In 1939 director Rouben Mamoulian films Clifford Odets’s classic theatre play Golden Boy (with Luther Adler starring on stage) and it becomes a star-making tour de force for William Holden as a prizefighter Joe Bonaparte, encouraged by tough dame Lorna Moon (Barbara Stanwyck). But she tries to get him out of the ring when she sees that boxing is coming between Holden and his father (Lee J Cobb) and how he needs a career in violin music.

Holden and his father (Lee J Cobb).

Golden Boy is now remembered, if at all, as the film that made a star of Holden, but the generosity of Stanwyck’s performance shines out, while Adolphe Menjou as Holden’s near-bankrupt manager Tom Moody and Joseph Calleia as a gangster called Eddie Fuseli, Sam Levene as Siggie and Edward Brophy as Roxy Lewis also score strongly.

After two bit parts in films in the same year, the 21-year-old Holden was chosen on Stanwyck’s insistence from 65 actors when Warner Bros studio boss Jack Warner would not let first choice John Garfield go to rival studio boss Harry Cohn to film at Columbia Pictures. Mamoulian expressed interest in Holden after seeing his screen test and convinced Cohn to buy 50 per cent of Holden’s contract from Paramount Pictures. Soon Cohn was unhappy with Holden’s work and wanted to replace him two weeks into shooting but Stanwyck begged him not to dismiss him.

Cohn insisted on a happy ending for the film, so Odets would not do the screenplay, which is written by Lewis Meltzer, Daniel Taradash, Victor Heerman and Sarah Y Mason. William Saroyan also worked uncredited on the screenplay. Odets was displeased at the film’s many changes, partly those forced by the Motion Picture Production Code and partly the rewritten ending.

Otherwise Mamoulian is reasonably faithful to the play, with his additions like the Madison Square Garden fight helping the spirit of the original piece in its transfer to cinema.

As it is a serious and powerful piece of work, it was surprisingly thin on award wins, with only an Oscar nomination for the music, Best Original Score for Victor Young.

Also in the cast are Don Beddoe, Beatrice Blinn, William H Strauss, Don Brodie, Stanley Andrews, John Harmon, Frank Jenks, Lee Phelps, Bob Ryan, Syd Saylor, Robert Sterling, Minerva Urecal, Harry Tyler, Dave Willock, John Wray and Charles Lane.

Charles Halton’s scenes as a newspaperman were deleted.

Cinematographers Nicholas Musuraca and Karl Freund shoot it stylishly in black and white.

Holden showed his gratitude to Stanwyck by sending her flowers every year on the anniversary of the first day of filming.

When Holden and Stanwyck were joint presenters at the 1978 Academy Awards, he thanked her for saving his career during their reading of a list of nominees. In 1982, during her acceptance speech for an Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Awards, Stanwyck said of Holden, who had died a few months earlier: ‘I loved him very much, and I miss him. He always wished that I would get an Oscar. And so tonight, my golden boy, you got your wish.’

The 1947 film Body and Soul, which does star John Garfield, is partly based on Golden Boy.

Irving ‘Gangy’ Cohen, allegedly one of the Murder, Inc organised crime syndicate hitmen, was identified by chief prosecution witness Abraham Levine, who spotted Cohen in one of the ringside crowd scenes at a screening of Golden Boy. Cohen had fled to California and got bit parts in films after the murder of racketeer Walter Sage in 1937 in the Catskills. Cohen was brought to trial and acquitted on 21 June 1940.

The original Broadway production opened on 4 November 1937 at the Belasco Theatre, running for 250 performances. The cast included Luther Adler as Joe, John Garfield as Siggie and Lee J Cobb as Mr Carp. The play was revived on Broadway at the ANTA Playhouse, opening on 12 March 1952 with John Garfield as Joe.

Holden was Oscar nominated for Sunset Blvd (1950) and Network (1976) and won Best Actor for Stalag 17 (1953). He was Bafta nominated Best Foreign Actor for Picnic (1955). He is also the star of The Wild Bunch (1969), playing Pike Bishop, and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), playing Shears.

The main cast are Barbara Stanwyck as Lorna Moon, Adolphe Menjou as Tom Moody, William Holden as Joe Bonaparte, Lee J. Cobb as Mr. Bonaparte, Joseph Calleia as Eddie Fuseli, Sam Levene as Siggie, Edward Brophy as Roxy Lewis, Beatrice Blinn as Anna, William H. Strauss as Mr. Carp, Don Beddoe as Borneo, James ‘Cannonball’ Green as Joe’s final opponent Chocolate Drop, Don Brodie, Stanley Andrews, John Harmon, Frank Jenks, Lee Phelps, Bob Ryan, Syd Saylor, Robert Sterling, Minerva Urecal, Harry Tyler, Dave Willock, John Wray and Charles Lane.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5201

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William Holden died on 16 November 1981, aged 63.