Truth, stranger than fiction?

Usual suspects (1995)

In this time and age, many conspiracy theorists are having a field day. They come up with so many mind-bending and mind-boggling explanations to drive home their point of why a particular event happened the way it did. Their story may sound incredulous, but they sure have an appropriate answer for the turn of events. 

Take the example of the genesis of Covid-19. One camp will insist that it was a Chinese bioweapon that went wrong. To support their assertion, they would show 'proof' of the Chinese Communist Party's secret laboratory in Wuhan and how a diseased bat landed in their market-place. 

Then the opposing party will say that the virus is actually US-made. To arrest China's seemingly unstoppable ascent for emerging as the world's largest economy, the US had to resort to such dirty tactics. A third party would then appear to insist that the virus was just a natural mutation, a sort of Nature's fight back to reclaim its territories.

When you turn around and tell them that their tall stories are too unbelievable to be accurate, they would turn around and tell you, "Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction!"

Then there is the New World, the Illuminati, the Cabal of Bankers with the Rothschilds, the Mossad and the list goes on who really controls all the wars, the economy and even tsunami and climate change.

'The Usual Suspects' has a sort of cult following. It is often quoted as a pop culture reference in many American shows including 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Family Guy'. The convoluted storyline told by a convict of an elusive mobster and twist at the end of the movie is a classic for many movie buffs. It also boasts of many memorable lines reminiscent of any good noir movie of the 50s.

As the signature of the film says, 'the greatest stunt that devil pulled was that he never existed' is precisely how the hidden forces of the controlling powers work. Work is done by proxies. The right-hand whacks, whilst the left applies the soothing liniment. The arms that break also embrace. That is the art of deception.

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The iconic ending scene (not to give anything away) via GIPHY

All with the same trajectory, the atoms and the Universe

Super Deluxe (2019)
Story and Direction: Thiagarajan Kumaraja

Gone are the days when Tamil movie stories were rather two-dimensional. It used to be that there was a bright, distinct demarcation between characters. Everything was black or white; they were either good people or bad. And poetic justice would prevail at the end of the film, proving once again that the dharmic principles of life would be upheld.

If you are one of those who is looking for a break from making daily-altering life questions to see gyrating bodies to soothing melodies nowadays, look elsewhere. I just happened to bump into this movie by chance as I was scrolling down the Netflix menu and saw one of my favourite actors, Ramya Krishnan in a leading role.

I got hooked from the first scene itself. A young wife calls her ex-boyfriend college mate over for some hokey-pokey for old times' sake as her husband out on errands. Soon after passionate lovemaking, the lady discovers her lover stiff hard, out cold and dead. Then starts the panic as her husband walks in with some unwelcomed guests. 

This story is told in concurrent with another two (or maybe three) other tales which somehow gets intertwined as we will see later in the movie. In another scene, a young boy, a tween, is waiting patiently for his estranged father to return home after years of leaving home. A taxi stops in front of the house as the excited extended family members wait in anticipation. An overdressed lady walks out. Hold behold, the father is now a transgender person. Then come the discrimination, the ridicule and the humiliation of the 'father' and the family members. 

In another related storyline, five teenage boys play truant to watch porn. After craftily getting a copy of an X-rated DVD, they watch the show in one of the boy's home. One of them gets a shock when the lead lady is actually his mother! In anger, he throws the beer bottle on the TV screen, shattering it. He runs home in rage to confront his mother, Leela (Ramya Krishnan). As he runs with a kitchen knife to harm his mother, the boy accidentally trips and stabs himself instead, critically. Hence, starts a commotion; getting emergency medical treatment, contacting the boy's father who has left home to be an evangelical pastor. The boy's father, a tsunami survivor, feels that he is chosen by God to help people as he was the only one in his circle who survived the catastrophe as he held on to a rock statue of Jesus.

Vijay Sethupathi - excellent as transgender.

Also opened the bag of worms why the role should be played

by a male and not a transgender actor. They assert that being 
transgender is not mere wearing of a wig and applying make-up.

The rest of the boys, on the other hand, desperate to replace the broken TV get into a comedy of errors to get the money towards this end. If this is not confusing enough, wait for alien visitation and corrupt police force to completely knock you bonkers. Just when you think it is getting all draggy and how all these things are going to be tied together, it then hits you. Only then it dawns upon you that every scene and story is detailed to precision to make this offering simply a masterpiece. It leaves a trail of philosophy and questions about human behaviours that yearn to be answered. 

