Although ostensibly a boxing picture, it's more of a movie about the human spirit - about how there's good in all of us. Director Archie Mayo puts a lot of effort into this rising it above his usual production line style and making this a very entertaining piece of drama.
That Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Is this film's boxer not James Cagney says a lot of Fairbanks' acting skills. He doesn't look like your typical boxer but because he's so convincing you can totally believe he is.
Aline MacMahon also does a grand job playing a middle aged spinster - excellent work from the make-up department and excellent acting too. Loretta Young as always is faultless and although she's a bit too good to be true, again she's perfect as the young inexperienced woman living miles away from anyone else in an isolated farm who gets Fairbanks' testosterone filled virile manliness thrust into her quiet life. There is some boxing - it's not RAGING BULL standard but it's fine but this film is really about how the goodness in any of us prevails. It's all quite uplifting!
Comedy moment of the decade however is hidden in this otherwise very serious film. It's about 20 minutes in when two policemen attempt to extinguish a vehicle fire using what looks like cake icing guns. Did the props department not deliver the right stuff to set that morning? This could have been a scene from Will Hay's WHERE'S THAT FIRE.
That Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Is this film's boxer not James Cagney says a lot of Fairbanks' acting skills. He doesn't look like your typical boxer but because he's so convincing you can totally believe he is.
Aline MacMahon also does a grand job playing a middle aged spinster - excellent work from the make-up department and excellent acting too. Loretta Young as always is faultless and although she's a bit too good to be true, again she's perfect as the young inexperienced woman living miles away from anyone else in an isolated farm who gets Fairbanks' testosterone filled virile manliness thrust into her quiet life. There is some boxing - it's not RAGING BULL standard but it's fine but this film is really about how the goodness in any of us prevails. It's all quite uplifting!
Comedy moment of the decade however is hidden in this otherwise very serious film. It's about 20 minutes in when two policemen attempt to extinguish a vehicle fire using what looks like cake icing guns. Did the props department not deliver the right stuff to set that morning? This could have been a scene from Will Hay's WHERE'S THAT FIRE.