"Whiplash" was a routine offering from Warner Brothers in the late forties but routine in those days also meant efficient, entertaining and well worth seeing. It is only when you see films like this one which are sixty years old and in black and white to realise that the equivalent does not exist in cinema any more. Television has taken over this sort of story but still cannot do it as well or cover effectively scenes in boxing arenas or large scale venues in their stories. The Warner Brothers rep company was also a very good one: Davis, Crawford and co were, of course, the front runners at this time, but this cast shows how professional and talented the second string actors were in those days. Dane Clark was never a star but here he gives a highly efficient and convincing performance, carrying the film with ease and confidence. Alexis Smith (cruelly underestimated and underused until her later years) is excellent as the unhappy heroine, married to sadistic Zachary Scott but in love with Clark. She had a much wider range than most people gave her credit for (She was to win a "Tony" on Broadway for her performance in Sondheim's "Follies") and was always a welcome actress in anything she did. Scott plays one of his usual villains but always played them with style and panache. The divine Eve Arden has a few good scenes but is wasted - and Jeffrey Lynn, usually a somewhat pallid and passive actor, is here very good as Smith's drunken brother who finally resolves the story by his actions. Not a marvellous film, of course, but thoroughly watchable and carefully made.
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Dhmdowntown-14 September 2006
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Shake together John Garfield's roles as a violinist in Humoresque and a prizefighter in Body and Soul (hits of the previous couple of years), and out comes Dane Clark's character in Whiplash. He's a beach bum who daubs canvases in a coastal town near San Francisco. But when reclusive vacationer Alexis Smith buys one of his seascapes, she ignites a torch in him that won't sputter out. When she abruptly departs, he travels east and sets up a studio in New York while he tracks her down. It proves a bad career move.
He finds Smith singing in a nightclub, only to discover that she's married to Zachary Scott, its owner and a former middleweight champ now confined to a wheelchair. Scott, sadistic and embittered, lives the fight game vicariously through the cohort of ex-boxers who keep his wife in place and through new talent he exploits then drops. In Clark, he sees a contender. Wanting to keep close to Smith (who keeps warning him off), Clark signs up for work on another kind of canvas....
In addition to the always welcome Alexis Smith, the movie boasts good supporting work from Eve Arden, a gal pal with a crush on Clark, and from Jeffrey Lynn, as Smith's alcoholic brother, a doctor working in Scott's gym. Scott himself brings nothing new to the kind of part he found himself typecast in: the effete, insinuating villain. That leaves Clark, who was plainly being groomed as the second-string Garfield but who never left much of an impression on the movies.
The direction, by the undistinguished Lewis Seiler, can only be graded adequate; he keeps things moving along but never tries for anything different or offbeat or striking. In this he's matched by a lackluster script (it was the late 40s; couldn't the dialogue have been a little more etched?). Nonetheless, Whiplash endures as a routine B-movie, with noirish coloration, that reflects the themes and plot-lines of post-war melodrama. -
bkoganbing8 June 2011The thing that surprised me the most about Whiplash is that Warner Brothers actually teamed Alexis Smith and Dane Clark for a film. Smith had a lot of trouble in her career because she was so tell and trouble finding leading men to appear opposite her. And Dane Clark was short, James Cagney and Alan Ladd type short. If you look real carefully he's built up in height somewhat in the scenes where Warner Brothers showed both of them in full figure and those are rare in this film.
Clark was Warner Brothers back up for John Garfield and Garfield had left Warner Brothers at this point. Clark was obviously getting the scripts that Garfield had left or maybe had turned down.
In Whiplash Clark is a struggling artist who lives in southern California and a traveling Alexis Smith likes his work and they begin a hot and heavy affair. Then she abruptly walks out and Clark is all at sea. He goes east to find her and he does and finds she's married to a wheelchair bound Zachary Scott.
Scott was once a promising fighter and if he can't be champion he wants to manage one. When Clark knocks out a middleweight contender, Scott is willing to forget the affair with Smith if he'll fight for him. And Clark proves pretty adept in the ring.
Whiplash is the kind of film that would have been far better had the all pervasive Code not been in place. What we're beating around the bush not talking about is impotence. Scott is incapable and he's a nasty creature and Alexis just isn't getting any.
