Body and Soul

One of the original boxing noirs, Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul contains more drama than crime but features consistently exceptional performances and an outstanding script that attracted attention at the Academy Awards (it won for Robert Parrish’s film editing, which shines in the chaos of the final championship fight). After an opening sequence in which Jewish boxer Charley Davis (John Garfield) returns home to his shocked mother Anna (Anne Revere) and overwrought wife Peg (Lilli Palmer), the film enters an extended flashback to narrate Charley’s rise as a world champion boxer and ultimate corruption by high society to alienate the two women who love him most. Coached by the cocky Quinn (William Conrad in a career-best performance), Charley follows his ambition as far as it will go, ultimately falling in with gangster-promoter Roberts (Lloyd Gough) and social-climbing femme fatale Alice (the sultry Hazel Brooks), both of whom attempt to destroy his life. Taking full advantage of the acting talent at his disposal, Rossen directs scenes of raw and realistic emotion, such as Anna’s grief at the death of her husband in an explosion, Charley’s starry-eyed, first encounter with Peg, and the mental breakdown of the weakened Ben (Canada Lee) toward the film’s climax.