- Body and Soul is a decent film noir helped considerably by a very engaging boxing match that occupies much of the film's final third. Prior to that, it's a pretty standard tale of a hardworking prizefighter, Charley Davis (John Garfield), whose battles aren't restricted to the boxing ring. His mother (Anne Revere) fusses that he should get an education and go into a profession that doesn't involve beating people up. His pal Shorty (Joseph Pevney), on the other hand, wants to manage him into a successful boxing career, but Charley keeps finding himself under the thumbs of the seedy promoter Quinn (William Conrad) and the boxing kingpin Roberts (Lloyd Gough). Charley's devoted fiance Peg (Lilli Palmer) just wants to spend her life with him, but a nightclub singer (Hazel Brooks) has other ideas. One imagines that winning fights is the least of Charley's worries.
- In my opinion, Body and Soul only really takes off about an hour into the film, after the flashbacks have caught up with the opening narration. By then, Shorty and Charley's trainer Ben (Canada Lee) are both dead, and it's pretty clear that Roberts had a hand in both incidents. Now Roberts wants Charley to throw the championship match. Trouble is, Roberts doesn't always give both fighters the same script when he puts in a fix. Here, the film shines in depicting Charley's literal struggle to beat a young upstart (Artie Dorrell) that parallels his figurative battle against the men who want to control him. The impressive cinematography by James Wong Howe (who also did The Sweet Smell of Success) has the cameras dance around the ring with the two fighters, making sure the audience never feels more than a few feet away from the action. While this is hardly Robert Rossen's best film, it does serve as an interesting complement to All the King's Men and The Hustler, two other films that excelled in depicting the corrupt men who pull the strings behind the scenes.
- William Conrad was, among other things, the Fatman in Jake and the Fatman.
- John Garfield's real name was Jacob Garfinkle.