The ending is straight out of one of those Thirties type boxing films and I won't elaborate. Let's just say what happened no way should have happened.
The players are fine and special mention should go to Eve Arden for simply being Eve Arden and Jeffrey Lynn for playing Smith's alcoholic doctor brother who steps up to the plate at the climax. But Whiplash would have been a better film with a more realistic script and the Code not dictating a lot of pussyfooting around some frank issues. -
ksf-226 August 2021Boxing film. But it takes a long time to get there. At the beginning, Mike (Dane Clark) tell the kids how he used to a fighter, and then we're in flashback. We see how he was an artist when he met Laurie (Alexis Smith). He gets in a brawl, and is talked into earning big money as a boxer. Fun co-stars... SZ Sakall Cuddles was in every single b&w film in the 1940s, along with Alan Hale Senior. Hale was Dad of The Skipper, on Gilligan's Island. Eve Arden and Zack Scott were both so awesome in Mildred Pierce. A couple of fun numbers done at the Pelican Club; a ballad "sung" by Laurie, and a fun bit by "a vocal group", according to imdb; it's a shame they aren't credited in the cast list or the Soundtrack page, as of today. It looks like they changed the lyrics from A Girl to The Guy when it's sung by a female group. The story is good enough, but it never really takes off. The first five minutes the film really jumps around, so i hope you don't get seasick. Directed by Lewis Seiler. Started in silents, making shorts. This one is okay. Not a lot of chemistry, but the story is sound.
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jjnxn-110 January 2014Good, tough noir with an excellent cast. Watching the film it becomes obvious that it was planned for Joan Crawford so closely does Alexis Smith's character follow the Crawford 40's blueprint. Dane Clark's tortured painter turned boxer was surely likewise designed with John Garfield in mind as it adheres to his screen persona as well. For whatever reason those A-listers either passed or were unavailable and the film moved over to the B unit and this cast. As good as the leads are they were considered up and comers at the time and definitely represented the second string at Warners.
Back to the film it is sharply shot with effective use of the shadowy black and white photography. Zachary Scott adds another hissable villain to his vast array, Eve Arden pops up from time to time, once in an outfit that looks like she took the cloth off her kitchen table and fashioned it into an ensemble, to add her special brand of spice to the proceedings and many of Warners stock company, Alan Hale, S.Z. Sakall etc. fill out the cast. While the direction is adequate someone who was more of a stylist, for example Michael Curtiz, could have sharpened some slack edges and made the film really cook. Still as is its certainly worth investing the ninety minutes that it runs. -
johnaquino26 April 2018I agree with others that the story is not terribly new and that it's a variation on GOLDEN BOY through HUMORESQUE through BODY AND SOUL. The cast has also done these types of roles before--Alan Hale as the trainer, Alexis Smith as the outspoken, tough-minded, idealized object of the hero's affections, Eve Arden as a wise cracking friend/secretary/whatever, and Zachary Scott as the villain. But, given these, I have always liked the inventiveness of the writers--the undercurrent of impotence and SPOILER how Zachary Scott's wheelchair leads to his demise. and how even he performs a random act of kindness to a punch-drunk ex-fighter that he could just as easily have humiliated.
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gmcslattery3 October 2023I couldn't get past the preposterous meet-cute opening premise: that unsuccessful artist Dane Clark was so morally outraged by the purchase of one of his paintings (his first sale!) by Alexis Smith, that he goes to her place to refund her money. I mean, what struggling painter does that? Much less enter her home unbidden to snoop around. Van Gogh lopping off an ear makes more sense.
Still, nice to see Zachary Scott doing what he does best, playing a dapper heel, albeit a slightly psychotic one with no wheelchair brakes.
Plus S. Z. Sakall, comfortably Casablanca cast as a restaurant owner. It gives you a sense of what Rick's Place must have been like after Bogie split for Brazzaville and left Carl the Waiter in charge. -
***SPOILERS*** Dean Clark as armature painter and professional boxer Michael Gordon aka Mike Angelo does a pretty good imitation of the actor that he very obviously styled himself after, and was in a number of films together with, the great John Garfield in the 1948 film noir boxing movie "Whiplash". The movie "Whiplash" is very much like Garfield's "Body & Soul" that was released just a year earlier in 1947.