We are responsible for our actions, whether the scriptures tell us or not. The two-timing wife has to face the music when it is discovered. She is responsible for her activity as it has repercussions on people around her, like her parents, husband and in-laws. If her lover dies in her hands, she has to face the consequences.

Doing what seems to be the right things may not always be a pleasant thing to do.  Like the transgender lady (Manikam @ Shilpa, played beautifully by Vijay Sethupathi)) realises, even though it is her right to express her inner desires, her action may affect the people around her. It is not always about oneself but of people around her.

Being naked in public is frown upon by modern society. It is all in context. Being half-naked is the norm at the beach but not at a philharmonic orchestra performance. It might have been alright to be undressed in prehistoric times or perhaps even in generations to come, but now we have laws to govern these.

Society likes to see what it wants to see. It creates a storm when an actress acts in a porn movie but fails to credit her in a positive role, as a Goddess role. It chides the pedlars of porn but not its consumers.

A person who has done not so virtuous things also cares for his family. He also wants to do the right thing. A seemingly righteous person will do a 'sinful' things if circumstances dictate.

Apparently, just as the pastor who was enlightened during the tsunami, so was the transgender character. She also held her life on to a rock. After the ordeal, she just disposed of the rock and did her thing. The pastor, however, saw the rock statue that he held was that of Jesus and was a sign from God to save mankind. To one, it was just a piece of rock. To another, it was a message from the Maker. Interesting.

We make rules by association. We put two and two together to come to conclusions about things around us. We see the sun in the morning, and we see the moon at night, and we draw a conclusion that one appears mutually exclusive of the other. We get confused when we see both of them together. This knowledge is used by the philandering wife and her husband to confuse the police when they dispose of the body. 

Ramya Krishnan

The Universe seems to have a prototype for all of its inventions. The electrons and the tiny charged particles which are seen at a microscopic level or the intergalactic celestial bodies which are spread over many million light-years away, they are governed by a single law.

Everything holds its purpose for its existence. Like a single cell on the elephant that makes an elephant an elephant, every individual on this planet has his purpose. He exerts his influence in one way or the other - in the present time or the future. Just like historical events affect the present. The question is whether your existence is merely to fulfil your primal needs or for the betterment of the human race on the whole.

The alien character encourages us to view the human race objectively and re-evaluate the human race and laugh at our follies.

It appears like every scene, every dialogue, and every character is crafted with a purpose. No clip is introduced for the sake of filling the gap. Each has a back story. There are plenty of hidden messages in the background - like a silhouette of a flying plane to denote the timeline of the story. The cinematography is avantgarde at best, following the path of master filmmakers like Ray, Kurosawa, De Sica and Hitchcock. In many scenes, much is left to the imagination. Sometimes, sounds and dialogue have more impact. A partly obscured view adds more drama to our visual experience. 

A clear 4.8/5 that makes you want to view it again.

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A rewarding job?

Kavaludaari (Policeman, Kannada; 2019)
Amazon Prime.

Most Indian movies stereotype policemen as either corrupt or a superhero who would singlehandedly beat the living daylights of gangsters twice his size, with his bare knuckles. This rare neo-noir movie coming from the state of Karnataka puts things right in perspective. As in many things in life, there is no happy ending in police work. The Universe does not offer poetic justice. Is it our job to right the wrong? Should we just leave it to the divine powers to mete out justice in the afterlife or next birth? Should we use the whole length and breadth of the man-made justice system to punish the perpetrators? Are we justified to use the system to correct the mistakes when the system that we put up to provide justice fails? Can we, like Nadhuram Godse, in his last speech at his trial, justify our violence by quoting Man's history and scriptures which are anything but peaceful. 

Doing the right thing may not be easy. In retrospect, one's action may be just, but in the breath, a person with persuasion can paint an ugly picture of the act.

Not to give too much away, this film starts with a man lying in a pool of blood, an open and empty safe with a well-dressed man leaving the premises desperately. In the next scene, we see a traffic cop going out of his way to stick his head in a criminal case. In a highway construction site, old remains of three bodies are found. The gist of the story is tying up the cop and his obsession with the discovery of the corpses.

An exciting movie which breaks the mould of a typical swashbuckling and over-the-top ridiculous stories that are constantly churned out from the sub-continent. Of late, the industry seems to be going places.

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It comes around eventually!

