Anxiously awaiting the new Rocky? (Really? You are?) Forget it. The boxing classic Body And Soul is out on DVD.
He made a career of playing dynamic simpletons, colorful victims of their own primal desires whose smarts never kicked in until a minute past zero hour: the lusty drifter in The Postman Always Rings Twice, the mob plaything in Force Of Evil, and the money-hungry champion in Body And Soul, the 1947 boxing classic newly released on DVD.
In art as in life, I guess. When word got out of his coercion at the hands of the communists, John Garfield held his lacquered head of hair as high as Charlie Davis, the aforementioned boxer, manages it at the end of Body And Soul. Charlie goes on, we presume, to live a good life. Garfield on the other hand - er, glove - fell victim to a heart attack that cut him down like a right cross. God gave him the eight count at 39.
If Body And Soul is the best pre-Rockyboxing flick, it's because Garfield is so great a part of it. The film is formula, and yet extremely personal; Charlie Davis' life, clichés and all, is Garfield's.
Like Charlie, Garfield (a.k.a Julius Garfinkle) was born to Eastern European immigrants in New York's notorious lower East side. His was a world of scrapes, odd jobs and petty thefts, until, like Charlie, he rose to notoriety and riches, signing with Warner Bros. at age 25.
Along the way, there was an influential stint with The Group Theatre, the lefty outfit that would soon revolutionize American acting, but not before converting its disciples to political extremism.
Reflections of each of these milestones - his childhood, his politics, his struggle with success - appear in Body And Soul, as Charlie Davis fights his way to the top (in montage sequences that definitely influenced Raging Bull) only to develop a social conscience, an intellectual sucker punch brought on by the admiration of the Jewish people, Charlie's affection for a black boxer (explosively portrayed by the underrated Canada Lee), and the growing awareness of his exploitation at the hands of beefy, inhuman capitalists like William Conrad (ever notice how many movie bad guys become TV good guys? Conrad, Raymond Burr, Telly Savalas, Karl Malden...)
Yes, it's a background Garfield shared with screenwriter Abraham Polonsky and director Robert Rossen. But despite their enormous contributions, Body And Soul with, say, Kirk Douglas or Burt Lancaster or Robert Mitchum in the lead, fails to resonate in quite the same way. It works, but it's a fighter with a hand he can't use.
Garfield, on the other hand - er, glove; did it again! - slips into Charlie Davis' skin like a well-worn robe.
