Trailer
Plot summary
Joe Bonaparte is a promising young violinist, and his father has spent $1,500 on a Rugieri violin for his twenty-first birthday. Joe has other plans: he wants to be a prizefighter. He goes to Tom Moody, a fight manager close to bankruptcy, with news that Moody's boxer has just broken his hand in a sparring session with Joe, and asks for the man's place in the coming fight. Lorna Moon, Moody's longtime girlfriend, argues that Moody should take the chance. Papa wants his son to keep developing his musical talent. Joe holds back in the ring to protect his hands, and Lorna is sent to persuade him to keep fighting. He tells her that a prizefight insults a man's soul. Gangster Eddie Fuseli wants to buy a share in Joe.
Cast
- Gordon Armitageas Fighter
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Golden Boy (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Columbia bought the rights to Clifford Odets' play in 1938 for $100,000, intending a film starring Jean Arthur and directed by Frank Capra. John Garfield, Elia Kazan, Richard Carlson and Tyrone Power were considered for Joe Bonaparte, but Rouben Mamoulian wanted William Holden after his screen test, and Columbia paid Holden $25 a week.
- Accepting an Honorary Oscar in 1982, Barbara Stanwyck used her speech to remember William Holden, who had died a few months earlier after a fall at home: she said he always wished she would get an Oscar, and told him "tonight, my golden boy, you got your wish".
SPOILER
Playwright Clifford Odets was reportedly displeased at the film's many changes to his play, partly because of the Motion Picture Production Code and partly the rewritten ending: the play ended with Joe and Lorna fleeing and dying in a car crash, while the film closes with them returning to Joe's home together.