Mike gets himself involved with Laurie Durant, Alexis Smith, after she buys one of his paintings that his friend bar owner Sam, S.Z Skall, sold her for $75.00 without his permission. Mike in fact felt that Lourie was suckered into buying his painting but soon discovered from Laurie that he in fact had talent as a painter, which he felt he didn't, which in turn had him fall heads over heels in love with her. It was later when Laurie disappeared from sight that Mike tracked her down all the way from California to New York City and found out that she's a nightclub singer and married to big time mobster and former middleweight boxing contender Rex Durant, Zachary Scott.
Durant had lost the use of his legs in a car smash up now wants Mike who proved to him in what a hard puncher he is, by Mike knocking out the fighter he manages Duke Carney played by ex-professional boxer Freddie Steel, to win the middleweight boxing title that his accident preventing Durant from winning in the ring. At first reluctant to enter the ring Mike dubbed as Mike Angelo "The Battling Artist" by the local sports writers works his way to the top by knocking out a string of worthy opponents to get a title shot at middleweight crown held by the present middleweight champion Duke Carney! The very person who Mike knocked cold at the start of the movie! During all this Mike finds out that not only is Laurie married to mobster Rex Durant but that Durant had something over her in the circumstances that lead to him losing his legs. It was Laurie's doctor brother Arnold Vincent, Jeffery Lynn, who at Laurie's insistence operated on Rex and ended up blotching the operation!
***SPOILERS*** Exciting and power packed fight sequence, at the start and end of the movie, with Mike who was suffering from a serious brain concussion slugging it out with Carney in the ring with a drunk and barley conscious Dr. Arnold Vincent trying to prevent or stop the fight before Mike, with a solid punch to the head by Carney, ends up dead from a brain hemorrhage!
It's at the very end of the film that both Rex Durant and his #1 henchman the brutal Mr. Costello, Douglas Kennedy, get exactly what's coming to them not from Mike but from Dr.Arnold Vincent whom they left for dead when he tried to save Mike's life. In what has to be the most shocking scene in the movie Rex Durant ends up together with his wheelchair smashed to pieces when he loses control of it after the person pushing it, Mr. Costello, gets shot from behind by a dying Arnold Vincent! That wheelchair scene was far better then the one that's always talked about from the film "Kiss of Death" that made actor Richard Whitmark literally a star overnight! -
fiendz6661 April 2002Although the main character planed by Dane Clark is the odd combination of artist/boxer, the movie is fairly involving and exciting. As he gets swept up by bad girl Alexis Smith -- and with bad guy Zachary Scott (one of the best in the business)luring him to destruction -- his story has some unpredictable ups and downs. A great cast in a fast-paced tale.
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SnoopyStyle25 August 2021Michael Gordon (Dane Clark) is taken with Laurie Rogers (Alexis Smith) who had purchased his first painting. They have a fling. She leaves abruptly and he follows her to New York City. She's actually a nightclub singer married to the owner Rex Durant (Zachary Scott). Michael is actually former boxer Mike Angelo and knocks out a contender. Rex is also a wheelchair bound former boxer. He offers to promote Rex's reluctant return to the ring. There is more actually but those would be spoilers.
This starts with a bit of confusion. He's a painter. He's the scrawny artist type and suddenly he's a tough muscled boxer. I didn't connect him with the opening boxing sequence and the switch threw me for a loop. It doesn't help that he has two names. I do like Michael and Laurie's initial meeting but the story gets more and more convoluted. The story does lose me with a twist or two. It ends with a gunfight out of nowhere and that's a bit abrupt. All in all, I like the beginning but the movie loses me somewhat. -
blott2319-14 August 2022I never would have called myself a big fan of boxing or movies about boxing, but I've seen my fair share at this point. Whiplash is a movie that has boxing as a key plot element, but it's debatable how much this movie is focused on the sport. It's more like a mix of noir and romance in my mind. The problem is, I don't know how invested I was in the romance between the 2 leads. I certainly didn't want her getting together with the other guy, but I didn't feel many sparks between Dane Clark and Alexis Smith. One of my struggles with this film, and most plots of this type, is the fact that they rely on one of the romantic leads simply refusing to communicate properly. So many issues crop up because they don't talk about their history, or what might happen to the other person if they get involved. Nearly every story of love needs some type of conflict to make it interesting, but this method of creating a rift between two people just feels played out and a bit lazy. But even without that part of the plot there simply wasn't much that I found to latch onto in this film that was enjoyable or original. I'm about a week or two removed from when I watched Whiplash and I'm already starting to forget it. This is a film that won't stick with me, even though it's not a bad at all.
