Director Raoul Walsh was like the Michael Bay of the '40's and years before that. And I mean that in a positive way, since I'm definitely ain't no Bay-hater. His movies are just simple high quality entertainment, just like the Raoul Walsh movies were in his days.
"Gentleman Jim" is fine quality entertainment. Besides a first class director, it also features a first grade cast, with Raoul Walsh's regular leading man Errol Flynn in the main part.
What surprised me was how well the boxing matches were brought to the screen. They used some very dynamic camera-work, which also really made the boxing matches uplifting and exciting to watch, with the end championship fight against John L. Sullivan as the ultimate highlight.
Biopics of the '40's and earlier on were obviously still very much different from biographies being made this present day. Modern biographies often glorify its main subject and show his/her life from basically birth till death and everything, mostly emotional aspects, in between. 'Old' biopics were just made the same as movies that weren't based on actual real life persons, which also means that the film-makers would often use a use amount of creative liberty with the main character's personality and events that happened in his/her life. This movie is also not just a biography about a boxing legend but also forms a nice portrayal from the period when illegal bare knuckle fighting entered the modern era of boxing.
Errol Flynn does a great job portraying the real life famous boxer James J. Corbett aka Gentleman Jim. Not too many people known it but Flynn did some real good acting jobs in the '40's, of which this movie is one. Fysicaly he also looks in top-shape. He also looks quite different by the way without his trademark small mustache in this movie. The movie also features some fine supporting actors and some fine acting throughout.
A great and entertaining movie that also still truly holds up real well today.
8/10

I am amazed at the amount of praise that is heaped on this movie by other commentators. To me it was rather a disappointment, especially the combination of historical facts, fantasy and the main character's internal turmoil does not work at all (in Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse Five and even in George Roy Hill's adaptation for the screen it does). Credibility is often overstretched. Too many questions are left open. Did I miss some central points? Or did I fail to spot the lines that supposedly connect the dots?
A boy called Campbell, Jr., grows up in upstate New York. At home his father has many technical trade papers and one book. It has photographs of heaps of dead bodies in it. The boy leafs through the book, his dad doesn't like his doing that. What should this tell me? The family moves away from upstate New York to Berlin. BANG. It is 1938, the boy is a married man in Berlin and a theater playwright. What kind of plays does he write? In what language? Is he successful? His wife is an actress and looks glamorous. The parents move back to the USA and invite their son to do the same. He does not. Why? Because having grown up in Germany he feels more German than American? Because he is successful? Because his wife is? Because he likes his life there? Because he likes the Nazis? Because he is just plain lazy and doesn't like change? Don't ask me.
Possibly, the man just does not care, is not interested in politics, is a kind of an existentialist. He states that he is deeply in love with his wife. He speaks of his Republic of Two (meaning he and his wife). There is little to no evidence proving his love for his wife in the movie, it much more seems a Republic of One.
On the request of an American agent Campbell, Jr., agrees to broadcast anti Semitic Nazi hate propaganda to American listeners as a device for transmitting encrypted messages to American authorities who read between the lines. The crucial meeting with the agent on a Berlin park bench is short, unexciting and anti climactic, the decision to play along comes pretty easily with no explanation, the rise up to broadcaster seems to be uneventful and apparently fast.
So now we have Campbell, Jr., presenting himself over the air as the Last Free American. The scheme for transmitting secret messages is fairly realistic and exciting - although one wonders what happened when Campbell, Jr., really and honestly had to cough, hiccup etc. (must have scrambled the messages terribly). Anyway, the Nazis lose, the wife dies (touring in the Crimean for German troops - I never heard such tours really happened on German front lines in WW II), Campbell, Jr., says he goes to the Russian front but does not go, is captured by an American soldier who recognizes his mug (how come?), is dragged to a sight-seeing tour in Auschwitz, is then released and resettled with the help of the Crucial Agent somewhere in the City of New York.
AND THIS IS WHERE THE STORY REALLY STARTS
BANG. From now on it is like a short story by Paul Auster. It is 1961, Campbell, Jr., lives in New York tenement as a has-been and mourns the loss of his wife. Nobody really cares - or do they? Yes, somehow they do, and his neighbors offer some sort of distraction. Auschwitz survivors. A painter. Some American supremacists discover" him and want him to be their figurehead. They even find his presumed dead wife for him, or is she his wife? Anyway, in the end Campbell, Jr., calls in at the Israeli consulate, and they obligingly give him the Big War Criminal treatment, placing him in the cell adjacent to Adolf Eichmann's. He writes his life story and, once this task finished, hangs himself on the typewriter's ribbons without getting sooty the least bit.
While I can see that there must be an issue of guilt and of loss, I just had the impression that the main character is a person who at all times is pretty indifferent to everything and hardly capable of love for anyone. So I found it difficult to sympathize for this looser who mourns his loss. Amazingly, many reviewers focus on his status as a potential war hero, having put his reputation at stake for playing the Last Free American. I assume according to them this took a lot of courage. As a matter of fact, however, the movie suggests that by accepting the assignment Campbell created for himself a win-win situation, as he would have been politically on the safe side no matter who had won the war. The danger of his being uncovered never comes up during the first part of the story.
One might argue, that the whole story is a dreamlike fantasy and that nobody should bother with historical accuracy or a logical development of the story which explains everything. But even then it fails to make a point, primarily, I suspect, because the love affair in the Republic of Two falls completely flat. This is a pity, especially if you consider that the wife was played by Sheryl Lee, a talented, versatile and sensuous actress. She has much too little screen time and is forced to use a ridiculous German accent. Another somehow neglected aspect are the different texts (confession, broadcast and hidden messages), but I guess this is largely unfilmable. Maybe I should give the book a chance.