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

They say that there is no such thing as the perfect crime. Even when a seemingly seamless crime is committed, somehow, something would go awry. A slight oversight, a chance DNA evidence or worse still when it involves two or more partners in crime, mutual suspicion and fear of double-crossing would spur one of them to act silly to arouse suspicion of the unsuspecting. The criminals occasionally appear at the crime scene to look at his 'trophy'.

Nature has its own way of punishing the perpetrator. Even though its fixing of things may not appear clear-cut, one can feel that poetic justice is served at the end of the day. Nature has a wicked sense of humour and warped amusement standards. Balance is maintained, nevertheless.

This classic film noir, made in 1946 and acted by John Garfield and the vivacious and sultry Lana Turner, grasps your attention from the word go. The first-person background narration and loud background music add to the suspense and the unpredictability of both characters on their next move. It starts with a rolling stone, Frank Chambers, stopping at a diner to work as a helping hand. There is an instant attraction to the owner's young and flirtatious wife, Cora. One thing leads to another, and a plot to murder the filling station owner - husband, is hatched and executed successfully in a planned accident.

After this, the plot becomes twisted where the members of the legal profession try to confuse Cora and Chambers. Frank hears about an insurance policy bought under the husband's name for the first time. Here, the story attempts to take a jab at the legal profession. It shows how the court makes a charade of the charge, admission of guilt and leniency.

The ensuing tension between Frank and Cora is illustrated beautifully in the rest of the movie to give real meaning to the film's title. Just like how we always hear the postman's second ring of the doorbell, fate has a sure way to trap us in our mistakes. We cannot run away from our wrongdoings.

The cold lonely walk of modern life...

Lights in the Dusk (2006)
Written, produced and directed: Aki Kaurismäki

This must surely be the bane of modern living. In contemporary times, Man lives a loner's life. He is individualistic and tries to find happiness in the company of himself. Koistinen runs life in a routine, doing things that he sees little satisfaction. He yearns for that elusive happiness, wonders where it is, contemplates where it is, questions whether it exists, wander around looking for it at all the wrong places and fails miserably.

In his fear of not achieving eudaemonia, he is scared to commit himself in relationships. Perhaps because he spends too much alone, he finds sharing his living space too restrictive. He wants the freedom to explore without being tied down. He wants the cake and to eat it at the same time. 

The film, which is the last instalment of Finland trilogy [Drifting Clouds (1996); The Man without a Past (2002)], keeps the theme of lonely life in that country. The background story seems to hint that life is all not hunky-dory in this supposed first world country with a perfect infrastructure and social safety net. For the common man, it is all the same to him, whether a socialist government reigns or capitalism is the order of the day. Neither of them is friendly to the entrepreneurial desires of the common man.

Maybe it is just me, but there is also a hint of resentment of the days when Russia ruled over Finland. Finland is said to have been raped of its resources and culture by the Russian giants before the fall of the Romanov family. Anti-Russian sentiments continue to date. This must have been sarcastically inserted by the director as a group of drunks arguing about the greatness of some Russian literary figures. It is also seen when he boasts of naming his security firm 'Kosinski', not Koistinen, his real name.

It tells the mundane life of a lowly loner security guard who leads a lonesome routine. He is a shy guy who goes back to an empty cold apartment. His only meaningful contact with a living organism is the plants that he keeps on the roof. He has big plans for his life, but nothing can get off the ground. He finds an admirer in the owner of the hotdog stand but is too aloof to realise. In midst of all these, a mysterious lady befriends him. This femme fatale, as it turns out, is using him just to rob a jewellery under his care. His life goes topsy-turvy.

It is unbelievable that a character such as this should exist; a passivist, one who goes with the flow without fighting back, holding old age-forgotten loyalties like honour and bearing all the burdens in the name of passion. Perhaps, there do!

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At the end, there is only love...

Odd Man Out (1947)
Produced and Directed: Carol Reed

This film, the first of Carol Reed's trilogy (the other two being 'The Fallen Idol' of 1948 and 'The Third Man' of 1949), is described by Roman Polanski as being his favourite film of all time, even better than 'The Third Man'.

This movie has been praised to high heavens for many reasons, mainly for its cinematography and narration. I thought its story was highly symbolic of life itself. That, people come and go in our lives, some join in merriment,  some to achieve some kind of endeavour and some motivate. There would be people who would promise to stay through thick and thin but scoot off at first sight of trouble. There would be some who would betray or make a buck or two out of you. At the end of the day, only a couple of people would be with you until the end. In this flick, the loyal souls who stay till the end seem the love of the protagonist's life and the man of God.