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Mike (Dane Clark) is a nice guy who loves to paint. One day, he meets Laurie and they fall in love. However, Laurie is an odd one...hot one minute, cold the next. And, soon, without warning, she simply disappears. Not surprisingly, Mike is a mess and spends a lot of time looking for her. His search leads him back east and he eventually learns that she's the wife of a hood. Rex (Zachary Scott) is a rich, menacing sort of guy who seems, at times, like a cat playing with mice. So, when he offers to train Mike and make him a champion boxer, you know that somehow it's all part of Rex's machinations...and you wonder WHAT he has in mind for his wife and Mike.
This film has some wonderful and snappy noir-style dialog. So much of what Rex says seems to be oozing with menace and the writers did a nice job of this one. It also helped that although this was more of a 'second-stringer' sort of movie with the lesser stars at Warner, they all are simply terrific. My only complaint, and it's a problem in most boxing films, is that the matches are unrealistic...with WAY too many punches being thrown and landed throughout the fights. Still, a hard-hitting film with lots to recommned it.
By the way, I was originally going to give this one an 8. However, the ending turned out to be so cool and satisfying, it earned an extra point. WOW...what a finale! -
classicsoncall2 October 2023I liked this a lot better than the host who introduced the film on Turner Classics. I didn't catch his name but that doesn't make much difference. He stated that the plot had so much packed into it, it could give you whiplash, but I didn't find that to be the case. It was a fairly straightforward story, though I agree with his observation that the boxing scenes left much to be desired, with some wild swinging punches on the part of Dane Clark, portraying boxer turned painter and then boxer once more, Mike Gordon. The boxing scenes actually take some time in coming, so you'll need to be patient if that's the reason you tuned in. It's more of a jilted romance story when Laurie Rogers (Alexis Smith), entranced by Gordon, abruptly disappears with no word of warning. Almost forgetting all about her, Gordon catches sight of Laurie singing at a New York night club, only to learn that she's married, and has been, to a gangster type confined to a wheelchair. Zachary Scott is suitably menacing as Laurie's husband Rex Durant, a former boxer whose legs couldn't be healed following an auto accident by Laurie's brother, Dr. Arnold Vincent. Realizing that his wife had a one time affair with Gordon, his revenge comes in the form of offering to train Mike for an eventual championship match, knowing that Mike would not fare well, and would likely get hurt against a seasoned professional.
The outcome most viewers wait for eventually happens, as Mike rises to the occasion to knock out the middleweight champ to free Laurie from her disastrous marriage, insured by the fact that Durant got hit by a car when his wheelchair went out of control. Come to think of it now as I write that, the Turner Classics guy might have had something with that almost comical scenario. However, here are a couple things that I found confusing. Why did Laurie Rogers, married to Rex Durant, not share the same last name as her brother, Arnold Vincent before marriage? And why, since his first name was Arnold, did Laurie call him Vincent or Vince at least a half dozen times throughout the story? I almost hate to say it, but maybe the TCM host had a point! -
utgard1413 January 2014Boring boxing melodrama. I don't want to call it a film noir because it doesn't have any film noir style, in my opinion. Dane Clark plays a moody painter who falls in love with a woman (Alexis Smith) who buys one of his paintings. She skips out on him so he follows her to New York, where he discovers she is married to evil cripple Zachary Scott. Then things get weird as Clark decides to become a boxer for Scott. His motivation for this was cloudy, to say the least. He decides to box under the name Mike Angelo (get it -- Michaelangelo -- because he's a painter, you see). From here, a movie with wobbly knees is knocked down for the count. The cast is unimpressive but not terrible. Clark is pretty unlikable in a role tailor-made for John Garfield. Smith is forgettable. Eve Arden is great when she's around, which isn't much. Pretty standard stuff. No surprises.
