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DramaTaon1952Tagal1h 23mIMDb6.6

Flesh and Fury

DramaSport

A deaf boxer is exploited by a gold-digging blonde.

Panoorin Ngayon

Trailer

Cast

Joseph Pevney

Director

Tony Curtis

Paul Callan

Jan Sterling

Sonya Bartow

Mona Freeman

Ann Hollis

Wallace Ford

Jack 'Pop' Richardson

Connie Gilchrist

Mrs. Richardson

Katherine Locke

Mrs. Hollis

Harry Shannon

Mike Callan - Paul's Father

Louis Jean Heydt

Whitey

Tom Powers

Andy Randolph

Nella Walker

Mrs. Hackett

Harry Guardino

Lou Callan - Paul's Brother

Joe Gray

Cliff

HR

Harry Raven

Murphy

Ted Stanhope

Maris - the Butler

Bobby Barber

Minor Role

EB

Eleanor Bassett

Minor Role

NB

Norman Bishop

Lugano

Henry Blair

Student

William Alland

Writer

BG

Bernard Gordon

Writer

Mga Komento

10 Mga Komento

Opara FavourMay 26, 2023

Nii ParsonMay 23, 2023

I am not sure this is a "film noir" but as far as prizefighting stories are concerned, it approaches things from a different angle and that's why I would argue it's successful. Tony Curtis stars as a deaf-mute boxer, Paul Callan. To his credit, screenwriter Bernard Gordon does an excellent job revealing the kind of prejudice deaf people had to cope with during the early 50's, the time in which the film was released. The story begins with the femme fatale of the piece, Sonya Bartow (Jan Sterling), take an interest in Paul who impresses her in the ring while mowing down amateur opponents. Sterling is quite convincing as a gold digger who is attracted to the sensitive Paul but holds him in contempt at the same time. To the entitled Sonya, Paul is just a "dummy" who seduces him with the hope that he'll turn pro, win the welterweight championship, and take care of her financially for the rest of her life. Pop Richardson (Wallace Ford) is hired as Paul's trainer and helps him to rise in the ranks as a professional pugilist. The character is depicted as "old-school" honest and a little too unrealistically "good" for my tastes. Sonya comes into conflict with Pop as she believes he's not pushing Paul fast enough (Pop recognizes that Paul must train carefully to avoid being defeated by one particular "dirty" fighter). Eventually Sonya encounters a far more dangerous rival for Paul's affections-Ann Hollis (Mona Freeman), a freelance journalist who comes from high society-quite the opposite of Sonya's lower-class origins. There's a great scene after Paul goes for that operation that restores his hearing in which he's not only left confused by all the newfound sounds he's experiencing but alienated by Ann's family friends who come off as intellectual snobs. Paul temporarily retreats to Sonya but again she's unable to hide her contempt for him especially after he makes it clear he's really interested in someone else. Indeed, Ann is just the right person for Paul as her father was a successful deaf architect and can use sign language. We're surprised to learn that Paul knows how to sign but eschews that particular form of communication as he has been ridiculed because of it in the past. Paul must resolve two conflicts in a suspenseful climax: repair the rift between him and Ann and win the Welterweight title. His timing is thrown off during the bout as he's not used to all the cacophony. Despite his physician's warning that he could lose his hearing again if he continues to box, Paul realizes in the middle of the fight that he must allow such a possibility to occur in order to win. When he loses his hearing in the waning rounds, Paul regains his boxing mojo and finishes his opponent off. The relationship with Ann is restored and despite losing his hearing, his victory leaves him confident that he can even cope as a deaf person facing significant obstacles. But fortune smiles on Paul when he discovers the hearing loss is only temporary. Bad girl Sonya also receives her comeuppance when she loses all her money betting on Paul's opponent. Curtis is great in his role especially during the scenes when he must act both deaf and mute. Freeman strikes all the right notes as the loving and caring friend of the vulnerable Paul. And Sterling is deliciously over-the-top as a bad girl par excellence. Flesh and Fury remains one of the better films in the prizefighting genre.

Betty SalamonMay 23, 2023

Tony Curtis plays a deaf boxer whom mercenary Jan Sterling takes an interest in. Despite the fears of kindly manager Wallace Ford, she wants him to hit the big time and pay off as soon as possible, even if it means facing dirty fighters who will cripple him. When Mona Freeman turns up to interview Curtis for her magazine, she takes a happier view of the young man; her father had also been deaf, and Curtis spends a lot of movie time wearing only boxing trunks. Universal was putting Curtis in a lot of movies in which his New York street accent did not suit his Arabian caliph roles very well. Making him deaf and mute in this one allowed him to show off his physique and hair that was perfect after having his head battered for six rounds. Joseph Pevney, as always, directs competently. Jan Sterling may be best remembered for playing low-class, mercenary dumb bells, but it was an act. She was brought up at the upper end of New York society, travelled the world as a child, was instructed by private tutors, and by the time she hit Broadway in the late 1930s, was playing aristocratic English women. A role in the touring company of BORN YESTERDAY brought her to Hollywood's attention. After a supporting role in JOHNNY BELINDA, she worked in some noirs and polished this sort of character. She died in 2004 at age 82.