Set in Northern Ireland and at a time of civil unrest, Johnny McQueen (James Mason) robs a bank to support his political party activities. As Johnny had been completely homebound six months before this event, the excitement of the whole exercise and the outdoors made him lose balance. In the scuffle after the robbery, he shoots a man, gets shot himself and falls off the escape vehicle. The rest of the story deals with his escape on foot around town as the police are hot on his trail. There are complete strangers who would go all out to help him whilst there are others who would rather keep clear at the sight of his gunshot wound. Johnny drags himself around town to safety; his fellow accomplices abandon him, strangers are after him for the reward, a mad painter wants to capture the look of a dying man on canvas and so on. A pastor wants to pray with him for salvation, and his girlfriend wants to start a new life together away from all the fiasco. If only life could be so simple.

Interestingly, the film was given an adult rating by the British censors for its violent ending which was just suggested, not shown. It is surprising that even the gunshot wound is not shown and neither is the brutal end. 

A predictable noir

Please Murder Me! (1956)

We have always seen Angela Lansbury as a busy bodied middle-aged lady who simply appeared as jinx causing mayhem and murders in 'Murder She Wrote' the TV series. I bet you have seen here as a drop dead femme fatale. Here in this classic noir movie, she is one.

A predictable story of a lawyer (Raymond Burr of Perry Mason fame) defending his girlfriend (Myra, Angela Lansbury) who is charged with murder. The case carries a heavy emotional burden on the lawyer because he was saved in Iwojima (WW2) by the girlfriend's husband. As expected, the lawyer is being used to get a get-out-of-jail free card. Myra actually has a college boyfriend waiting for her.

The attorney soon comes to realise the trap. The ensuing story is how he ensnares Myra to bite the bait to expose her deceit.

Not just a barber

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
Written: Coen Brothers; Direction:Joel Coen

Another quirky movie from the Coen brothers, only, this time, it in black and white. The trademark is their story is written all over. It is a story set in the late 1940s of a small town barber who is a loser, who does not say much but does all his talking in soliloquy. He is so withdrawn and is living in his world, still trying to make out the meaning of life right till the end of the movie. (Spoiler Alert!) At the end of the film, as he sits in the electric chair, he hopes that his uncertainties would all be answered in the afterlife, he hopes, if there is one!

Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), the chain-smoking barber, like he says, “is just a barber” who works as an assistant to his brother-in-law. His wife, Doris, is a book-keeper who has an illicit affair with her boss. A mysterious customer hoodwinks the gullible Ed into investing $10,000 in a dry cleaning business venture. To procure the cash, he blackmails Doris’ boss (Ed knows about the affair) and successfully signs the deal.

The boss, after a showdown with Ed, is fatally wounded. Somehow, Doris is implicated when she is accused of cooking up the books for the boss to pay the ransom. Now, Ed has to hire an expensive attorney, with the help of his brother-in-law, to defend Doris. Just as the trial dates get near, Doris commits suicide!

Life goes on. Ed runs the barber shop as his brother-in-law buries his sorrows in the bottle. Ed’s life gets complicated when he gets involved in an accident and is accused of killing the earlier conman (of the dry cleaning business)! I guess poetic justice was served.

Memorable quote:

The final soliloquy (as he is strapped on the electric chair) 

I don't know where I'm being taken. I don't know what waits for me beyond the earth and sky. Maybe the things I don't understand will be clearer there, like when a fog blows away. Maybe Doris will be there, and maybe there I can tell her all those things they don't have words for here.

The lawyer, creating the element of doubt,

The more you look, the less you really know.

What lurks beneath?

Bal el Hadid (@ Cairo Station @ Iron Gate, Egypt 1958)
Director: Youssef Chahine

Surprisingly, Egypt has a vibrant movie industry that dates back to 1896! Its golden era is between the 1940s and 1960s. Despite the changing of guards and political outlook, it stood the test of time. President Gamel Abdel Naseer's planned nationalisation had irreparable damage to its heydays and never really recovered after that.
The director of this movie is also credited for introducing Omar Sharif to Hollywood, although not through this movie.