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dougdoepke25 January 2014Too bad this promising noir with a solid cast and a Warner Bros. Pedigree doesn't turn out better. Certainly Dane Clark gives his central role as a painter turned boxer (!) his sweaty best. At the same time, the statuesque Alexis Smith looks like a Greek goddess even if her emoting is on the wispy side, while Eve Arden contributes her usual witty asides. The problem, as I see it, is with a muddled script and lackluster direction (Seiler). There are echoes in this storyline of Humoresque's (1946) tough guy Garfield turned concert violinist. But that film had a coherent screenplay, whereas this one has something to do with love- struck painter Clark getting involved with gangsters (Scott) who turn him into an expert boxer, with a wild card doctor (Lynn) thrown in. Okay, I'm not the brightest bulb on the block, but I had real trouble making sense of all this and I don't think it was my fault. The various threads are hard to untangle.
Then too, the narrative fails to make much use of the colorful Zachary Scott, who can make any scene compelling when given the chance. Here, I would say he walks through his role, but given his wheelchair, that's not quite appropriate. In fact, the best scene may be the car striking the wheelchair, which may be the most sudden and realistic collision I've seen. Otherwise, director Seiler unfortunately adds nothing, neither mood nor style. Anyway, the total adds up to a disappointment given the promising cast amidst noir's golden studio era. -
jordondave-280852 October 2023(1948) Whiplash CRIME DRAMA
It has Michael Gordon (Dane Clark) being notified while hanging around with some kids at a beach in California that one of his paintings had just been sold by friend, Sam (S. Z. Sakall) owner of a beach diner. Michael believes it is not a legit sale, as he assumes the customer bought it, may have been drunk or hung over, and does not know what s/he was buying. Because he wants to refund the money the customer paid for it, he gets the address of that person who bought it, and it happens to be the character played by Alexis Smith she calls herself Laurie. As soon as she convinces him that she was neither drunk or on any type of substance, and that she thought it was worth the money she paid for, it was during then, Michael hits on her for a date, as she indicated to him she was not seeing anyone else. One day, while Laura was waiting around for Sam to make her some breakfast in his cafe, she ditches him as soon as she spots someone she have recognized. And we find out, when she left, that she left Michael 'high and dry' to have her things sent from California to New York City. By the time Michael makes the transition from California to NYC, his sponsor, Chris (Eve Arden) tries to cheer him up, and she invites him to join her and her date, Tex Sanders (Ransom Sherman) to club. And it was at this point, as a result of recognizing Laurie's singing voice, it turns out to be her, singing on front of an audience. After the chorus, Michael follows her to her dressing room, where we then see him knocking on her door, other people begin to take notice and step in. While Michael is able to push the first guy away, the second thug decides to jump in, and Michael succeeds to knock him out with his very first punch. Michael gets knocked out when the goon uses the bunt of his handgun. And by the time Michael comes too, he then wakes up to see a guy in a wheel chair, who introduces himself as Rex Durant (Zachary Scott) and that the lady, Michael wants to talk to very badly also happens to be his wife, Laurie Durant. And it was at this point as the movie is progressing, we get to learn about it's circumstances how it came about how Laurie became Rex's wife. Another revelation we find out that the goon Michael knocked out, also happens to be another upcoming boxer Rex sponsors. Rex then offers to sponsor Michael, as he used to compete in amateur boxing before he decided to became a painter. More revelations are exposed in terms of the circumstances regarding the relationship between Rex and Laurie, that includes Laura's brother, Dr. Arnold Vincent (Vincent Lynn)
The story sometimes appear that it was written as it was going along, and after my second viewing it was reminiscent to glimpses from Casablanca because the centered protagonist does not know a whole lot about the girl he was coming into contact with, the same way when the Bogart character did not know so much about the Ingrid Bergman character. And the movie "Body and Soul" a movie made one year earlier also about boxing starring John Garfield and Hazel Brooks as the love interest. -
masonfisk22 March 2024A sturdy film noir w/edges of camp from 1948. Dane Clark plays a boxer who after nearly losing a bout (he's saved by the bell) runs into a mysterious woman, Alexis Smith, where they soon have a whirlwind romance but one day she ups & disappears, but remembering a painting she bought was addressed to a doctor in New York, off he goes to find her in the Big Apple. Once there, he surprisingly finds her singing at a club where he gets belted when he tries to see her backstage. We then meet Zachary Scott, the club's owner & more importantly Smith's hubby & the dynamic of their relationship comes into focus as the doctor who received the painting, Jeffrey Lynn, is Smith's brother. Their marriage happened because Scott, who is wheelchair bound, blamed Lynn for a botched surgery to regain the use of his legs & browbeated Smith to marry him w/Lynn now a functional, pathetic drunk. Clark has impressed Scott w/his boxing prowess (especially after he floored one of his button men), & decides to be Clark's promoter/manager & w/Clark hellbent on taking out his anger in a series of bouts since at this point, Smith is lost to him. Pitched at a fever dream intensity w/Scott (ala Dr. Strangelove) controlling his world from a seated position makes for a goofy tale where he puts all in his wake through the proverbial wringer but once you get over the hilarious Scott comeuppance (he gets wheeled into oncoming traffic by Lynn), you almost feel bad for enjoying this lunacy in the first place. Also starring Alan Hale as Clark's cornerman, Eve Arden as a friend of Clark's & S. Z. Sakall as a café owner.
