Kid Galahad

Plot synopsis:
Willy Grogan is a small-time boxing promoter based in the Catskills resort region of Cream Valley, New York. He owns the Grogan's Gaelic Gardens inn. He is a contemptible man and is in debt and pays little attention to the woman who loves him, Dolly, a chain-smoking, love-starved woman residing at the camp. Into their midst comes Walter Gulick, a young man recently discharged from the Army who loves the peaceful setting almost as much as he loves working on old cars. Walter's simple goal is to go into business as a mechanic at a nearby garage.
Willy's younger sister, Rose, shows up unexpectedly. She and Walter immediately hit it off. The obsessively protective Willy doesn't want his kid sister falling for some "grease monkey" mechanic and two-bit boxer. Dolly is envious of the young couple's romance and resents Willy's interference.
One day, Walter, in need of work, accepts an offer of five dollars to be a sparring partner and decks one of Willy's top fighters. Willy is persuaded to let this "Galahad" take a shot in a legitimate ring. Both men are reluctant, but each has a need for the money. Walter begins working out under the watchful eye of Willy's top trainer, Lew.
After several successes in the ring, Walter is readied for his biggest fight. Gangsters want him to take a dive so that Willy can pay off his debts to them, but "Galahad" throws his muscle behind Willy and emerges victorious. He wins the big fight against Ramon "Sugar Boy" Romero as well as Willy's approval, retiring undefeated to his vintage car and his new love.

Tags: revenge, murder, romantic

Review:
Boxing film with Edward G and Bette Davis, dubbed.
Bette's night club number in a rich contralto is a jarring moment in this movie."Kid Galahad" is a 1937 film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring part of the excellent Warners roster: Edward G.
Robinson, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Jane Bryan, and Wayne Morris.
Morris is a hunky bellboy, nicknamed "Kid Galahad," made into a champion boxer by manager Nick Donati (Robinson); he falls for Robinson's pretty sister Marie(Bryan).
Meanwhile, Robinson's girlfriend Louise (Davis) has fallen for Morris herself.Predictable drama, but the cast is terrific and the film moves very quickly.
Bogart was not yet a star, and is effective as Robinson's nemesis, Turkey.Obviously Warners loved this story - it was remade as The Wagons Roll at Night and later as a vehicle for Elvis.Boxing stories have always been great film fodder.
Humphrey Bogart puts on a role of a scheming man that makes him look better than he already is.Near the end, the film started to derail a bit and got a bit pointless, but it was all in good taste.
Robinson, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart.After a fight where Robinson's fighter is knocked out by Bogart's pugilist, Robinson throws a party any way.
During the festivities, William Haade gets fresh with Robinson's girl, Bette Davis, and young bellhop Wayne Morris flattens him with one punch.
Robinson thinks he's found a new heavyweight.I doubt there have been too many people more innocent portrayed on the screen than Wayne Morris in this film.
The gawky country kid who comes off like a young Jimmy Stewart with a little more meat on his bones manages to get both Davis and Robinson's kid sister Jane Bryan interested in him.
That ticks off Robinson considerably and he starts looking at Morris in a new and bad light.Of course the presence of those three Hollywood legends makes Kid Galahad watchable.
Humphrey Bogart is also fine as the mobbed up manager, a type all to familiar in boxing.Kid Galahad is dated, you couldn't have someone today as innocent as Wayne Morris is portrayed on the screen, the film would be laughed at.
Bette Davis is Eddie's right-hand-gal who falls in love with the polite, shy Wayne Morris against her better judgment, while Jane Bryan as Eddie's kid sis wins the boxer's heart after graduating from convent school.
Michael Curtiz directed with skill and speed, though an early boxing sequence is too fast (with the film mechanically speeded up for no apparent reason); other scenes in the ring also look hokey, although these are the only incidents which do.
Robinson plays fight promoter Nick Donati who thinks he has found a fighter (Wayne Morris) he can take to the Championship.
The only trouble is Nick's hot tempered anger, which gets him in trouble with his girlfriend (Bette Davis) and a gangster (Humphrey Bogart) who he double crosses.
Seeing Robinson, Davis and Bogart together is where the fun is at and the reason why people will be drawn to this film.
Davis nearly steals the film and delivers a very good performance as the woman always having to keep Robinson's temperature down.