Happy_giftsMay 23, 2023

Amateur boxer Paul Callan (Tony Curtis) is deaf. He falls for Sonya Bartow (Jan Sterling) but she's a selfish gold-digger and he has no money. Retired manager Jack 'Pop' Richardson (Wallace Ford) signs him up. Sonya has him wrapped around her little finger until the arrival of sweet magazine writer Ann Hollis (Mona Freeman) who is looking to write a story about him. She actually knows sign language due to her successful deaf father. Curtis delivers an interesting performance even when he's not saying anything. His deaf and shy character limits his acting early on but he is able express a lot with his face. As for the boxing, there is a good amount of energy although the realism is held back with the use of some close-ups to fake the punches. This is a really nice boxing and love triangle movie with a super star in the making.

Hamed LopezMay 23, 2023

No other sport has given rise to as many superior movies as our most barbaric one, prizefighting. Joseph Pevney's Flesh and Fury may fall short of superior, but it's well above average and shows its principal actors in the most flattering light: Tony Curtis does proud in one of his first starring roles, while Jan Sterling contributes possibly her finest performance. Curtis (in the pouty fulsomeness of his young manhood) boxes for $25 purses when he catches the eye of Sterling, a bloodthirsty and avaricious ringside habitué. The only catch is that Curtis is deaf and dumb, but that suits Sterling just swell - his disability makes him more vulnerable to her control. She pushes his career forward too fast for the liking of his manager (Wallace Ford), but Curtis seems all but unstoppable. Enter Mona Freeman, reporter from Panorama magazine, to do a feature on the hearing-impaired welterweight. It's her kind of story; her father, a wealthy Long Island architect, was deaf, too, so she learned how to sign - a skill Curtis has let lapse as it calls attention to his shortcoming. But exposed to a world of greater possibilities, Curtis undergoes an operation that restores his hearing. There's the inevitable canker, however. Curtis' self-assurance in the ring came in part from his obliviousness to the din of the crowd. What's more, the pretentious babble he hears at a party in Freeman's posh mansion convinces him that he has more in common with the strident Sterling than with the privileged Freeman (the William Alland/Bernard Gordon script shows a firm grasp of class frictions). He decides to return to boxing, even though his doctor has warned him that he risks losing his newly regained hearing.... Joesph Pevney remains an overlooked director. He started out as an actor (he debuted in Nocturne as the peripatetic piano player) but soon moved behind the camera, helming a number of offbeat and compulsively watchable movies in and around the noir cycle: Shakedown, Iron Man, Meet Danny Wilson, Female on the Beach, The Midnight Story. In the late '50s, he made the move to television, directing a number of classic series. Not everybody who ended up working for the small screen did so because of mediocrity; some, like Pevney, were in demand because of their solid track record - because of movies like Flesh and Fury.

I🤍C💜E💖B💞E🧡R💝R💚Y💙May 23, 2023

I'm a Tony Curtis fan but had never heard of this movie until it recently showed up on TCM. Because of Tony's good looks and obviously invented screen name he's considered the quintessential movie star, but I believe he doesn't get his due as an actor. (Similar to his idol and role model, Cary Grant.) Here a young Tony shows he already had serious acting chops. It's a difficult role, as he has to be believable as a deaf mute and then as a man who's able to hear and speak for the first time. It's a contrived situation, but Tony is convincing throughout. There's a wonderfully acted and directed scene in which he goes to a party at a swanky mansion, and listening to the drunken, pretentious, obnoxious blathering of the guests he realizes that being able to hear might actually be a mixed blessing. Acting honors go to Jan Sterling as well, playing a sort of companion role to her tough, greedy dame in Ace in the Hole. In that movie she had to wear western work clothes but here she's in slinky low cut dresses and looks very sexy. (in a bad girl femme fatale way.) Veteran character actor Wallace Ford is good as always as the kind hearted fight manager. Pretty Mona Freeman does what she can with the one-dimensional role of the almost saintly nice girl counterpoint to Jan. (It seems to be the role she usually played, like in Angel Face where she was the counterpoint to Jean Simmons). I'm no expert on the subject, but would someone who's been deaf their whole life be able to immediately understand verbal speech? And then learn to speak and articulate clearly in just a few lessons, as the movie shows? You have to kind of suspend disbelief. Yes, it's a gimmicky story, but thanks to Tony's performance I actually found it quite moving, and director Pevney (who later did more episodic TV than almost any director) handles the boxing scenes well. In conclusion, not one of the all-time great boxing movies, but a solid human interest story and worth watching.

Aji fatou jobe🍫💍❤️🧕May 23, 2023

Yes, there is a "bad" blonde babe in this film who exploits the innocent pugilist main character, but otherwise this story falls more squarely in the realm of melodrama than film noir. Still worth a look, especially for the mid-50s milieu of the grimy boxing palaces that would be apotheosized thirty years later in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. (EDIT, Feb '22): When I wrote the above the film still had "Film Noir" included on the main page as a genre' tag for the film. It has since been removed. And no, I didn't request the change...evidently somebody else agreed with me.

