Oh, That Blasted Golden Boy

Oy vay! Willie Holden, why did you do this to me? I swear you have had a nose job. You just look so different in Golden Boy to how you look in Sabrina.

Wow. I am lovin' the dark hair and fresh face. But back to golden boy. This has a wonderful Barbara Stanwyck in it. This makes it my fourth film I have seen of hers, and I really do think she is fantastic.

 

It is about an Italian-American 21 year old New Yorker named Joe Bonaparte, who has been practicing the violin since he was a very little boy, but he is worried that he wont be able to support himself and a family if he decides to become a musician. He is drawn in by the glamourous and and highly paid world of prize fighting. On the eve of his 21st birthday, his father has a very special surprise for him. A brand new $15,000 dollar violin. But on that night, Joe comes home late after his first proffessional boxing match, and declares to his father that he wants to gie up playing the violin for prize fighting. The violin goes away, untouched. He signs with a manager named Tom Moody, but it ends up being his girl, Lorna, that has the business brains. After lots of predictable to-ings and fro-ings from the violin, he decides that prizefighting is for him. But he finds himself drifting further away from his father and from the girl of his dreams, Lorna. Will boxing support him socially as well as financially?

I really loved this film even though it's not the best film I have seen recently, it is a realistic insight into prize fighting. The performances are very good, and the boxing scene is done very well and it conveys the violence and horror that comes with the glory of winning a fight. William Holden couldn't have asked for a better debut (it was his first credited screen role). He is perfect for the role in my eyes. But the producers didn't think so, and didn't accept him until Barbara intervened and said that she really wanted him to play the role. When they were presenting an academy award together some years later, he stopped the reading of the nominee list to thank her for saving his carreer.

Lee J. Cobb (who played Joe's father) gives a very warm and sensitive performance as the father who is unsure wheather to love Joe whatever he does, or encourage him to take the sensible and creative route. The directing is yet again pretty good. Nothing particularly special, but a very respectable job overall.

On a completely different subject, I can't believe that I now have 15 followers! I never expected any really, I started the blog just as a way of expressing my views on films and learning more about how I write, and more importantly how films are made, and things like that. As an aspiring possible actress/director/anything, it really has helped in many ways. And it gives me lots more enthusiasm to do posts when I see that people like what I am writing, so thanks for all the support you audience!

~Bette