Johnny Flanagan is a pugilistic seaman who trades his skill for semen (so to speak), until he runs out of time, his fate reduced to a bowl of soup and a cheap wristwatch. Director Reginald Le Borg and his DP Walter J. Harvey are not out to win any awards in style, but their workmanlike pacing and compositions perfectly capture this lurid and sultry tale of adultery and emotional corruption. Barbara Payton puts the fatale in femme and a shirtless Tony Wright as her hapless seduction Johnny Flanagan is a wonderful balance of violent sexual energy and existential crisis.
The plot is straightforward and predictable but it’s how it goes about showing the story that makes it interesting. Johnny is a Merchant Seaman with some skill in the squared circle and once he goes pro, falls for his promoter’s self-indulgent knockout of a wife. Our femme fatale Lorna (Barbara Payton) is introduced to her soon to be paramour (and the audience!) in a deep focus composition as she pulls her stocking up her long slim leg. Her leg dominates the frame in foreground, and we see Johnny diminished, reduced in size by perspective! Johnny fights and struggles against his base impulses throughout the film, and as he rises in fame he sinks into despair and sexual addiction. The story doesn’t portray Lorna’s husband Giuseppe (Frederick Valk) as a bad person who deserves his fate: he is a gregarious boxing promoter who came out of retirement to help his friend Sharkey (Sid James) and his pugilistic protege. He’s kind and generous towards everyone around him including his bored blonde spouse, so it’s more shocking when Johnny finally murders him not out of envy or a perceived injustice but for the mere sake of usurping his position. Lorna’s skill with emotional sparring transcends Johnny’s skill in the ring, and once she declares her pregnancy and plan to commit suicide by poison, Johnny plans on a watery demise for Giuseppe. It’s all a lie, of course, as it’s eventually revealed she isn’t pregnant! Too late, Johnny’s life is aborted and Sharkey, who isn’t blind to the whole sordid affair, makes sure Lorna goes down for the count. The story faithfully follows Chekhov’s Rule: when you show the poison bottle in the second act it has to be a part of the denouement!
This is a boxing film (though it’s not about boxing) and DP Walter Harvey films most of the bouts in medium long shot with few closeups, allowing the fight scenes to appear more realistic and violent. He doesn’t utilize low angle shots or long shadows like many film noirs, but instead the consuming penumbra is realized by the squalid morality of Lorna.
Final Grade: (B-)
