Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

classicsoncall This was John Garfield's first picture after leaving Warner Brothers and some say it was his best performance ever, with an Academy Award nomination for the effort. I thought Garfield was good, and his boxing scenes came across as fairly realistic. The host of Turner Classics, Ben Mankiewicz, mentioned that cinematographer James Wong Howe used some cutting edge filming techniques given the era - he strapped a camera to his chest and rolled around the ring on roller skates!I thought the film had a rough similarity to 1937's "Dead End", a non-boxing film that had a lot of the Warner Brothers trademarks that seeped over into this movie. Garfield's character Charley Davis came out of poverty and resorted to the only means of making a living he could by taking up the fight game. Charley's mother (Anne Revere) reminded me of Bogie's Mom in "Dead End" (Marjorie Main), in that both were basically humorless and less than understanding of their son's chosen profession. Actually Bogart didn't have a profession in his film, he was a street punk named Baby Face Martin. Both stories took place on New York's East Side.I always get a kick out of how quickly some of these boxing stories bring along the central character in their rise to the top; Davis manages twenty one fights in his first year in the ring and is set to battle for the championship, but only if he hooks up with crooked promoter Roberts (Lloyd Gough). And for only fifty per cent of his purses too! You have to wonder how crooked it really was behind the scenes of the boxing game because most good movies at least touched on it. Just check out "Raging Bull" for a real life example.Well, before Charley comes to his senses as a human being, he goes through a period of womanizing, drinking and gambling, and doesn't get his wake up call until the death of his trainer Ben (Canada Lee). Just prior, Ben chastens Charley for his association with Roberts and comments on an upcoming title defense by asking "Did you sell the fight, Charley"? One thing you might have to overlook during the title match against Marlowe (Artie Dorrell) is a palpable weight difference between the two fighters. Marlowe actually looked skinny to me as the contender, side by side it looked like Davis outweighed him by at least a weight class.Say, there was a great line uttered by Charley's manager Quinn (William Conrad) in the scene when he was arguing with the boxer's call girl Alice (Hazel Brooks). Alice was basically letting him know he was no prize package in the looks department, and his comeback was a beaut - "You could use a new paint job yourself". I'll have to remember that one.

pocomarc I have to comment on a review here by 'kayaker', who wrote: "The great lightweight champion of the 1920's Benny Leonard (true name: Benjamin Leiner) was the model for Charley Davis. Leonard's closeness to his mother was played up in the sporting press of the time. She wanted her son to play the violin, not box. Leonard reminded her in telegrams after each victory that he was "bringing home the bacon"--earning far more with his fists than he ever could as a fiddler." Reviewer kayaker is badly in error.It was black lightweight champion JOE GANS who telegraphed his step-mother from Goldfield Nevada after his 42 round victory on a foul over challenger Battling Nelson in the year 1906 that "I brought home the bacon--and lots of gravy too." Benny Leonard was 10 years old at that time.

seymourblack-1 "Body And Soul" is widely recognised as the first boxing movie to focus sharply on the corrupt nature of the fight game and the unethical practices of the people who run it. The ways in which a fighter gets exploited by gangsters and gambling interests are depicted very convincingly and the negative effects that sudden success can have on a young boxer are also portrayed in a style which is both powerful and authentic.The events that take place during the fighter's rise from obscurity to world championship level involve a great deal of intrigue, intensity and drama and no doubt, this is exactly what inspired so many other filmmakers to produce similar types of movies which frequently featured many of the same situations that are seen in "Body And Soul".Charley Davis (John Garfield) is a fighter from New York's lower East Side who's determined to escape the impoverished circumstances that he and his mother find themselves in after his father is accidentally killed when the speakeasy next to his candy store is bombed. Ignoring his mother's wishes, Charley decides to pursue a career in boxing.Charley's best friend Shorty Polaski (Joseph Pevney)had become his manager after convincing local trainer Quinn (William Conrad) to take Charley on and soon after, Quinn arranges a series of fights in which Charley is so successful that he attracts the attention of a gangster called Roberts (Lloyd Gough) who's the most powerful figure in the boxing business in New York. Roberts promises Charley a title fight but the cost is high as Roberts demands a 50% cut of Charley's earnings and the effective sidelining of Shorty.Roberts arranges a fixed fight for Charley against the ageing middleweight champion Ben Chaplin (Canada Lee) who has a blood clot on his brain. Charley is told nothing about his opponent's condition and after a punishing contest during which Ben takes a large number of blows to the head, his manager understandably feels double crossed by Roberts.Shorty is appalled when he discovers the circumstances surrounding the fight and after telling Charley what he knows, resigns. Tragically, he then gets beaten up by one of Roberts' henchmen and still groggy after his beating, staggers into the street where he gets run down and killed by a car.Peg (Lilli Palmer) had been Charley's loyal girlfriend since his earliest involvement in the fight game but after seeing what had happened to Shorty and becoming concerned about Roberts' activities, decided that she could no longer continue their relationship unless Charley decided to give up boxing. Predictably, Charley refused and then broke off their engagement.As Charley's success in the ring continues, he gambles heavily, becomes increasingly indebted to Roberts and starts seeing an acquisitive nightclub singer called Alice (Hazel Brooks). After an extended period as the champ, Charley is scheduled to fight a young contender in a fixed match which he's instructed to lose and to use his payment of $60,000 to bet against himself. How he deals with this situation proves to have significant consequences, not only for him, but also for Ben (who becomes his trainer) and Peg who starts to see a future for them together if Charley does finally give up boxing.The boxing sequences in "Body And Soul" were expertly filmed with hand held cameras being used to augment the work of the main camera crew and Francis D Lyon and Robert Parrish's contributions were recognised when they won the Oscar for "Best Film Editing". John Garfield's performance won him an Oscar nomination for "Best Actor" and Abraham Polonsky also received an Oscar nomination for his marvellous screenplay.John Garfield gives a top class performance as the naive fighter who's seduced by the promise of wealth into a corrupt business where, in order to hit the big time, he has to make a Faustian deal which costs him his lifelong friendship with Shorty and damages his relationships with Peg and his mother. Lilli Palmer is excellent as the warm hearted Peg who's more intelligent than Charley and also has higher ethical standards. The supporting performances are also very good with Canada Lee making a particularly strong impression.

Michael_Elliott Body and Soul (1947) *** (out of 4) John Garfield plays a poor kid from the slums who starts boxing and soon rises to the top where the only place to go is down. This is a highly impressive film that manages to be quite effective even though the story isn't anything original. It's easy to see the influence this film had on Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull and I'd say the Scorsese picture follows this one quite closely. There are also a few more sequences, which were borrowed in Rocky. The most impressive thing about this movie are the boxing scenes, which are the most realistic and violent of any early boxing film I've seen. I'd say they've only been topped by the Scorsese film. Garfield is terrific as usual and really sells his character's many different feelings. Garfield perfectly captures the out of control scenes but he's also very good in the more tender moments involving a used up black boxer. The supporting cast is also very good with Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, William Conrad and Joseph Pevney turning in fine work. The films one weakness is that it drags before the start of the final act but there's still plenty here to enjoy.