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Body and Soul (1947)
Director: Robert Rossen
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
With its mean streets and gritty performances, its ringside corruption and low-life integrity, Body and Soul looks like a formula '40s boxing movie: the story of a (Jewish) East Side kid who makes good in the ring, forsakes his love for a nightclub floozie, and comes up against the Mob and his own conscience when he has to take a dive. But the single word which dominates the script is 'money', and it soon emerges that this is a socialist morality on Capital and the Little Man - not surprising, given the collaboration of Rossen, Polonsky (script) and Garfield, all of whom tangled with the HUAC anti-Communist hearings (Polonsky was blacklisted as a result). A curious mixture: European intelligence in an American frame, social criticism disguised as noir anxiety (the whole film is cast as one long pre-fight flashback). But Garfield's bullish performance saves the movie from its stagy moments and episodic script.Author: CA
Cast & crew
Director: Robert Rossen
Producer: Bob Roberts
Cast: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere, William Conrad, Joseph Pevney, Canada Lee full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Duration: 104 mins
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