The Big Punch

Wayne Morris is a former boxer turned minister. When he shows up at a local boxing match, his words impress pugilist Gordon Macrae. Macrae comes to Morris and asks for help starting a new life, which is given gladly. Macrae goes to work at the local bank, where Lois Maxwell, Morris' frustrated love interest, works. Macrae has a secret: he's hiding from a frame job as a murderer in New York. Nonetheless, things seem to be going well until Macrae's old manager and girlfriend show up and tell him that unless he helps them steal from the bank where he is working, they'll tell the cops where he is.

It's a very low-key movie, with hints of humor hiding in Morris' performance. I did not find it particularly compelling. Still, as I have noted in other reviews, I have no faith in any higher power, and so the vaguely religious and secular issues that a small-town pastor deals with are not of any great interest to me.

This film has lots of Warner B film and post war themes in it. There is a successful college athlete (Wayne Morris) who will be an ordained minister after graduation, an almost unrecognizable Gordon McRae in his first film role as a mediocre fighter who looks for God and finds Tolstoy, and Lois Maxwell as a former WWII army nurse who saw so much death and injury that she has lost her faith in God and her desire to be a nurse, even in peacetime.

Morris is a young single man, going on his first assignment as minister to a small Pennsylvania town. He has a hard time winning acceptance at first in spite of his likeable demeanor because he doesn't look or act like any minister that this town has had before, or at least recently. They don't like that he still is an athlete. It is amusing how he wins them over. Little does he know that quoting Tolstoy in front of McRae's character gets him thinking and causes him to not throw a fight after he had agreed to do so. And the people that lose money because of him are not exactly the boy scouts. He makes a run to the small town where Morris is now a minister, and without telling him all of his troubles, winds up boarding with him. Complicating matters is that he and Morris both are falling for the former army nurse with a crisis of faith.

It's interesting how this little film even manages to weave a gangster angle into this thing. Warner Brothers made a bunch of mediocre Bs in the 30s and 40s, but I'd say this seldom seen film is a hidden gem.

"The Big Punch" is a film which has a ration convoluted plot...one with many disparate story elements. The overall picture is okay...but could have been better.

When the story begins, you learn that the college sports hero, Chris Thorgenson (Wayne Morris), is graduating and will instead of going pro will become a minister. At the same time, Johnny Grant (Gordon MacRea), is a boxer who refuses to throw a fight...and so the gamblers who fixed the match kill a cop and make it look as if Johnny did it....and Johnny goes on the lam. Oddly, Johnny shows up in Chris' town and Chris takes him under his wing. Later, when Chris learns that Johnny is wanted for murder, he and a lady friend turn amateur detectives in order to solve the case.

The second half of film was pretty limp. Like many 1930s and 40s films, it features private folks solving crimes...a silly cliche. This is where the film loses momentum. The actors try their best...but the story just seemed strange and hard to believe.