This 1958 release is an Egyptian noir film depicting small people in a busy railway station. Even though the story is a simple one of which we have seen many by now, it must have been revolutionary at its time. The movie's lovely thing is how the various strata of society are depicted to intermingle at an economic level. It also shows the difference in people's outlook in metropolitan Cairo, the modern outgoing Western viewpoints and conservative ones who frown upon the antics of the so-called 'immoral' ones. It is a meeting place of many characters; some make a living there.

With this background, the story starts with a newsstand owner adopting a young man, Qinawi, who has a deformed leg and lies idle on the platform. He is sent off vending newspaper. He soon realises that Qinawi is not right in the mind. His shack is filled with newspaper cuttings of scantily clad models.
Qinawi fancies (obsessed) Hanoumma, a flirtatious soft drink vendor. He has big plans for a wedding and settling down by the seaside. Unfortunately, Hanoumma has her eyes set tightly on Abu Sirieh, a hunky porter at the station.

Inserted into the subplot is how Hanoumma and her friends are always on the run from the railway security as their business is illegal and hurts the legitimate shop owners. A couple of love birds secretly wish each other farewell as the boy leaves for overseas, and their relationship is unknown to the family. Then, there is a feud among the porters. A group wants to form a union to fight for their alleged unfair wages. Abu Sirieh is supportive of the old system of patronage. There is looming a story of a murderer in the newspaper.

The filmography is interesting because it has many closeups of the steam train and sets the mood of the humid and explosive set of the scenes.

Qinawi, after being rejected by Hanoumma, recoils into a rage and systematically plans to kill Qinawi. The wrong girl is stabbed in the confusion of darkness, put in a trunk and packed off in a train. The remaining shows the truth surfaces and how Qinawi is tricked into a straightjacket by his adopted father.

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A forgettable flick

A woman's secret (1949)
One of those RKO's film noir during its trying times when the company was on a losing streak as it was restructured by the eccentric multimillionaire, Howard Hughes.

The story revolves around a singer, her protege, a pianist and a shooting. The singer, Marian (Maureen O'Hara) confesses to shooting her protege (Susan) whom she has been grooming to be a star.

It keeps me reminded of the many Tamil movies where the hero or heroine keep sacrificing their future and life for a crime they never committed all because they want to hide a bigger truth.

The story looks disjointed as if the story seemed draggy and the dialogue out of place.

The saving grace of the cast is, however, the investigating officer's wife who is an amateur private eye who provides slight comic to the otherwise stiff band of actors.
It is indeed sad to see the studio that produced one of the greatest movies of all time - 'Citizen Kane', spiral down to offer such a forgettable flick.

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He did it? Did not?

The Naked Edge (1961)

Just happened to bump into this obscure movie. It is Gary Cooper's very last film in his illustrious career. It has all the characteristics of a noir film with over-dramatisation of background movie and suspense hanging thriller right to its end.

Redcliffe testifies against a fellow worker, Heath, when his boss is robbed and fatally stabbed.

Even though the substantially large amount of the robbed money was never found, Redcliffe, invariably send Heath to serve long incarceration.

Every one moves on. Soon after the boss' death, Redcliffe allegedly 'made a killing' at the share market and goes into partnership. Five years on, he has made it.

The tranquility in Redcliffe's household in disturbed when Mrs Redcliffe receives a poison letter accusing the husband of murdering his boss, squandering the money and sending an innocent to jail as a fall guy.

One by one, everything makes sense and put the husband as the villain. Pretty soon the wife realises that her life may in danger. The whole cat and mouse game reaches a climax to end with a twist. A good relatively unheard movie.

Not all who scold loathe you!

Cry of the City (1948)
Another obscure film noir from the yesteryear forgotten in annals of the ticking time. This offering had nothing extraordinary to offer to mankind. The particular message that struck a cord with me is the message that it carried at the end of the show.
Firstly, humble beginnings, poverty and scarcity in appreciating the finer things in life is no justification to one's involvement in crime and vice. There are others who were in the same both boat with you opt not to slide the same slippery slide as you. They used will power and good friends to thread them the part of lasting piece of mind.
Secondly, what you do actually affects all the people who live around you or are bound by an intangible union through blood or DNA. Their skin would quiver if yours is breached even if you feel that all man is for himself. The people closely related to you mostly mean well to our welfare even though on the surface they may seem like a wet blanket to your wonderful dreams!
The only familiar name in the cast is Shelley Winters who had donned the silver screen for 5 decades before her demise. The rest of them were just characters. The setting of the film was excellent belying the fact that the location of ghetto neighbourhood and the apartments were all staged. The story. however, did not really excite the viewers as it appeared too complicated for comprehension.
A cop killer is hunted by a police lieutenant after he escapes the hospital where he was treated for near fatal injuries. The lieutenant knows the convict's law abiding homely humble Italian parents. His relationship with the parents and the convict's younger brother, who hero worship his elder brother, and the tracking down of the killer's tracks form the crux of the story.