Kid Galahad is a surprisingly good boxing, gangster, drama, romance directed by Michael Curtiz..
Robinson who is wonderful as the headstrong fight promoter, Bette Davis provides romantic chemistry as his compassionate girlfriend and Humphrey Bogart (still early in his career) plays a rival boxing manager that uses gangster tactics to get his own way.Bette Davis had just returned to Warner Bros.
And the part of the young bellhop who belts his way to victory when the reigning champ puts the moves on Robinson's girlfriend (Davis), would be ideal for showcasing screen newcomer Wayne Morris.
Davis never spoke ill of Robinson, though she observed wryly in later years that he had stopped shooting during a death scene to complain to director Michael Curtiz that she and co-star Jane Bryan were drowning out his final speeches with their sobbing.
Rapper had just been hired as the film's dialogue director when, on his first day, he watched Curtiz staging a fight scene between Davis and Robinson.
Robinson didn't want to throw the director around, afraid the larger man would hurt him, but he got into things when Curtiz started playing the scene as a Davis imitation.
Please notice the fine character work of actors: Harry Carey as the trainer, Jane Bryan as Robinson's sister, William Haade as the Champ and Joe Cunningham as the reporter.Finally when The Mirisch Bros.
bought the story as a vehicle for Elvis Presley (with Gig Young and Lola Albright in the other leads), Warner's re-titled Kid Galahad for television prints as The Battling Bellhop to avoid confusion with the Elvis re-make which was now a comedy-musical-boxing-drama..
Take a scene, a good one by the way, where Bogart tells his champ to whisper some words to Robinson's protégé  although the outcome isn't in his favor, you know he got exactly what he wanted.
It's just as if the final result only depended on the manager's aims and motivations, no matter how twisted they are.It seems simplistic but this is how it works in Michael Curtiz' "Kid Galahad", a seemingly Cinderella story about a young bellboy who becomes a boxer after demonstrating the value of his punch during an incident.
Robinson as Nick Donati (again, he plays an Italian American in a convincing way, his Italian delivery is molto bene) and in the other, Turkey Morgan, Bogart again as the treacherous villain with a derogatory name.
It is dated for one simple reason: we know that Bogart is the best actor in the film along with Robinson yet he gets the shortest screen time.
And Bogie is so great in playing strong but sensitive characters, it's painful to watch him as a one-dimensional bad guy."Kid Galahad" succeeds in showing how boxing management works, with bookies and journalists as accessories, through the way they are lured into teasing the players' egos, as if the Press itself was only the extension of the ring that's something not many films, even today, bothered to show and "Kid Galahad" is an eye-opening experience.
The match isn't fixed except the one that goes outside, which ends up being the most important one.That documentary aspect of the film is really exciting and works like a great slice of American sports' life before the War. It's also one of the first bits of gangster revisionism movies before the iconic "Angels With Dirty Faces" Robinson and Cagney will switch to other movie genres, while the eternal outsider, Humphrey Bogart, will stay on the crime drama and embody the most prevalent Post-War genre: film noir, letting him reveal this side of his iconic charisma, and just because it was made before "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" the film is dated, exciting but dated.It's redeemed by the great performances of the trio Robinson, Bogart and Davis, of the entertaining match games and the magnificent insight on sports business and its intricacies between journalism and money issues, which hasn't changed much.
Kid Galahad (1937)A strong boxing world drama with Bette Davis and Edward G.
The result if a full blown and rather complex drama going far beyond fixing fights and a boxer's improbable rise to the top.Davis in particular blows me away, playing both the sophisticated and wise wife of the great promoter, but also a sweet kid torn by love, a "dizzy fool." Her performance alone makes the movie a gem.
The idea of the "good" fighter unwilling to throw a fight he can win fairly is built up here to the key climax, and Bogart and Robinson clash in the end in classic style.
(And a sidebar trivia —the best Elvis movie is the 1970 "King Creole" directed by, yes, Michael Curtiz.)But back in 1937 came this feisty, complex, richly envisioned drama around the boxing world of the Great Depression, and it's a terrific one..
Wayne Morris is immensely likable.Morris plays the title character -- a bellboy discovered by fight-promoter Robinson at a party in a hotel.
