Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 29-March-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium

They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

The title of this picture barely relates to its plot, but you need not hold that against it. They Made Me a Criminal starts out tough, then aims a sucker-punch at the heartstrings which achieves the desired effect.

A lingering toughness prevents the movie from ever growing too saccharine. It begins with the thuggish if handsome mug of John Garfield, who stars as a boxer with a squeaky clean image. We learn just after the opening scene that this image is a fraud, presumably maintained to broaden his fan base and encourage corporate sponsorship. On the night of his championship victory, a boozy celebration in his New York home ends in manslaughter. Having passed out during the execution of the crime, he wakes to find that not only has he been branded a killer, but a body found in a burned-up car is believed to be his own. He is in the odd position of being a wanted dead man. Disappearing is the only option.

Less obvious casting finds Claude Rains as a down-and-out detective who refuses to believe the boxer is really dead. Rains overcomes his innate elegance to express a gritty determination. Locating his quarry is not easy, though. Garfield has assumed an alias and ridden the rails to the Southwest, landing on a date farm run for the rehabilitation of wayward boys. Initially stopping out of exhaustion, he gradually finds reasons to stay. A bighearted blonde (Gloria Dickson) is one. The boys themselves are another.

It would be a stretch to say that Garfield becomes the boys' father figure, but he does grow into a kind of glamorous older brother, the one who dares to do things they only dream of. His interaction with everyone on the farm is remarkably unsentimental for representing his redemption. He does not start mooning over the idea of marriage and kids and going straight; he just empathizes with the hard-scrabbling community around him. This inspires him to throw caution aside and sign up to fight an itinerant boxer who is offering cash to anyone who can last multiple rounds with him in the ring. Garfield's attempt to make money for his friends attracts Rains' attention, leading to the fight and final reckoning. Loyalty, affection, and plain old kindness are tested, and you would have to be a hardened criminal indeed not to applaud the outcome.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.