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davidcarniglia27 April 2018This haunting film has a great noir premise, and relentlessly builds suspense until it literally comes crashing down in the street. Dane Clark and Alexis Smith, even though they quickly fall in love, spend most of the movie angry with each other and with the world. Zachary Scott's gangster character has the his goony hooks into his wife, Smith, as well as her brother, and Clark, her lover.
The three of them ultimately bring Scott down; with the brother sacrificed, and Clark nearly killed in the boxing ring. Despite the gritty tone, rough dialogue, and enough violence for a few films, there's an innocent, civilized world, hinted at with the supporting characters' scenes, that never quite goes away; and that finally replaces the noir atmosphere at the very end.
Scott, though clearly an evil presence, had his humanity blunted by the aftermath of his car accident, which Smith's brother may or may not been responsible for. The only thing keeping them bound to each other is Scott's emotional blackmail. His death, though obviously the result of his own murderous intent, is pathetically accidental.
Of the main characters, there is just enough goodness to rescue Clark and Smith, but no one else. A very well-written script, smoothly acted all the way around. 9/10 -
Although Dane Clark is a decent actor this film was a time waster, nothing more, nothing less. Dane Clark plays a former boxer named Michael Gordon - aka Mike Angelo, who achieved some level of success in the boxing ring before quitting to fulfill his dream of becoming an artist instead. Mike Gordon is a painter of ocean view scenes with beautiful women depicted as mermaids. He unexpectedly sells one of his paintings to a mysterious women who he chases down to find out what drew her to his less than perfect painting and the mysterious woman named Laurie Durant (Alexis Smith) tells Mike she is a lounge singer and she felt the painting was one of a kind. After a brief romantic liaison Laurie disappears from her hotel room without telling Mike why she abruptly left without leaving him a phone number or forwarding address.
Broken hearted Mike attends a lounge one night and out of the blue the songbird on the stage turns out to be his mystery portrait buyer and lover Laurie Durant. Mike finds out the reason why Laurie left him so abruptly (which I won't spoil for you) and to win her back he agrees to go back into the ring.
Actor Dane Clark was only 36 years old when he made this film, but for him to be playing a tough ring fighter his body actually appeared to look more like he was closer to age 50. Between Dane Clark's lack of pugilistic talents and Alexis Smith's less than stellar singing voice I felt this film hit the canvas (the boxing ring canvas and not the painter's canvas) with a resounding "thump!"
This is one of those films that attempted to imitate some of the much more classier pugilistic three way romantic love triangle films of the day but just could not go even one (1) round let alone 10 or 15 rounds. I give the film two thumbs down and a rating of 4 out of 10. -
clanciai24 July 2018The most interesting character here is Zachary Scott as Rex Durant, an ex-boxer in a wheel-chair whose passion for boxing only seems to have grown the worse for his invalidity. Alexis Smith, beautiful, stylish and impressing as ever, is here a mysterious lady with a secret who gets involved with Dane Clark only to suddenly desert him. She has a brother, Jeffreý Lynn, who is a drunkard and a doctor and practising. Like in all noirs, there is a fashionable night club, where Alexis Smith sings and where things happen involving hoodlums.
