true story of the Jewish boxer Barney Ross. Ross retired from the ring in 1939 and joined the Marines for the Second World War which won him the Silver Star. However the association of the Ross character with drugs made it unfavorable with the Production Code Administration which censored films at the time of script itself.
The film was produced by a company established by Garfield with David Loew and Charley Einfeld titled Enterprise. Although the script was to be written Arnold Manoff, Manoff suggested that Abraham Polonsky, who later made the remarkable Noir, Force of Evil (1948), write the script. Manoff called Garfield telling him that Polonsky had the greatest boxing story ever told. Polonsky quickly made up the story that would become Body and Soul.
Robert Rossen was hired to direct the film on the condition that he would not change a single word from Polonsky’s script. However when Polonsky caught Rossen writing his own lines, Rossen was immediately fired. Rossen called his lawyer and Garfield and he came to a settlement so that Rossen could complete the film.
The script functions around the Hollywood model of two plot points followed by the climax. Plot point one would be Charlie’s success as an amateur boxer and plot point two would be Charlie fixing up matches after the death of his father. Plot point is similar to the following climax, as Charlie is forced to repeat the facts of Plot Point 2 i.e. throw a match and this time for as much as $60,000. The dialogues are written around the two plot points and consistently make different twists to denote the importance of the presumably unpredictable climax.
Both Polonsky and Rossen had different endings for the match that Garfield’s character was to lose for $60,000. In Rossen’s ending Davis, the boxer is killed, whereas in Polonsky’s ending Davis wins the match he was to be paid for losing and escapes with his girlfriend. Polonsky who had once said ‘Without hope there is no picture’ produced an ending in which Davis is offered redemption. Rossen later admitted that Polonsky’s ending was superior to his.
The most outstanding aspect of the film is the cinematography by James Wong Hoe who in his youth had been a professional flyweight boxer. Hoe would exaggerate the affect of a punch by following it up with a slight shake of the camera so that in his own words ‘the
audience would get jolt too.’ Hoe mentioned that in theatres audiences identified with the represented space of the ring and would hoot for the fighters. Howe filmed the fight while holding the camera and being pushed by an assistant as he wore roller skates.
While talking about the film in The Film Noir Reader 3i, cinematographer Wong Howe spoke about working with Garfield in Body and Soul:
“Since Garfield was working for his own company, he set his salary at a minimum. Garfield was the one who wanted me for Body and Soul. We made quite a number of pictures together, and in the course of them I came to understand how Johnny worked and how to photograph him. He liked the way I worked because I gave him a lot of freedom. I didn't put a lot of chalk marks on the floor for him to hit; I gave him a larger area to work in without being out of focus or how of his light. Worrying about things like that upset him, and he was afraid it would affect his performance.”
Later on Lux Radio Theater broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on November 15, 1948, with John Garfield reprising his film role through his voice. According to The Internet Movie Database, a remarkable eight members of the cast and crew went on to become directors: actors William Conrad and Joseph Pevney, writer Abraham Polonsky, cinematographer James Wong Howe, editor Robert Parrish, art director Nathan Juran, assistant director Robert Aldrich and script supervisor Don Weis. Additionally, set decorator Edward Boyle had already directed a film in the silent era.
The socialist agenda of the film talking about the common man as losing his rationale in the quest for success resulted in the team of Rossen, Polonsky and Garfield being brought before the HUAC Anti-Communist squad to testify about their Leftist affiliations.
John Garfield, who had a history of heart problems, did all the fight sequences in the film, only to die of a heart attack soon after the film was completed. He died at the young age of 39. The Garfield of Body and Soul is markedly different from those of his other characters for the seriousness he brings to the part. Recent revaluations of the film by such critics as David Schwartz, link the importance of the film today to Garfield;s performance instead of giving credit for the same to Polonsky’s sturdy script.
Courtesy: Republic Pictures Home Video
i Film Noir Reader 3: Interviews with Filmmakers of the Classic Noir Period, Authors: James Ursini, Alain Silver and Robert Porfirio, Limelight Editions,2004