Flesh

Despite what people say about Wallace Beery, considered misanthropic and difficult to work with by many of his colleagues, the man can ACT!

When watching the film, I realized that if you have great actors in a film, the film works. This film has GREAT actors and a very good story too.

Beery plays a wrestler. Karen Morley has just been let out of prison and he takes her in. Beery plays a "Marty" type of character where he feels no one would ever all in love with him because he is ugly and dumb. But he adores Morley.

Berry does not realize that Morley is just waiting for her boyfriend Ricardo Cortez to be released from jail also. Despite how nice Beery is to her, she just can't fall in love with him. It is clear, even to her, that she is making wrong choices but she can not help herself.

There are some plot twists that I do not want to give away. It is definitely worth watching. Everyone does a great job making this into a Classy Classic.

Wallace Beery is Polakai, wrestler and beer garden worker. He befriends Laura (Karen Morley ), who just got out of prison. She has no money and no place to stay, so she stays with Polakai. And of course, he wants to marry her. But when her old boyfriend Nick (Ricardo Cortez) shows up, it throws a wrench into everybody's plans. Laura wants to have her cake and eat it too, as they used to say. How will this work out? How long can they take advantage of Polakai? This is good, but moves pretty slowly, until the big showdown match. Beery had just won the oscar for Champ. Directed by John Ford. Ford made all those films with John Wayne... won a bunch of oscars. Written by Edmund Goulding. Goulding directed Grand Hotel, Dark Victory. How did he not even get nominated for those??

Wallace Beery is excellent as a poor immigrant wrestler who befriends waif Morley, but cannot keep her from the clutches of crooked promoter Cortez. The movie is badly dated. Many of its themes are now irrelevant. But, the acting is excellent, and a twist ending may surprise today's viewers.

It's sometimes hard to find John Ford's touch here.This is a pure melodrama that recalls Stahl's works:the German side is also present in "back street" released the same year.The characters are close to Marcel Pagnol's ones (see" Angèle"(1934),"la fille du puisatier"(1941))It does not matter if the action takes place in Germany ,in NYC or in Provence:unmarried mothers abound in Pagnol's movies.Wallace Beery's character reminds me of Fernandel's parts:both are good guys,naive with a very strong heart.

Actually ,Ford's touch can be felt when it gets to wrestling scenes.We find back his great moral stature ,his values,when Beery shows his dislike for the "I tell you when you win and I tell you when you lose" thing.This might have influenced other directors for better (the set- up,Robert Wise,1949)or for worse(Rocky,Alvidsen,1977).

Wallace Beery is undeniably the stand-out,but the supporting cast is excellent.It's strange how the drinks work on a man!When Wallace sticks with beer (good for wrestling?)everything works out fine,but when he switches to whiskey (evil drink?),it's the beginning of the end.How many 2001 movies will be still watchable in 2070?This one deserves to be seen.

The lead role of a German wrestler (Wallace Beery) in this film is far too dopey for my taste, both in the character and the performance. This leads to some really lame humor especially in the first half of the film, e.g. slopping beer around, banging through a door instead of unlocking it, and accidentally breaking an egg. Karen Morley plays the woman with a past that he naively takes in, and things get a little more interesting when her lover (Ricardo Cortez) shows up. Morley almost always impresses me, and the scenes with just the two of them crackle with the tough banter of 1932, making me wish that they had somehow been more of the focus. As it is, the film tries to do too many things, finally settling on being a wrestling film, and doesn't do anything particularly well. How painfully funny that William Faulkner is listed as one of the three screenwriters, though that gives it yet another link to Barton Fink, which I guess gives it some interest.

As for direction, I found no sign of John Ford visually or tonally here; literally anyone else could have directed this listless melodrama and we would not have noticed the difference, which might explain him trying to remove his credit from the film. Don't get too perked up over the salacious title (and its associated poster) either; it's just a pre-Code attempt to get customers into the theater, and refers not to sex but the wrestler being referred to as a "big hunk of flesh" in passing. Anyway, with a more nuanced, less childlike character this really could have been something, between the love triangle and the organized crime element trying to fix fights, but it's too silly and mildly annoying as it is.