Body and Soul

Body and Soul:  John Garfield and Lili Palmer star in a 1947 film that became the prototype for all the great boxing films that followed. Anne Revere and William Conrad are featured in this film directed by Robert Rossen. The magnificent fight photography by the legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe puts the viewer right in the ring. 104 minutes. No captions.

 

                                          

 John Garfield won an Academy Award nomination for his performance as a boxer from New York City's slums who will do anything to rise to the top. Lilli Palmer and Anne Revere, as his girl friend and mother, should each have won Academy Awards for Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress, but neither was even nominated.

This film contains much social commentary. Garfield, Rossen, and screenwriter Abraham Polonsky were either Communists, or sympathetic to the social causes affirmed by post war Communists in Hollywood. Nevertheless, the story, the acting, and the cinematography are so good, that the timeless film transcends the old political back ground. This film was one of the first I ever saw as a child and I still vividly remember the opening scene as well as the thrilling ending.

Here is a link to a fourteen minute video on the career of cinematographer James Wong Howe. It is a lesson on what the cameraman adds to a film.

John Garfield and Lili Palmer