The painter Michael Angelo was a part actually written for John Garfield, but he left before the film could be shot. Dane Clark is not bad, but he is a bit short for Alexis Smith, who is a bit tall. The story is good, and all the questinoable pieces fall into place towards the end, when the dyspeptic doctor at last decides to do something about a very troublesome situation involving them all. We never learn what happened to the hoodlums.
In spite of the lack of John Garfield, it's an excellent movie, I found nothing wrong with it, but the eyes of Zachary Scott is what will stick in your mind. -
Turfseer2 October 2021Dane Clark, who was often thought of as a bit of a lesser John Garfield is cast here as Michael Gordon, an easy going painter from California who one day seeks out one Laurie Rogers (Alexi Smith) who has just bought a painting of his at Sam's Café, a local watering hole which Gordon often frequents. It's quite clear that Laurie is hiding something and is quite reluctant to get involved with the happy-go-lucky painter but they then after a very brief tryst with Gordon immediately falling head over heels for the mysterious woman he's just met.
Laurie promptly disappears with Gordon finding one clue to her whereabouts-that she mailed Gordon's painting to a doctor living back in New York City. So what does Gordon do? Of course traipses all the way cross country to the Big Apple where he's unable to make contact with the mysterious doctor nor find any sign of Laurie.
When Gordon finally discovers Laurie who is a singer at a nightclub, he's devastated to learn she's already married to a paralyzed former boxer Rex Durant (Zachary Scott). Durant appears to be a fearful mobster despite his obvious handicap.
Now here is where the film makes little sense. Gordon is so angry with Laurie that he accepts Laurie's husband's offer to become a pugilist in Durant's boxing stable. Gordon, the moral character that he is, knows that Durant is completely unsavory but just to punish Laurie (and I guess it's a punishment because it's obvious that Laurie hates her husband and wants nothing to do with him), he trains to the point where he ends up as a contender for the middleweight crown (and beholden to Durant all the while).
Gordon makes no inquiries until much later in the narrative in which he finally discovers that Laurie is trapped in the marriage due to circumstances surrounding Durant's accident. Durant became paralyzed while driving a car with Laurie. Afterward, Laurie's brother Dr. Arnold Vincent (Jeffrey Lyon), the man Laurie mailed Gordon's painting to, operated on Durant but was unable to save him from being paralyzed. Durant blamed the doctor for his ensuing handicap and threatened to sue Vincent unless Laurie stayed with him.
Funny how Gordon takes so long to find all this out and in the middle of his middleweight crown bout almost loses to his opponent because he now feels guilty over how he treated Laurie. Nonetheless, due to a previous wager with Durant in which he bet that if he won the bout, Laurie would be free to divorce the former scoundrel of a pugilist.
The climax is a bit of a twist in which Laurie's brother plays the role of sacrificial lamb. He's shot and killed by Durant's thug but manages to return fire, kill the thug and push Durant down a ramp in which he and his wheelchair promptly plow into a passing car.
Naturally there's a fairy tale ending in which the gruff Gordon takes up painting again back in California (I never believed for a minute that tough guy Dane could be a painter)-and it's Laurie who shows back up falling into his arms.
Whiplash features the unusual character of a man in a wheelchair as the primary villain so in that respect it grabs our interest. Scott isn't bad as the dastardly Durant and the principals-Dane (when he's playing a boxer) and the troubled Smith (under the thumb of an embittered husband) manage to provide enough variety in their respective roles to also hold our interest (but I certainly didn't buy how Gordon falls so easily in and out of love with Laurie).
