Very similar to the remake They Made Me A Criminal but the stories are not completely identical and although I rate John Garfield as one of the best actors in any era I must tip my hat to Fairbanks Jr.'s performance here. While it must have been hard to emerge from the shadow of his silent film mega star father, Jr really won me over with his performance in this film, seeing him without the moustache initially threw me off but then made sense as he became Jack Daugherty. Jr showed shades of being tough, romantic, selflessness to the point of surrender at one point but at the same time a desperate man who still finds nobility in his character despite losing his name and former life all while trying to avoid being a sucker. As a boxing historian myself it is interesting to note the uniqueness of being a southpaw whereas today a boxer fighting southpaw is much more common because it has been labeled as an advantage because orthodox fighters used to struggle to find sparring partners who are southpaws and so the 10% of the population that are left handed was also represented at about the same rate of southpaws in boxing until righties started seeing the advantage of going southpaw to throw their opponent off. I find it funny that John Wayne plays a cowardly reluctant boxer afraid to fight the behemoth King Cobra, before he goes into the ring Jr tries to comfort him and ease his mind about fighting, hardly ever something you see John Wayne doing is showing an inch of cowardice on film. The ultimate man's man Mr. Macho next to Clark Gable would never agree to something like this at the peak of their careers, they never sought to show their acting range they always strived to protect their manly persona to the point of Gable of taking hair growth treatments for his chest hair! The young cat eyed Loretta Young fits nicely into her role, the pre-code drinking, brawling, and efforts to avoid being a sucker are fun and thank God for that ending because that would've tanked my rating if Jr actually let Kibbee take him in.
Review of The Life of Jimmy Dolan