What if...

Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

This is usually categorised as the first of many movies which were shot in a particular techniques involving a lot of shadows, narrating stories which are dark with a low budget production copying German and French cinematography. In hindsight, it was called 'film noir' and boasts of many groundbreaking new cinematography then. RKO Radio Pictures has the bragging rights of producing many such films.

The irony of this movie is that the main actor associated it only speaks in the last 10 minutes of the show! It is Peter Lorre, the guy who gained international recognition through Fritz Lang's 1931 movie 'M'. He, like the many Jews who were victims of witch hunt of the Nazi regime in the late 30s migrated lock, stock and barrel to flourish Hollywood's Tinseltown.
Reporter Michael Ward has his future all set. He has a lovely girl, Jane, who is all excited that he has a promotion and is a star witness in a murder trial. He cannot wait to tie the knot once all this is over.
At the trial, Michael becomes the key and only witness that can potentially send a man to the electric chair. The mostly lethargic judge and bored jury are convinced as the accused has a history of delinquency as a child and was seen at the scene of the crime. It all sounds eerily too easy. Both Michael and Jane (especially) start to have their doubts about the turn of events as the accused vehemently denies the charges. It soon strains their relationship. Pretty soon, Michael has doubts on his own testimony.

Peter Lorre

Back in his dingy apartment, he sees a suspicious character (Peter Lorre) leaving his neighbour, Albert Meng's apartment. Now, this Meng character is an annoying character who admonishes Michael for making too much noise on his typewriter, for bringing Jane to the apartment and even comments on his choice of consumption of beverage. In between sleep, dream and wakefulness, Michael finds Meng to have been murdered. The pattern of murder is just like the murder case he was testifying earlier. Suddenly, it is clear to him. The stranger must be the killer of both murders!
Michael find himself being the suspect due to circumstantial evidence and goes under custody as he had been seen threatening Meng during their arguments.
This 1 hour drama ends with Jane finally tracking down the stranger and saving the day.
I think that is what everybody in the modern world is fear of. Even if we have the most creative ways of punishing the wrong-doers, man as fallible as we can be, we may inadvertently pass a death sentence on an innocent victim. Is that the justice we are looking for? It is no more justice but more of revenge on loss lives/property/ dignity/etcetera or a witch hunt to put the fear of God (pun not intended) in refraining people from committing crimes, Sadly, punitive actions have never been shown to deter any form of crime.

The dark world of boxing

Body and Soul (1947)

Before there was Raging Bull, Champ and Rocky series, there was 'Body and Soul'. It was played fantastically by John Garfield, the darling of the noirs and the pioneer of anti-heroes.
Besides Garfield's acting, the film is also commendable for its then advanced technique of filming of a live event, which set the mood well for the final clash.
We get a glimpse of William Conrad, who used to be famous in Malaysian TV in the 70s for the fat PI 'Cannon' and 'Jake and the Fatman' in the 90s, here thinner.
Even though the movie appears to be depicting the evils of the world of boxing, betting and how it is controlled by the mob, deep below the surface, it takes a swipe at the evils of capitalism. It shows how the lure of money clouds the mind of the young who feels that acquiring wealth is testimony of doing well in life. One fails to see the devastation done in the process of doing so, the heartaches, the broken hearts and morality lost.
In fact, most of those involved in the production of this movie, Garfield, wife, screenwriter and director were all later hurled by the US Government for suspected communists activities during the McCarthy era.
A young pugilist gets a deal to show his boxing skills. Along the way, when he was a small guy, he had his mother, his best buddy and his girl. As he climbed the ladder of success which was actually paved by a group of apparently good intentioned individuals, so he thinks, he loses his friendship, his love and self respect. He hangs around characters who are only eyeing his money and their share of their loot as he wins more and more matches. He even has to throw away fights so that mob can earn some money.
As in any good movie, the hero comes to his senses. He realises that there is more things at stake when you give away fights - your dignity, pride and the hope of all who look up at you, not just the prize money!