Whiplash is worth at last one viewing despite the protagonist's unconvincing machinations after he learns his love interest is married. -
Florid boxing melodrama from director Lewis Seiler concerns a muscular, moody portrait artist in love with a reluctant band singer from New York City; she's married to a wheelchair-bound boxing manager, and it seems the only way the painter can win her over is by climbing into the ring himself (under the auspices of his new name, "Mike Angelo"!). Outrageous script was worked on by four writers (Harriet Frank Jr. and Maurice Geraghty adapted Kenneth Earl's story, which was then reworked by Gordon Kahn). Some of the lines are real howlers, though socialite Eve Arden's cynical asides are right on the money. Good for a few laughs, though several of the supporting players are uneasily cast, none more so than Zachary Scott as the invalid villain (he does everything but twist up his mustache at the corners). Dane Clark fumes and snarls in the lead, spitting out his lines like a rabid dog; one can't imagine him making a living as a boxer--he'd be more persuasive taking bets in a pool-hall. ** from ****
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One of the very few times in the seven seasons of "Noir Alley" where Eddie's intro and outro are as forgettable as the movie he's offering. Fortunately, I have confidence both in Eddie's good taste in this magnificent genre as well as his hosting skills to expect that this unholy convergence will not occur with regularity.
So let us quickly dispense with this 1948 piece of odoriferousness from Warners, with its rigor mortis pacing, trite dialogue, non chemistry and thermodynamics from the poor man's Richard Conte and the poor gal's Eleanor Parker, and non evocative cinematography, and look forward to November's offerings. C minus.
PS...First time I can recall where ALL of Eve Arden's repartee falls flat. -
jarrodmcdonald-125 March 2024I read somewhere that after the success of HUMORESQUE, Warner Brothers bosses were keen on the idea of putting Joan Crawford and John Garfield into a follow-up. They would have used a similar dramatic blueprint with Crawford once again playing a hardened dame who is slowly brought around by love, while Garfield played another artistic minded soul under her spell. WHIPLASH has just such a plot.
Guessing this was a script Crawford passed on, because she was off at Fox on a loan out making DAISY KENYON. We can assume that Alexis Smith, one of the studio's "backup" actresses, was then assigned to take over. Smith does a decent enough job conveying the icy aspects of the character, something she perfected in a previous role she had in THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS (made in 1945 but not released until 1947 when WHIPLASH was in production).
As for the male protagonist, Dane Clark often filled in when Garfield wasn't available. Clark portrays an artist (which he had already done in A STOLEN LIFE), who finds himself involved in the world of boxing (which Garfield did in BODY AND SOUL). In real life Clark had been a semi-pro boxer during his salad days as an actor on the east coast. As a result, I think his performance in the workout scenes and ring scenes is probably a bit more realistic than other stars pretending to play pugs on the big screen.
The storyline involves Clark working at a seaside tavern on the west coast owned by S. Z. Sakall (who was always cast as restauranteurs in WB flicks). Clark has a chance meeting with a vacationing Smith who buys one of his paintings. They get to know each other and a romance quickly ensues. But she is running from a hoodlum husband back east, and when one of her hubby's goons shows up, she must go back. She just vanishes one day, with Clark not knowing of her troubled marital status until Sakall gives Clark a loan to follow Smith back to New York.
The New York scenes bustle with more energy. We see Clark still working as a struggling painter, behind on the rent, befriended by humorous neighbor Eve Arden and her stereotypical beau from Texas. Arden and the Texan take Clark to a swank nightclub, since that is what any normal person who's behind on the rent should do. While eating dinner Clark glimpses Smith during a floor show. He has finally caught up with the gal who stole his heart.
The club is owned by Smith's husband (Zachary Scott in a menacing performance). There's a skirmish between Clark and some thugs, which impresses Scott who decides he's going to make Clark a boxer. Clark is more interested in art, but this is a chance to stay close to Smith so he agrees. From here a few more characters are added, such as Alan Hale Sr. In a good bit as a trainer; and Jeffrey Lynn, who is especially good as Smith's brother- a doctor who is psychologically tormented.
The main reason for Lynn's torment is because he unsuccessfully operated on Scott's legs several years earlier. Yes, Scott is paralyzed, running his underworld environment from a wheelchair; his crippling is what keeps Smith beholden to her since she was in the car fighting with him the day he had his terrible accident. We see Smith and Lynn suffer a lot in this story, both under Scott's thumb anxious to break free from their bondage.
I won't spoil the ending. But there is a Faustian bargain of sorts that occurs between Scott and Clark, with Clark trying to obtain Smith's freedom. This, of course, is complicated by Lynn's own plans to off Scott. Despite the contrivances, the screenwriters manage to provide a satisfying conclusion to all the angst that has gone before. Yes, Smith and Clark are no Crawford and Garfield, but they render strong enough performances to make this watchable.