a5c7b9f00b Gangsters try to get a boxer to throw an important fight.
Frankie, a young prizefighter, wins a fixed boxing match as part of a crime boss's plan to have him build up a following and then have him throw a championship fight. Later, while training, Frankie meets Mary as she is going to church with her family, and he begins a romance with her. The crime boss orders Frankie to stay away from Mary, while continuing to arrange for Frankie to win more fights. Just before Frankie's fight with the champion, he and the boss have an argument. Their plans to fix the fight are overheard by Mary's young brother, which soon leads to a tense situation.
This is a production of the Morris Shiller Company—a minor entity indeed. However, in the opening credits I saw two reasons to stick with the film—Mickey Rooney (in one of his earliest roles) and J. Carroll Naish—two actors that can almost make anything worth watching---well, maybe not this one! The film begins with a fixed boxing match. I was surprised that although they did film footage of a fight, they also used stock footage in a clumsy attempt to cut costs. From here, the story becomes a pretty standard film about the boxer falling in love with a sweet girl and wanting to give up his crooked life. Naturally his 'friends' don't like this and eventually resort to a kidnapping to keep the boxer in their clutches. But, naturally, by the end all is swell.<br/><br/>The problem with this film is that it just isn't particularly exciting to watch—a definite problem with a boxing film. Poor acting and a sluggish plot don't help any and it's a pretty much forgettable film aside from Rooney. As for Naish, well, he did go on to better things.
Films about prize-fighting are many, and most of them are very similar in nature. But this low-budget feature presents a hero so boring and plot developments so overly predictable that even the most tepid of those films are practically outstanding in comparison. John Darrow is the most unlikely of prize-fighters, especially when compared to later ones like William Holden, John Garfield, Robert Ryan and even Sylvester Stallone. He looks more like he stepped out of society than a gymnasium and in fact only barely comes to life when he's involved with the film's socialite heroine (Myrna Kennedy) and flirting with a femme fatal (played by Natalie Moorehead, who seems to be old enough here to have been fellow vamp Theda Bara's college roommate) set up to keep him from getting distracted from the criminal element trying to make a quick buck off of him. A few stereotypical characters pop in to try to liven up the action, and there's even a very young Mickey Rooney as Kennedy's younger brother tossed in for some cute comic relief. Even at a short running time, the film ranks as a disappointment because it lacks the oomph which later films (especially those of the film noir era) made so much better.