When bellhop Wayne Morris knocks out a heavyweight contender, boxing promoter Edward G.
But when Robinson's girlfriend Bette Davis falls for Morris and Morris falls for Robinson's kid sister Jane Bryan, it causes the promoter to turn against his protégé.Good sports drama from Warner Bros.
Robinson, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart were three of the all-time greats and seeing them in the same film seemed to be even more irresistible than seeing them individually.
It is not among the best of all involved, Robinson, Davis and Bogart did do better films and performances and when thinking of classic Curtiz 'Kid Galahad' to me is not quite there but very nearly is.
It has been often compared to its remakes 'The Wagons Roll at Midnight', which also featured Bogart, and the Elvis Presley musical version from 1962, and of the three this is by quite some way the best.'Kid Galahad' may not have one of those stories full of surprises, can understand the predictable criticisms from anybody who have seen similar tropes in films frequently since before seeing the film.It also doesn't always have the most refined of production values, mostly they come off well but some occasional hokiness in the fights from being a little over-kinetic.Wayne Morris, whose career sadly faded into relative obscurity not long after, however is immensely likeable and easy to engage with in the title role, making the character very rootable.
You really cannot go wrong in watching a sport/crime genre film in which you have not one, but two boxing promoters who are both a bit slimy towards their boxing club pugilists, especially when these two promoters are the great actors Humphrey Bogart and Edward G.
Robinson) has just discovered a young and strong hotel bell hop named Ward Guisenberry / Kid Galahad (Wayne Morris) who he manages to a heavyweight championship title fight that Nick actually has mixed feelings about winning and losing since his novice boxer Kid Galahad has fallen in love with Nick's virgin sister Marie (Jane Bryan).
The farm boy turned fighter Ward Guisenberry / Kid Galahad has two women that have fallen in love with his boyish charms and ring innocence.
Both Nick's little sister Marie and Nick's arm candy night club singer Louise 'Fluff' Phillips (Bette Davis) both have deep feelings for Kid Galahad.
Footnote: I for one just was never able to picture actress Bette Davis as "eye candy" with her strange facial appearance that appeared to have been placed in a vise grip and with her rather thin and balding hair?So the two boxing promoters go after the big purse but which promoter is betting on which fighter to win or lose?
The film has some aggressive ring fight scenes, a visible hate-on by the two promoters played by Bogart and Robinson, love lost and gained, and crimes that must not go unpunished.
Instead of the naive young man being a boxer as in this film, Eddie Albert joins Humphrey Bogart's circus as their lion tamer when Eddie falls head over heels for Humphrey's little sister played by then 16 year old Joan Leslie.
I'm in such a good mood that even though I strongly dislike actress Bette Davis (I really do) - In this particular picture about boxing and gangsters, I actually didn't mind her presence so much (for a change).And, even though Kid Galahad's story about gangsters and boxing was clearly on the predictable and, yes, corny side - And the inevitable elements of revenge and double-cross soon became the sole focus of the action - This picture about boxing and gangsters and gangsters and boxing was OK, in my books..
Robinson against Humphrey Bogart, and even throws in a young and surprisingly beautiful Bette Davis for added appeal?I guess I can.The cliches and stereotypes in "Kid Galahad" were probably cliches and stereotypes even in 1937, but because they still weren't THAT old, they didn't inspire the kind of snickers they do today.
Galahad remains an innocent despite the company he keeps, and falls in love with Robinson's kid sister, also an innocent, one who works in a convent (!)  These cliches would be revived in 1939's "Golden Boy" in which a young William Holden puts on the gloves to finance his violin lessons.
Fortunately, his goody-goody persona, though getting plenty of screen time, is completely swamped by the dynamic presence of Robinson, Davis, and, in a small role, Humphrey Bogart, the terrific trio whose street smart performances keep this story in the gutter and away from that dreary farm Galahad dreams of owning.
I remember watching it as a kid some 40 years or so ago and was grateful to watch it again just now.For my money, it's an absolute winner, I mean how could it fail with Michael Curtiz directing the likes of Edward G Robinson, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart in leading parts.