Ayra StarrFeb 25, 2023

I am not sure this is a "film noir" but as far as prizefighting stories are concerned, it approaches things from a different angle and that's why I would argue it's successful. Tony Curtis stars as a deaf-mute boxer, Paul Callan. To his credit, screenwriter Bernard Gordon does an excellent job revealing the kind of prejudice deaf people had to cope with during the early 50's, the time in which the film was released. The story begins with the femme fatale of the piece, Sonya Bartow (Jan Sterling), take an interest in Paul who impresses her in the ring while mowing down amateur opponents. Sterling is quite convincing as a gold digger who is attracted to the sensitive Paul but holds him in contempt at the same time. To the entitled Sonya, Paul is just a "dummy" who seduces him with the hope that he'll turn pro, win the welterweight championship, and take care of her financially for the rest of her life. Pop Richardson (Wallace Ford) is hired as Paul's trainer and helps him to rise in the ranks as a professional pugilist. The character is depicted as "old-school" honest and a little too unrealistically "good" for my tastes. Sonya comes into conflict with Pop as she believes he's not pushing Paul fast enough (Pop recognizes that Paul must train carefully to avoid being defeated by one particular "dirty" fighter). Eventually Sonya encounters a far more dangerous rival for Paul's affections-Ann Hollis (Mona Freeman), a freelance journalist who comes from high society-quite the opposite of Sonya's lower-class origins. There's a great scene after Paul goes for that operation that restores his hearing in which he's not only left confused by all the newfound sounds he's experiencing but alienated by Ann's family friends who come off as intellectual snobs. Paul temporarily retreats to Sonya but again she's unable to hide her contempt for him especially after he makes it clear he's really interested in someone else. Indeed, Ann is just the right person for Paul as her father was a successful deaf architect and can use sign language. We're surprised to learn that Paul knows how to sign but eschews that particular form of communication as he has been ridiculed because of it in the past. Paul must resolve two conflicts in a suspenseful climax: repair the rift between him and Ann and win the Welterweight title. His timing is thrown off during the bout as he's not used to all the cacophony. Despite his physician's warning that he could lose his hearing again if he continues to box, Paul realizes in the middle of the fight that he must allow such a possibility to occur in order to win. When he loses his hearing in the waning rounds, Paul regains his boxing mojo and finishes his opponent off. The relationship with Ann is restored and despite losing his hearing, his victory leaves him confident that he can even cope as a deaf person facing significant obstacles. But fortune smiles on Paul when he discovers the hearing loss is only temporary. Bad girl Sonya also receives her comeuppance when she loses all her money betting on Paul's opponent. Curtis is great in his role especially during the scenes when he must act both deaf and mute. Freeman strikes all the right notes as the loving and caring friend of the vulnerable Paul. And Sterling is deliciously over-the-top as a bad girl par excellence. Flesh and Fury remains one of the better films in the prizefighting genre.

khaled خالدFeb 25, 2023

In one of his roles on the way up Tony Curtis played a deaf mute killer without a line of dialog in Johnny Stool Pigeon. Someone at Universal must have remembered that performance when Flesh And Fury was cast. Tony Curtis shows some real acting chops in this one conveying all kinds of emotions with very few words. Curtis plays a deaf mute boxer who was doing club dates to earn some dollars. One night after flattening an opponent he makes two acquaintances. One is fight manager Wallace Ford who signs him up, The other is brassy dame Jan Sterling who takes over all kind of other management of him. He may be a deaf mute, but he's Tony Curtis. But Curtis is introduced to a different world when magazine writer Mona Freeman comes to his camp. She's from real society and Curtis gets a taste of thar, but he's terrified of not being able to fit in. Curtis and Freeman do well, but Jan Sterling is the one you'll remember from Flesh And Fury. She gets one well deserved comeuppance in the end. Kudos also go to Wallace Ford for his work as the sympathetic and square boxing manager. Flesh And Fury is a must for fans of Tony Curtis and Jan Sterling.

Ħ₳ⲘɆӾFeb 25, 2023

Amateur boxer Paul Callan (Tony Curtis) is deaf. He falls for Sonya Bartow (Jan Sterling) but she's a selfish gold-digger and he has no money. Retired manager Jack 'Pop' Richardson (Wallace Ford) signs him up. Sonya has him wrapped around her little finger until the arrival of sweet magazine writer Ann Hollis (Mona Freeman) who is looking to write a story about him. She actually knows sign language due to her successful deaf father. Curtis delivers an interesting performance even when he's not saying anything. His deaf and shy character limits his acting early on but he is able express a lot with his face. As for the boxing, there is a good amount of energy although the realism is held back with the use of some close-ups to fake the punches. This is a really nice boxing and love triangle movie with a super star in the making.

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