Starring: Wallace Beery, Ricardo Cortez, Karen Morley, Jean Hersholt, John Miljan, Herman Bing, Vince Barnett, Greta Meyer, Edward Brophy
Writers: Leonard Praskins & Edgar Allan Woolf, based on a story by Edmund Goulding; dialogue by Moss Hart
Cinematography: Arthur Edeson
Editing: William S. Gray
Music: Alfred Newman
B&W, 1h 36m. 1.37:1 presentation.
Released on: December 8, 1932 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
My experience: Warner Archive Collection DVD-Rom
Against expectations, I found myself captivated by Flesh. I knew it was a lesser John Ford release, and was thus not expecting too much from it; it is quite stage-set, but the actors and story were quite compelling.
We begin our tale in Germany, where American Laura Nash (Karen Morley) has just gotten released from prison, due to her being pregnant. It appears she and her man, Nicky Grant (Ricardo Cortez), were left holding the bag after a theft gone wrong. She agrees to wait in Germany until Nicky gets his walking papers. Problem is, she knows nobody and has nowhere to go. In desperation and hunger, she goes to a biergarten where she is unable to pay for her meal, where the waiter (Vince Barnett) and maitre d' (Herman Bing) threaten her with calling the cops. This is overheard by Polakai (Wallace Beery), who both wrestles in the place for entertainment purposes and brings kegs of beer to the patrons of the establishment. He pays for Laura's dinner and offers her a place to stay for the evening.
Laura engages in a little subterfuge, claiming Nicky is her brother and that she is waiting for him to be released from prison. Polakai decides to spring the guy himself, using a stash of money he has hidden in order to bribe the officials to look the other way. Once released, Nicky convinces Laura to cozy up to Polakai and marry him, convincing the sucker the baby is his until she can get all his money and abscond with the funds. By this point in the story it is obvious the beefy wrestler is besotted with the willowy American, as shown by his enlisting landlord Mr. & Mrs. Herman (Jean Hersholt & Greta Meyer) in trying to capture the young lady's affections.
A year later, Polakai and Laura are married and on their way to America, where he believes he can earn more money for his family. Trouble is, not only is Nicky in America and quickly comes back into their lives, the world of wrestling is completely different than it is in Germany, and Polakai's honour and pride are quickly slapped down by an industry that prefers matches to be rigged. Laura has developed respect for her husband by this point, and is not totally at ease with Nicky's re-entry into their lives, especially when he takes it upon himself to become Polakai's manager, bringing him into the stable of Joe Willard (John Miljan), a thinly-veiled gangster and bookie who, with the help of henchman/referee Dolan (Edward Brophy), attempt to put Polakai in his place. Things come to a head when the gentle German realizes he's been cuckolded on both fronts.
I've never understood the popularity of Wallace Beery. For most of the 1930s and even into the 1940s he was among the top moneymakers at the box office. Perhaps this is because it was a different time, but I've just never been able to see it. To me, in every movie I've seen him in, he's always been blustering, braggadocious and frankly unlikeable. Perhaps I've been projecting what I've read and heard about him, which is that he was frankly not a very nice individual and would go out of his way to make his co-workers' lives more difficult. In this movie, however, he was quite engaging. I completely believed him as a gentle soul trapped in the body of a brute, and the little things he did while acting really helped sell this. I may have to revisit some of his films at some point and see whether I've judged his acting too harshly.
Beery is ably assisted by his costar, Karen Morley, who delivers an incredibly realistic portrayal of a woman trapped in circumstances beyond her making; she makes you understand her thinking, and her changes of mind and points of view, and really lets the viewer into the mindset of her character. A fantastic acting performance that frankly seems twenty years ahead of its time. Ricardo Cortez is slightly less strong, but his brash attitude and charisma more than make up for it.
For this film, John Ford reins in his broad strokes in favour of some subtler attention to detail. For sure, we have the comic relief at the beginning of the film with the waiters and Laura arguing over the bill, but it only truly becomes hilarious if you're familiar with the German language, as much of the first fifteen or twenty minutes set in the biergarten is performed as if it were captured in situ.
No, for this film Ford decided to focus on the little things that, due to his choices in direction and camerawork, say so much more than words ever could. For instance, there is a scene right after Polakai springs Nicky from prison, and he sits them down at a table and starts to serve them some beer, gabbing all the time about how happy he is that they're reunited, and how much he loves Laura and by extension, her "brother". All the while, the camera remains firmly focused on the gaze between the two lovers-cum-"siblings", with an oblivious Polakai behind them only seen from the chest down, just a pair of hands meeting their needs. Another scene focuses on the nervous rubbing of hands -- Polakai's and Laura's -- as they discuss their future; his because he's completely smitten like a schoolboy, and hers because she's afraid of being found out.
Flesh really snuck up on me. I wasn't expecting much from a film from whose credits John Ford removed his name, but I found it to be a thoroughly engaging character study of the type he didn't often indulge in. Definitely worth seeking out.
Eight generous grapplers out of ten.
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