The two outstanding features of this story of good-natured, generous, dumb slob of a wrestler, Wallace Beery, and Karen Morley, the blond he falls for and who subverts his virtues and talks him into fighting in fixed matches, are: (1) Wallace Beery's unforgettably inept performance as a German, and (2) Karen Morley's figure, which is so wispy as to hardly exist. She has no shoulders, no bosom, no rump, and her long bones looks so fragile that they might be snapped between two of Beery's hammy hands.
Beery does his best but if you've seen "The Champ" you've seen this performance, only without the ludicrous German accent. "Aww, Laura, you can not go avay because you know I luff you." Meanwhile, Ricardo Cortez, the suave, dark, conniving cad who impregnated Morley in prison, is balling her on the side. The guileless Beery has been led to believe Cortez is her brother.
Morley isn't actually a bad actress. She's about as good as most of the "dames" who populated the movies of the early 1930s. Her reluctance, when she marries the besotted Beery, is palpable. But even before the code, you couldn't have a baby out of wedlock without having your head torn off or something. The dim-witted Beery believes he's the father. When he finds out the truth and catches Cortez beating Morley, he strangles the cuckolder in a drunken rage. He's sent to jail but there are signs he'll get off easy. Morley visits him and tells him she and the baby are going away but he talks her out of it. "Awww, Laura, you moose stay because you know dah vay I feel about you." Interesting, how prohibition is handled. The Biergartens flourish in Germany. In Hoboken, they're illegal but not by much. The Germans of Hoboken simply move the Biergarten from the front of the establishment to the rear.
The best scenes take place in those Hollywood-studio German Biergartens, as a matter of fact. The band plays every traditional song you can think of -- "Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen," "Mussi I den," and various waltzes. Everybody drinks beer, eats sausages and potatoes, and dances the polka. The happy peasants of Hollywood, enjoying one of the director's community rituals.
I would imagine that the director, John Ford, got a kick out of the scenes in Germany and the immigration to New York. He was always interested in ethnicity. When introduced to Peter Bogdanovitch, the first thing he said was, "Serbian"? There is even the occasional play on words. Beery's land lady accuses him of hiding Morley in his apartment for immoral purposes, which Beery denies, and Morley puts in, "It was a Teutonic friendship." See, kids, the expected expression would be, "It's a Platonic friendship." This is a reference to the "Symposium" in Plato's dialogs. Plato was a philosopher in Ancient Greece. He argued that love could be sexless and lead to a contemplation of the divine. The authorities didn't get it, so they made him drink -- well, stuff you can find growing on the berm of Fifth Avenue in New York. Whatever you do, don't make tea out of it. I speak to you as your toxicologist.
It has its moments but it's in no way a sophisticated movie. Ricardo Cortez's character is thoroughly stereotyped. And Morley is a familiar type of woman, drawn to rogue males. And Beery -- nobody is that accommodating. Fun, though, in an undemanding and old-fashioned way.
Beery does his best but if you've seen "The Champ" you've seen this performance, only without the ludicrous German accent. "Aww, Laura, you can not go avay because you know I luff you." Meanwhile, Ricardo Cortez, the suave, dark, conniving cad who impregnated Morley in prison, is balling her on the side. The guileless Beery has been led to believe Cortez is her brother.
Morley isn't actually a bad actress. She's about as good as most of the "dames" who populated the movies of the early 1930s. Her reluctance, when she marries the besotted Beery, is palpable. But even before the code, you couldn't have a baby out of wedlock without having your head torn off or something. The dim-witted Beery believes he's the father. When he finds out the truth and catches Cortez beating Morley, he strangles the cuckolder in a drunken rage. He's sent to jail but there are signs he'll get off easy. Morley visits him and tells him she and the baby are going away but he talks her out of it. "Awww, Laura, you moose stay because you know dah vay I feel about you." Interesting, how prohibition is handled. The Biergartens flourish in Germany. In Hoboken, they're illegal but not by much. The Germans of Hoboken simply move the Biergarten from the front of the establishment to the rear.
The best scenes take place in those Hollywood-studio German Biergartens, as a matter of fact. The band plays every traditional song you can think of -- "Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen," "Mussi I den," and various waltzes. Everybody drinks beer, eats sausages and potatoes, and dances the polka. The happy peasants of Hollywood, enjoying one of the director's community rituals.
I would imagine that the director, John Ford, got a kick out of the scenes in Germany and the immigration to New York. He was always interested in ethnicity. When introduced to Peter Bogdanovitch, the first thing he said was, "Serbian"? There is even the occasional play on words. Beery's land lady accuses him of hiding Morley in his apartment for immoral purposes, which Beery denies, and Morley puts in, "It was a Teutonic friendship." See, kids, the expected expression would be, "It's a Platonic friendship." This is a reference to the "Symposium" in Plato's dialogs. Plato was a philosopher in Ancient Greece. He argued that love could be sexless and lead to a contemplation of the divine. The authorities didn't get it, so they made him drink -- well, stuff you can find growing on the berm of Fifth Avenue in New York. Whatever you do, don't make tea out of it. I speak to you as your toxicologist.
It has its moments but it's in no way a sophisticated movie. Ricardo Cortez's character is thoroughly stereotyped. And Morley is a familiar type of woman, drawn to rogue males. And Beery -- nobody is that accommodating. Fun, though, in an undemanding and old-fashioned way.