7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Charley Davis wins an amateur boxing match and is taken on by promoter Quinn. Charley's mother doesn't want him to fight, but when Charley's father is accidentally killed, Charley sets up a fight for money. His career blooms as he wins fight after fight, but soon an unethical promoter named Roberts begins to show an interest in Charley, and Charley finds himself faced with increasingly difficult choices.
Starring: John Garfield, Joseph Pevney, Lilli Palmer, Anne Revere, Hazel BrooksFilm-Noir | 100% |
Sport | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 16-bit)
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
John Garfield was still Jules Garfield when he attracted notice in a bit part in Clifford Odets' biggest hit for The Group Theater, Golden Boy, which starred Luther Adler and Frances Farmer on Broadway, and then Farmer and Elia Kazan on tour. Farmer of course had been a major casting coup for The Group's Harold Clurman and Odets, after they caught her doing summer stock in the summer of 1937. She was then arguably the hottest young film actress in the world and her first professional stage performances had also received rapturous reviews. Farmer's box office appeal no doubt helped make Golden Boy the sellout it was for the 1937 – 38 season, and it was one of the few examples in those days of a film actress acquitting herself rather well on the legitimate stage. Garfield took the more typical path for actors of that era, starting on the stage and then answering the siren call of Hollywood. The paths of Garfield, Clurman, Odets and Farmer would repeatedly criss cross over the coming years, and Farmer in fact would have affairs with all three men. But the world of Hollywood is a vicious seesaw at times. In 1937, Farmer was a ravishingly beautiful and immensely talented actress who had conquered Hollywood and Broadway in little more than a year and a half, and Garfield was a bit player still struggling to really make his name despite having had featured roles in several Broadway plays. By 1940, Farmer's tempestuous temperament had started to catch up to her, and Garfield had become a major film star. It was Garfield's insistence that Warner Brothers borrow Farmer from Paramount to co-star in 1940's Flowing Gold that gave Farmer one of her few starring roles in the last couple of years of what was a tragically short film career. But that Golden Boy experience continued to inform several aspects of Garfield's equally short, if not quite so tragic, career. Several films Garfield made in the late forties utilized the central conceit of Odets' iconic play—namely that of a soulful, conflicted fighter of some sort attempting to find his true calling in life—and Garfield himself played the leading role of Golden Boy's Joe Bonaparte in a short-lived Broadway revival in the early fifties, just a month or two before the actor's untimely death at the age of 39.
Body and Soul is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1. We're now getting a new wave of Olive releases that may be controlled by Paramount but which are not Paramount catalog releases per se, and there may have been a bit of concern as to how these transfers would shake out, given Olive's overall excellent track record thus far with regard to its actual Paramount catalog releases. If this film and the recently reviewed Johnny Guitar are any indication, worries can be pretty much jettisoned. Body and Soul looks generally sumptuous, with James Wong Howe's lustrous black and white cinematography looking deeply burnished and beautifully filmic throughout the vast bulk of this presentation. There are some extremely minor fluctuations in contrast which are a niggling concern, and several tweedy costumes present minor stability issues, but otherwise this is a sharp and clear presentation that offers very appealing fine object detail and nicely rich black levels. As has been the Olive Films standard operating procedure, no overt digital manipulation appears to have been applied to the transfer and this presentation offers natural grain.
Body and Soul's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono audio mix is generally very clear, albeit shallow, but there is some niggling distortion in the midrange that is especially noticeable in some of Huge Friedhofer's brass oriented cues. (It should be noted that Johnny Green's iconic song of the same name as the film long predates the film—it was actually introduced in the 1930s by Gertrude Lawrence—and was interpolated by Friedhofer into his score. Dialogue is clearly presented and the overall mix is well prioritized with very good fidelity.
As is typical with these Olive Film Blu-rays, no supplements of any kind are included on the disc.
Body and Soul will probably strike some younger viewers as pretty pat and cliché ridden, but there's no denying the punch the film packs (sorry, couldn't resist). Garfield's really interesting combination of toughness and vulnerability has never been more potently utilized, and the supporting cast is full of wonderful little turns. Polonsky's screenplay isn't especially subtle, but it also provides Garfield with a field day for some fantastically dramatic scenes, and the fight sequences here are simply legendary, for good reason. James Wong Howe is about as legendary a cinematographer as they come, and Body and Soul is one of his greatest showpieces. Olive Films is rapidly becoming a mini-major of sorts with an incredibly impressive slate of catalog releases that for whatever reason the majors themselves are deigning not to release under their own auspices. Body and Soul continues the niche label's track record of releasing nice looking transfers that don't artificially tweak the image, and which provide decent lossless audio as well. About the only thing Olive needs to step up its presence in would be subtitles and supplements. Even without those bells and whistles, though, this release comes Highly recommended.
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Imbarco a mezzanotte
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Warner Archive Collection
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Special Edition
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Warner Archive Collection
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