Sure there's more than a touch of melodrama about the story, you see Eddie loves Bette but she loves Wayne Morris as the hayseed farmer's boy turned bellhop turned new heavyweight hope but he loves Eddie's fresh out of the convent kid sister Jane Bryan and even after all that is resolved, the movie still doesn't end entirely happily.Robinson's great as the not completely straight boxing manager who'll throw over any of his fighters who disobeys his instructions in and out of the ring.
Then there's Bogart, still playing heavies at this stage in his career, in support as Robinson's menacing, tough-as-nails and twice as crooked rival promoter, plus I really liked Morris and Bryan in their parts, not forgetting Harry Carey as the seen-it-all-before trainer who also acts as Robinson's conscience.Sure you could argue every character's a stereotype you've seen in every fight flick from the first bell, but it's done with such panache here that before long, like me you'll let it beat you around the head so much you'll end up enjoying it.
This 1937 boxing film from "Warner Bros," is a well-crafted classic with some good boxing scenes and typically great performances from Edward G.
Humphrey Bogart is given the thankless role of that of another gangster but he still adds something to "Kid Galahad." Robinson is a boxing promoter who needs a winner in his stable of prizefighters after he fires his latest protégé.
Robinson as fight manager Nick Donati & Bette Davis as Fluff & Humphrey Bogart as the gangster manager Turkey Morgan & Wayne Morris in the title role as Ward Guisenberry alias Kid Galahad.
remade it in 1941 as "The Wagons Roll At Night" with Humphrey Bogart in the Robinson role who runs a traveling circus with Kid Galahad as a lion tamer instead of a boxer & it's almost as good.
Watch this original & the '41 remake if you're a Robinson & Bogart fan & if you like quality movies.
This film is very predictable and boring and also the casting seems really jarring sometimes for example Bette Davis as fight promoter's moll opposite with Edward g Robinson.
The 'kid' is cute as pie, the girlfriend is annoying just as she was in the film from the same year she also did with Bette and Humphrey Bogart, "Marked Woman".
Robinson) dumps his fighter who loses in a fight rigged by gangster Turkey Morgan (Humphrey Bogart).
He starts fighting for Nick as Kid Galahad.This is a solid boxing movie with all the corruption and the media.
Robinson is cast as a tough manager who discovers, quite by accident, a young bellhop (Wayne Morris) with a punch he feels is strong enough to win a championship for him When the fighter falls for his sister (Jane Bryan), Robinson decides to double-cross him and arranges a bout with a tough opponent he feels will beat the kid to pieces Bogart, stern and severe, was the malevolent gangster-manager of the tough opponent and, when Robinson has a change of heart through the intercession of his mistress (Bette Davis) and helps the kid win, he and Bogart wind up in a hail of bulletsThe film was remade, in 1941, as "The Wagons Roll at Night" and later, in 1962, as a light-hearted musical in "Kid Gallahad," with Elvis Presley....
When he witnesses a young bellhop (Wayne Morris) deck a top rated heavyweight at a swank party, he sees a future champ, and a way to undermine rival promoter Turkey Morgan (Humphrey Bogart).
The boxing scenes are merely an under card for the real story of how Kid Galahad, named by Fluff as an homage to his gallant chivalry, meets and falls in love with Donati's sister Marie (Jane Bryan).
His promoter, Turkey Morgan also angles for the match sooner rather than later, realizing that his boy's regimen won't keep him champion for too long.By the time the sports press gets the story, it's all about how the convent girl (Marie) and the cabaret singer (Fluff) vie for Kid Galahad.
Robinson's moll, Bette Davis, falls for the big dumb lug of a fighter, but he's too dumb to realize it.
Robinson and Humphrey Bogart; playing these roles in the remake were Gig Young and David Lewis.
Wayne Morris captures the title as the preeminent KID GALAHAD, 100-0!.
The bellhop: Ward Guisenberry(Wayne Morris) was inexperienced at mixing drinks, thus Nick's mistress Fluff(Bette Davis) helped him.
When Warner Brothers put this one together, they put 3 A-List actors together, though Bogart was not quite as far along as Edward G Robinon and Bette Davis, but he more than holds his own in this boxing drama.
It is a boxing drama where Robinson and Bogart square off as the managers of the fighters for the championship.
They are also part of a corrupt game where fixes were often in and betting was the reason.Hollywood is often very good with boxing films and this one has a major bonus, a gun fight with Bogart versus Robinson to ice the cake after the big fight.