DVD Review
Body And Soul, starring John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Assorted Productions, 1947
… he,
Charley (played by John Garfield and his
blues) he, was
from hunger, was from hunger like a lot
of guys, guys from East America, working class guys with small town hungers (and small dreams
too) from places like North Adamsville,
Olde Saco, and Waterville, except his hunger (and dream) was magnified
by being near, Lower East Side Jewish tenement cold water flat where- is- the- next- pay- check-
coming- from to ante up the
rent and feed hungry (food hungry) kids near, the great white lights of New
York City high life. Yah, he had the hunger bad, and the dream bad too, the
1930s jewish/hillbilly/polish/irish/downeast swamp yankee /french-canadian,
name your ethnic group, dream of jailbreak from close quarters, from family
necktie, from corner boy nickel and dime stuff, stuff beyond just getting by and
being some soda jerk job serving egg creams, seltzer, two cents plain, and penny candy (milky ways, mary jane ,no, not that mary jane, tootsie rolls,
milk duds, the fare of the Saturday matinee), to hurrying no time dream
kids. And see, he had it figured, maybe not every way figured but a good part
figured and he would ad lib, play by ear, play by luck the rest of it. Why?
Well he had the fastest hands around, fastest
fighting hands, boxing hands (other fast hands, fast girl hands too, but that’s
for later) everybody
said so. No jewish shy boy, some Talmudic intellectual, no goof, not yarmulke thrown on the ground by some rough-hewn heathen irish christ-believers
victim he. Yah, he could throw a punch, take some too, and he had heart, a big
immense sad sack heart.
But there were a million guys
with fast hands, who could take a punch, and had plenty of heart in those hungry
days so what was needed was a break, a timely break and that is what our boy
Charley got, got with some very long strings attached. He became a prize fighter, a practitioner of the
manly arts, a pug in front of large crowds. You know though that anything from
cockroaches to rabbits to dogs to horses to human flesh that can be bet on
comes attached with very long strings. And so Charley sold himself to the devil,
or better to the man, to the connected man, the juice man. Grabbed that front
dough, grabbed the deal, grabbed the out form hunger deal, with both hands. And
because he had those fast hands that turned out to be just a bit faster than a
lot of other guys with heart (some with real heart others, like in a lot of
things, just looking for a big payday and so could be fast or slow on demand)
he prospered, for a while. He got to see those bright white lights of New York
City, real New York City, up close, until the other hand dropped and the day
came when he too had to decide whether he could be slow or fast on demand. And
in the end he was fast but not without about sixteen sweaty moments, and twenty
hesitations. Yah, our boy Charley had all the heart in the whole wide world at
the end and so guys from Podunk towns in East America (those dreaming hard-scrabble
wide open field okies and arkies heading west to pick the crops would not have comprehended
what was happening in the closed quarters East America) could cheer him on,
cinematically anyway.
Oh yah, I said I would speak of those
Charley other fast hands. Hell, a guy can’t go up in front of the bright lights
alone, he needs something soft for those long nights in between bouts, sometime
to be the toast of the town with. So Peg (played by Lili Palmer), a Village painter
(if you need to ask what village just keep moving on) if you could figure such a
clever gal going for a pug, no matter how fast his hands and his good looks, volunteered
to be his sweetie. But see Peg has scrupled, big scruples about fighting,
fixes, and giving friends (and your dear widowed mother as well) the short end
of the stick on your way up and so for a very long time she held him at arms’
length as he was blinded by the bright lights. Of course a champ, a champ of
anything, with dough, with connections, and with a newfound taste for the wild
side, and not afraid to pay for those thrills will not have to stand lonely and
cold out on Fifth Avenue very long before some twist, Alice (played by Hazel
Brooks) some lovely low bar chanteuse femme fatale, second class, drifts by. Frankly I would have played that frail out, that
fast-spending Alice, played her out to the end, but that would have destroyed
the uplift story line. If she is not doing anything tonight I could show her
some fast hands. We’ll just let Charley and Peg fade into some Jersey bungalow with
a couple of kids and a dog sunset.
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